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Robert Murrett
Vice admiral looks out for 300 million fellow Americans in top intelligence post
Story by Clare O’Shea, MA ’87 & BA ’84
A hurricane wipes out large sections of New York City. Terrorists set up camp near the Khyber Pass.Troops in Iraq plot an airdrop in Kurdistan.
Those scenarios may be hypothetical, but for Vice Admiral Robert B. Murrett, they are similar to the real-life problems he might face routinely. Murrett is director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which provides images of the earth in support of national security. One of more than a dozen members of the U.S. intelligence community, the NGA is not the most familiar. But of course, says Murrett, “the fact that a lot of people don’t know about us is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Murrett close-up
UB degree BA ’75; Most influential professor Selig Adler (1904-1984) of History: “He had a way of connecting with students that was truly remarkable”; Where he met his wife in the UB dorms, where they were both RAs; “Casual” reading “history and government matters, usually on airplanes”
Part of the Department of Defense, the NGA collects and analyzes images and other information for both civilian and military leaders; some of it is classified, some not. The agency also provides images for humanitarian challenges—like the wildfires in California—along with top-secret information “based upon reconnaissance methods,” says Murrett, “on current and potential adversaries to the United States.”
Murrett’s path from Buffalo to Bethesda, MD, home of the NGA, has been long and illustrious. An American history student in the early 1970s, he remembers UB as an exciting place and the history department as “exceptionally strong. [It] did a great job of challenging students and fostering a deep understanding of the United States and its role in the world,” Murrett says. Courses in economics and history, in particular, helped lay the foundation for his career. “Certainly [with] the assignments I’ve had overseas, either afloat or ashore, having that kind of grasp of history has been very helpful,” he says, “because if you don’t know where you’ve been, you don’t know where you’re going.”
With public service as his goal, Murrett entered the U.S. Navy after graduation. Over the next 30 years, he earned two master’s degrees (at Georgetown and the Defense Intelligence College) and held diverse positions, including afloat intelligence officer, assistant naval attaché to the U.S. embassy in Oslo, Norway, and commander of the Atlantic Intelligence Command. He was serving as director of naval intelligence when President George W. Bush nominated him to lead the NGA in 2006.
Although he has relished all of his assignments, Murrett’s latest role must be especially satisfying. His job, essentially, is to look out for 300 million Americans.
“Our mission is to do the very best we can for the nation.”
UB in the News
USA Today interviews UB accounting professor on Eastman Kodak's bankruptcy filing
An article in USA Today on Eastman Kodak?s bankruptcy filing, which has caused huge cuts to pay, benefits and insurance coverage for retirees and employees, quotes Martha Salzman, assistant professor of accounting and law in the UBSchool of Management.
NPR interviews UB professor on Pres. Obama?s plan to reduce gun violence
Steven Dubovsky, chair of the Department of Psychiatry in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, was interviewed live on NPR?s ?Here & Now,? which airs on 170 NPR affiliates nationwide, about President Barack Obama?s $500 million plan to reduce gun violence.
Buffalo News front-page story features UB study on use of stem cells in MS
A front-page story in the Buffalo News reports on a new study soon to be underway at UB and two other upstate medical centers to test a procedure that infuses stem cells into the brains of patients with multiple sclerosis to repair damage to their central nervous systems. The article quotes Bianca Guttman-Weinstock, co-principal investigator on the study. ?Expectations have to be kept under control,? she said. ?You?re not going to implant stem cells in people and suddenly see them running around.?