Vice Admiral Clyde E Robbins retired from active duty in the Coast Guard 43 years after entering the Coast Guard Academy, New London, CT in 1950. He served in numerous billets both in the United States and overseas.
After graduating from the Academy in 1954, he served on board the Cutter Half Moon out of Staten Island, NY. In 1956 he entered U.S. Navy Flight School and won his wings in 1957. From there he served four tours at aviation units in the U.S., Canada and Bermuda. After an administration tour at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, DC he became the Secretary of Transportation’s and the Coast Guard Commandant’s pilot for three years. A tour as the Captain of the Port in Galveston, Texas, supposedly, rounded out his operational career.
In 1976, Robbins entered the National War College at Ft McNair in Washington, DC and graduated with honors in 1977. There followed a number of administration tours culminating in his being selected for Vice Admiral, commanding some 10,000 Coast Guard and DOD personnel in the Pacific. It was during that assignment that he returned to an operating tour as the Federal On Scene Coordinator for the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup. He was also the Department’s Emergency Transportation Coordinator for the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.
His final tour before retiring was as the Director of Intelligence and Security for the Secretary of Transportation in Washington, DC, an office created as a direct result of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988. He served in that position from 1990 until July 1993.
Since retirement from active duty in 1993, Robbins has served on a number of Boards including the local school board in Troy, PA. A native of Columbia Cross Roads, PA, he is a widower, having been married to the former Elizabeth P. B. for 50 years. They had two children: Jennifer Robbins, a Social Worker in New Jersey. She has two girls; and James, a retired Coast Guard Commander, currently an American Airlines pilot, married to Nancy and they have four boys. Clyde lives on a farm/private airfield in Troy, PA.