Nathan Sonenshein

Who was Nathan Sonenshein?

Nathan Sonenshein was a rear admiral in the United States Navy. A native of Lodi, New Jersey, Sonenshein began his four-decade naval career by attending and receiving a commission from the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1970, he was head of the Navy's Bureau of Ships, just before it became the Naval Ship Systems Command.

After his retirement in 1974, Sonenshein lived in Fairfax, Virginia. He moved to Moraga, California less than a decade later and became assistant to the president of Global Marine Development, Inc., in Newport Beach, California. In 1982, he received the American Society of Naval Engineers' Harold E. Saunders Award, which honors "an individual whose reputation in naval engineering spans a long career of notable achievement and influence." In 1983, he was a member of the Marine Board of the Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems of the National Research Council. During his tenure, the board produced a report, "Criteria for the Depths of Dredged Navigational Channels".

On July 1, 1984, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to a two-year term as one of eight members of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. The Reagan Administration's choices for the panel membership drew criticism from environmentalists, who noted that it included no atmospheric scientists.