Electricians Mate Senior Chief Tim Fitzgerald has been praised by co-workers as someone who not only "talks the talk but walks the walk representing the goals and mission of the Coast Guard."
The fitness enthusiast, a 2017 Navy Times Coast Guardsman of the Year Honorable Mention, has served in the Coast Guard for over 19 years, most recently as an instructor at the Chief Petty Officer Academy and now the school chief for the Electrician's Mate A school at Training Center Yorktown, Virginia. In Yorktown he teaches more than 140 students a year to be electricians.
It’s the people of the Coast Guard who motivate Fitzgerald.
"We have a mission to do, and that mission is important, but if we don’t take care of the people, the mission will never get done, he said.
Fitzgerald has certifications and has led fitness training in Spin, TRX suspension and circuit training. He aims to help those in the Coast Guard find alternative ways to stay healthy, he said.
It’s easy to let a 15- to 20-year career get the better of personal health, he said.
"I’m a big guy; I’ve struggled with my own personal weight my entire life," he said. "I understand the effort and dedication that has to go in, and I try to coach others to get through that."
Cultivating healthy habits is a lesson he also tries to bring to the youth, especially on the lacrosse field. Fitzgerald was never a lacrosse player himself, but he learned the sport when his son showed interest.
He was an athletic director on the Petaluma, California, youth lacrosse board, and also ran a community "Friday Night Lights" program to help introduce kids to lacrosse with volunteer coaches, loaner gear and local vendors.
When Fitzgerald got stationed in Virginia and realized there was no local youth lacrosse team for his son to join, he took it in his own hands to start a boys’ lacrosse team. He also coaches his daughter’s softball team.
Fitzgerald has worked on missions in Bahrain, Alaska and in South America, and was awarded a humanitarian service medal for a deployment with the cutter Hamilton. The crew arrived in Haiti about a week after the 2010 earthquake to help repatriate Haitians and deliver blood supplies.
He was notably the first coastie to go through the Joint Special Forces Senior Enlisted Academy at U.S Special Forces Command.
In addition to Coast Guard endeavors, Fitzgerald is working on a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins, where he's studying government and national security. He hopes to use his degree and experience once he retires from the Coast Guard to continue to help national security.
"It’s always been my mission to be a public servant," he said. "I love serving my country and this seems like a next logical step."
