Who is Colin K Kennedy, MPA, MA
Colin K. Kennedy was born in August 1979 in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. He is the son of Robert and Marsha Kennedy, brother to Kendra. Colin attended St. Patrick Parish School in Elkhorn, WI and later attended High School and graduated from Catholic Central High School in Burlington, Wisconsin in 1998. A standout distance runner while at CCHS, Kennedy was an individual state champion in the Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association (WISAA) Division 2 Cross Country championships in 1997. He set the school record for the 5K cross country distance at 15:58 during that same Fall 1997 campaign. He also notched individual WISAA Division 2 state championships on the track by winning the 800 meter and 1600 meter runs in 1997, and the 3200 meter run in 1998. Combined with success in the classroom, his distance running achievements in high school helped Kennedy secure an appointment to the United States Naval Academy (USNA).
As part of a lifelong interest in weather, Kennedy studied oceanography and meteorology at USNA, graduating with honors in Physical Oceanograhy in 2002. Fascinated most by tropical meteorology, he co-wrote a paper presented at the 19th Conference on Weather Analysis and Forecasting in San Antonio, Texas titled “El Niño Southern Oscillation-based forecasting of seasonal tropical cyclone trends from historical analyses of genesis and Outgoing Longwave Radiation oscillations.” While at the Naval Academy, Kennedy continued his running career, competing at the NCAA Division I level for legendary coach and former Olympian Al Cantello. Kennedy selected Surface Warfare for his service assignment following his commissioning as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy after graduation.
After attending the Surface Warfare Officers Division Officer Course from 2002-03, Kennedy embarked on his first operational leadership assignment aboard USS RODNEY M. DAVIS (FFG 60), homeported in Everett, Washington. Assigned from 2003-05, he served as the ship’s First Lieutenant, responsible for the ship’s mooring, anchoring, and small boat operations. While deployed to the Western Pacific and Arabian Sea with the NIMITZ Carrier Strike Group, his teams oversaw more than 300 boardings of commercial vessels while enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolutions designed to deter oil smuggling from Iraq in the aftermath of the collapse of Sadaam Hussein’s government. Upon return from deployment, Kennedy was promoted by his Commanding Officer to serve as the ship’s Training Officer, given charge to coordinate with the local Afloat Training Group in Everett to ensure the ship progressed satisfactorily through its inter-deployment training cycle and certifications.
Kennedy’s next assignment was as the Combat Information Center Officer and Assistant Operations Officer aboard USS NASHVILLE (LPD 13) homeported in Norfolk, Virginia. Shortly after arriving in Norfolk, Colin married the love of his life, Amanda. Aboard the Nashville from 2005-06, he deployed twice to the Mediterranean and Black Seas with the IWO JIMA Expeditionary Strike Group, conducting theater security operations that included the non-combatant evacuations of U.S. citizens from Beirut, Lebanon, during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict. In one instance while serving as the Officer in Charge of a Utility Landing Craft making extraction runs between the ship and the Beirut beach, he unknowingly evacuated Chef Anthony Bourdain and his Travel Channel film crew of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” who had been in Beirut filming when the conflict broke out. He later learned of this while watching the show post-production while in the hospital with his wife after the birth of their daughter.
After departing USS NASHVILLE, Kennedy served as an Assistant Professor of Naval Science at the University of Oklahoma’s Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) unit from 2006-09. In addition to his teaching duties, and thinking long term post Navy, Kennedy began to study Public Administration. He completed his Master of Public Administration degree in 2010 when he submitted his capstone paper that analyzed the comparative negative revenue impacts to states that resulted from failed income tax receipts of active duty military personnel based on domiciles that were elsewhere.
After his time in Oklahoma, Kennedy continued his Surface Warfare career, first at the Surface Warfare Department Head School from 2009-10, and then with two Department Head Tours. First, Kennedy served as the Operations Officer on the USS SHOUP (DDG 86) homeported in Everett, Washington from 2010-11. During that assignment, he deployed to the Western Pacific and Arabian Sea primarily in support of counter-piracy and theater security operations with the ABRAHAM LINCOLN Carrier Strike Group. His leadership in combat information and cryptology supported four months of operations with multi-national partners and the International Maritime Bureau off the coast of Somalia that monitored and prevented what had become a sophisticated, ransom-driven criminal piracy enterprise capable of operating across a huge portion of the western Indian Ocean.
Kennedy’s second department head assignment was as the operations officer on USS CAPE ST. GEORGE (CG 71) homeported in San Diego, California from 2011-13. While there he again deployed to the Western Pacific and Arabian Sea with the ABRAHAM LINCOLN Carrier Strike Group, this time while serving as the maritime regional air defense commander executive agent for Commander, Task Force 50. As a result, Kennedy’s ship spent the bulk of its deployment inside the Persian Gulf, serving as the primary air defense conduit not only for the aircraft carrier USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN but all United States and coalition ships and shore installations in the region.
From 2013-14, Kennedy completed Phase I of his Joint Professional Military Education by sitting as a resident student at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, completing the Senior Leadership and Management Program and graduating in June, 2014. The primary focus of this year-long curriculum was doctrine, policy, campaign design and strategic and operational planning. Colin was honored to meet and shake hands with actor Gary Sinese, and witness the first awarding of the Lt. Col. Boyd McCanna “Mac” Harris Leadership Award at the college, which was created by Sinese. Sinese also runs The Gary Sinise Foundation which serves and honors American’s defenders, veterans, first responders and their families by providing targeted programs that entertain, educate, inspire and build communities.
From 2014-16 Kennedy served as the Director of Operational Training and Performance on the staff of Naval Surface Force Atlantic in Norfolk, Virginia. Primarily tasked with combat systems training and readiness, he spearheaded the development of new training requirements and procedures for 45 assigned surface warships. Using his experience and lessons learned from USS RODNEY M DAVIS, he also led the overhaul of the Surface Force Training Manual to optimize the inter-deployment training process and improve warship readiness in the event of short-notice tasking. He also collaborated with international partners, including teams from the United States and the United Kingdom, to leverage his experience from USS CAPE ST. GEORGE and develop improved joint strategies in ship-based air defense. Additionally, he served on a think tank that began exploring the role of Navy warships in the Arctic in response to climate change and the increasing navigability of the Arctic Ocean during the summer months, as well as a working group designed to implement personnel and mission policies for the Navy’s new Afloat Forward Staging Base ships.
In 2016, Kennedy was awarded his first Command assignment as the Commanding Officer of Navy Operational Support Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where from 2016-18 he oversaw 15 full-time employees who ensured readiness, staffing management, logistics, mobilization training, and administrative support for 130 assigned Navy Reservists. As a dual-jurisdiction post dependent on local public safety resources, he cultivated partnerships with civilian law enforcement and veterans groups to strengthen teamwork in the event of any threats to the facility, and he also coordinated with a regional Navy public works office to secure $1.8M in upgrades to the facility’s windows and fencing, hardening a potential target from would-be terrorist activity that had become a legitimate concern following the mass shooting at the Naval Operational Support Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2015.
From 2018-19, Kennedy completed Phase II of his Joint Professional Military Education by sitting as a resident student at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island and earning a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies. He continued academic development in applied leadership, strategic planning, and critical thinking skills through research and practical exercises. This included the publication of a paper in a compendium of research on Indonesia titled “Employing special autonomy as a deterrent to separatism in East and West Kalimantan.”
After graduation from USNWC, from 2019-22 Kennedy was assigned as the Director of Orders and Travel at Navy Reserve Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. He directed 17 military and civilian personnel in travel policy development and coordination for 160 direct-report units, and maintained indirect oversight of 360 supervisors worldwide who collectively supported readiness and logistics for over 50,000 Navy Reserve personnel. The focus of this assignment was the creation and fielding of policies that would support the Chief of Navy Reserve’s vision of a capacity to mobilize the entire force of 50,000 Navy Reserve personnel in 30 days or less should the President of the United States so direct. To do this, Kennedy engineered a pilot program to improve linkages between legacy order-writing systems and more modern travel processing systems. He also employed lessons learned from the urgent mobilization of hundreds of medical professionals to New York and Long Beach in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic response, and yet more lessons from similar mobilizations of intelligence personnel during the early days of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Kennedy’s final assignment while serving in the U.S. Navy was serving as Commanding Officer of Navy Reserve Center, Newport, Rhode Island from 2022-24. There he managed a $372K operational budget and a $3.36M annual training budget while administering personnel readiness, training, and administrative supervision for 20 full-time employees and over 500 assigned Navy reservists. He boosted funded organizational staffing from 56% to 89% by analyzing manpower data, optimizing staffing processes, and leveraging Navy manpower systems and professional relationships. Additionally, he overcame an inherited medical review backlog, taking it from 15 to 0 in just ten months. In addition to his command duties, Colin continued to contribute to policy development researching and initiating plans to establish a sub-regional mobilization processing center in Newport to improve mass mobilization readiness for 3,059 personnel. This was both to support the Chief of Navy Reserve’s “50,000 in 30 days” goal, while also designed to take some strain away from deployment centers in Virginia that would otherwise have to bear the entire burden of mass mobilization processing from the Navy’s most populous region stretching from North Carolina to Maine.
Colin retired from the U.S. Navy after 22 years of leadership and command experience in October 2024. Upon leaving the military he was honored to have received three Meritorious Service Medals, five Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medals, three Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medals, and several other personal, unit and campaign awards.
Colin was eager to continue in public service as he had envisioned in Oklahoma while pursuing his Master of Public Administration degree. Kennedy was humbled and honored to be selected as the City Manager of Newport, Rhode Island, where he served from 2024 until the present. There, he focused on advancing the Newport City Council’s myriad infrastructure and policy initiatives that were born from a pair of devastating back-to-back coastal storms in late 2023 and early 2024. He facilitated the public engagement surrounding the generational restoration of Easton’s Beach and the City’s famous Cliff Walk. He was also responsible to Council direction for enhanced public restroom facilities, harbor bulkhead repairs, traffic safety and landscaping initiatives with the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, economic redevelopment of the City’s North End and Rogers High School properties, acquisition and remediation of the former Navy Hospital shoreline brownfield, wastewater clarifier rehabilitation financing, the design approval for the City’s first public splashpad, and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of awarded and applied for grants to support all of the above. He also leveraged his Navy policymaking experience to assign, review, and approve updated purchasing, grant management, and travel policies.