Research on the history of the USNA Alumni Tampa Bay Chapter is a coordinated effort by chapter members willing to assist gathering and reporting on the formation, activities and events that have and will continue to shape our fine chapter.
Credit for the earliest beginnings of the chapter goes to Warren G. Hahn ’60, who in 1972 began the formation. It took a great deal of effort to communicate often with alumni headquarters in Annapolis and any alumni in the Tampa Bay area. Communicating in those times was necessary by phone, mailings, letters, and paper documents. This took a lot of time and effort by Warren and some of his earliest alumni helpers from multiple classes. Many thanks to Warren and others who did much of the work in their “spare time”.
Some of the early research began with accumulating chapter notes from past issues of Shipmate, which was done by Steve Swift ‘87. His editorial notes include the following:
- NO Tampa Bay Area Entries in 1976-1977 ISSUES (assuming none before that)
- There are some references to Tampa in the class sections and obituaries, but he did not pull out each of those, likely just some coming and goings of people to Tampa, and not as much about the chapters.
- Formats on the entries are not very clean since a copy and paste from a pdf. He did not spend time cleaning them up.
- He checked all issues from 1976-March 1979; after that point reverted to just the first two issues of the year (initially JAN-FEB, MAR issues – to capture the Army-Navy game and other beginning of the year items)
- Data call was completed in 2021, Shipmate magazines after are more readily available now.
Presidents for USNAAA – Tampa Bay Chapter
1972 – July 1987 — Warren Hahn ’60 (Informal start in 1972, resulting in formal recognition as a chapter in 1977. Also, starting August 1987, Warren was working for a year at NAVFAC in Charleston, commuting to Tampa every week or two on weekends. From August 88 to July 89, he was with 6th Engineering Squadron at MacDill, and started Hahn Engineering in August 89)
August 1987 – December 1989 — Mike Burnes ‘73 (no Shipmate entries in 1987 and the only one in 1988 (May – shown below) and only one in 1989 (April – shown below), and they don’t show or indicate any leadership for the chapter, and the entire Chapter News section is very light compared to just after)
| January 1990 – July 1995 | Mac Fossett ’58 (lives in Tampa Bay area) |
| July 1995 – April 1997 | Walter Havenstein ’71 (lives in NC now) |
| May 1997 – June 1997 | William (Buck) Collins ’71 (lives in Valrico still) |
| July 1997 – September 1998 | Jack Gantley ’69 (passed) |
| October 1998 – April 2000 | Michael Kennedy ’79 (lives in Maryland) |
| April 2000 – January 2001 | Kristi Watt ’92 (lives in Maryland) (first VP was Terry Silva ’73 |
| February 2001 – December 2014 | John Kamen ’77 (lives in South Tampa) |
| January 2015 – December 2017 | Don Aiken ’78 (lives in South Tampa) |
| January 2018 – December 2023 | Chris Heath ’72 (lives in East Tampa) |
| January 2023 – Present | Jane Lochner ‘84 (lives in Pinellas) |
The full document can be found at: https://myusna.com/topics/9578/news/866380