Biography: Julie A. Nelson, Deputy Maritime Administrator

Deputy Maritime Administrator, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson - view full size photo

President George W. Bush appointed Julie A. Nelson as the Deputy Administrator of the Maritime Administration on October 6, 2006. Ms. Nelson took over the responsibilities of the Acting Deputy Maritime Administrator on May 1, upon the resignation of John Jamian and before the confirmation of Sean T. Connaughton as Maritime Administrator.

Ms. Nelson officially joined the agency as Chief Counsel in August 2005.

Ms. Nelson has extensive experience in the Maritime Industry and Admiralty Law, which gives her a solid understanding of the work done within the Maritime Administration.

Nelson joins the Maritime Administration from Oceaneering International, Inc., an ocean engineering development group, where she served as General Manager and Maritime/Contracts Attorney. From August 1998 to April 2003, she served as General Counsel and General Manager for Nauticos Corporation of Hanover, MD, also a high-technology ocean engineering firm.

In addition to her career, Nelson worked from July 1985 to August 1993 at the Pentagon in Washington, DC for the Department of the Navy as an Intelligence Research Analyst and Program Manager. She then moved on to the Office of the Public Defender as a law clerk at the Superior Court of Arizona, Mesa, AZ in the summer of 1995. The summer of 1996, she was a Litigation Associate for Anderson, McPharlin and Connors in Los Angeles and Riverside, CA. In the spring of 1998, she became a graduate law clerk with the Terriberry, Carroll and Yancey Law Firm in New Orleans, LA.

Nelson received her B.G.S. in 1994 from Indiana University, and did graduate study in European Union Law and Government at the Ecole National D’Administration in Paris, France. She received her J.D. in 1997 from Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington, IN, and received her LL.M. in Admiralty, with distinction in 1998 from Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans, LA. She was Maritime Law Fellow and Graduate Advisor to the Tulane Maritime Law Journal. She was on active and reserve duty with the U.S. Navy from 1981 to 1989.

She now resides with her husband in Columbia, MD.