Rear Admiral Steve Branham
Commander
Seventh Coast Guard District
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Rear Admiral Steve Branham serves as the Commander Seventh Coast Guard District Headquartered in Miami, Florida. The District responsibilities include all Coast Guard operations in the Southeast region of the United States, the Caribbean Sea, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In his immediate prior assignment, he served as the Coast Guard Assistant Commandant for Resources and Chief Financial Officer. Rear Admiral Branham was promoted to flag rank in 2005 and received his second star in 2007.Rear Admiral Branham has served in a variety of afloat and administrative assignments on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as well as the Great Lakes. His most recent shore assignments were Chief of Operations and Chief of Staff, Coast Guard Atlantic Area, and Executive Director of the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator (USIC) Staff, directly assisting the Commandant in his role as USIC.
He has served six tours afloat, including 4 tours in command of Cutter CAPE HEDGE (WPB 95311), a 95-foot patrol boat homeported in Morro Bay, California; Cutter NEAH BAY (WTGB 105), a 140-foot icebreaking tug homeported in Cleveland, Ohio; Cutter HARRIET LANE (WMEC 903), a 270-foot cutter homeported in Portsmouth, Va.; and Cutter GALLATIN (WHEC 721), a 378-foot cutter homeported in Charleston, S.C.
Throughout his 12 years of sea duty, he has been involved in a number of high-profile drug, migrant, search and rescue, and fisheries enforcement cases, including the 1980 Mariel Boatlift of Cuban migrants and the 1991 Haitian mass migration. Rear Admiral Branham also commanded the task force that successfully prototyped the use of armed helicopters to stop suspected drug-laden go-fast vessels, an initiative that continues to produce record annual drug interdiction rates.
Rear Admiral Branham is a 1977 graduate of the United States Coast Guard Academy, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Engineering. He was awarded a master’s degree in Business Administration by Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1987 and a master’s degree in National Security Strategy by the National War College, Washington, DC in 1999.
Rear Admiral Branham's awards include the Legion of Merit (4), the Meritorious Service Medal (2), the Coast Guard Commendation Medal (3), the Coast Guard Achievement Medal, the Humanitarian Service Medal (3), the Coast Guard Sea Service Ribbon (4), and the Coast Guard Cutterman’s Insignia.