Captain Amanda M. Lee reported as Commanding Officer of Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, N.J., in June 2025. Training Center Cape May is the sole accession point of the service’s enlisted workforce.

Previously, she served as Special Assistant to the Commandant of the Coast Guard from 2024-2025. In that role, she advised the Commandant and other senior leaders on policy and strategy initiatives across operations and mission support activities and was responsible for preparing the Coast Guard for global contingency operations as a member of the Joint Force.

Prior to assignment to the Commandant’s staff, Captain Lee served in the Office of Congressional and Governmental Affairs, first as the Legislative Counsel and then as Deputy Office Chief, where she was responsible for advancing the Coast Guard’s strategic budget and legislative priorities.

Assignments have included the Deputy Chief in the Office of General Law; Senior Trial Counsel at the Legal Service Command; and Senior Appellate Counsel in the Office of Military Justice. She also was the Military Advisor to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Prior to her legal assignments, Captain Lee was as an instructor at the United States Coast Guard Academy and a deck watch officer on USCGC SPENCER (WMEC 905).

Captain Lee holds a Master of Laws (with distinction) from Georgetown University Law Center, awarded in 2019. She received a Juris Doctor from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 2011, where she graduated summa cum laude and was a member of the Connecticut Law Review. She has taught legal writing as an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School. Raised in New Hartford, Connecticut, Captain Lee graduated with honors from the United States Coast Guard Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Public Policy in 2003. She is a 2024 MIT Seminar XXI National Security fellow.

Individual military awards include the Legion of Merit and three Coast Guard Meritorious Service Medals. She was also the recipient of the William F. Star Fellowship Award for Scholarship, the Department of Homeland Security Office of the General Counsel Award for Excellence, and the American Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer award.

Captain Lee was designated an honorary Chief Petty Officer by the Commandant and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard in 2024.

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