Retired admiral who spent decades in public service pursuing a degree in social work at ASU
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Manitou moored in Miami in a 2007 photo. During her military career, retired Coast Guard Rear Adm. Cari Thomas served as captain of the Manitou. Today, Thomas is pursuing a Master of Social Work at ASU's Tucson location. Photo courtesy of M. Söderholm/shipspotting.com
Editor’s note: This story is part of coverage of ASU’s annual Salute to Service.
Cari Thomas wore the uniform of the U.S. Coast Guard for 36 years, protecting and saving lives, serving on ships and commanding them as a captain. Ultimately, she rose to the rank of rear admiral before retiring in 2016.
From 2018 to 2024, she was CEO of the nonprofit Coast Guard Mutual Assistance (CGMA), which supports financial and other needs of Coast Guard members and their families.
In September, the Coast Guard honored Thomas with an award for outstanding service to its members. She’s listed on the website that tells the Coast Guard’s illustrious history under “Notable People.”
Even though she has an impressive record of decades of public service, Thomas is not finished serving.
The holder of two master’s degrees — one in educational leadership, one in national security and strategic studies — today she’s at Arizona State University’s Tucson location, in her first year pursuing a third master’s degree, in social work.
Thomas said she observed social workers firsthand, both while on active duty and later when they helped her family. She recalls being struck by their efforts to help others.
“I worked with social workers a few times, both in the military and while I was in the nonprofit world. They were helping families when families needed special support,” Thomas said.
“When my mother passed away in 2023, social workers were instrumental in support and help to our family,” added Thomas, who had moved to Tucson to assist her mother, who suffered a stroke a few years before her death.
After her time at the nonprofit, she said she pondered what kind of work she wanted to do next.
‘Never enough dollars, time or people’
Social work reminded her of the challenges she encountered while working at CGMA, Thomas said, when there are “never enough dollars, time or people” to get the job done at many levels, from top leaders down to the people for whom services are rendered.
During her time as its CEO, CGMA provided more than $50 million in assistance to over 49,000 Coast Guard service members and their families during a period marked by unprecedented challenges. This included a federal government shutdown, a global pandemic and numerous natural disasters.
The lengthy government shutdown also severely affected CGMA’s income, since members donate to it through payroll deductions, Thomas said.
“So when they weren’t being paid, neither were we,” she said.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, when Thomas supervised a 10-person staff that worked entirely remotely for 1½ years. Housing shortages and a labor shortfall were complicated by the fact that Coast Guard members and their families move about every three years to take new assignments.
Thomas was born in Colorado, and her family first moved to Virginia before arriving in Maryland when she was 12 years old. There, she started learning about the ocean.
“I wanted to be Jacques Cousteau,” Thomas said, referring to the famous oceanographer and seafaring adventurer. “Of course, then I realized there’s only one Jacques Cousteau.”
Still, the sea called her. She was accepted into the Coast Guard Academy in 1980. She emphasized her education — starting with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and later, the two master’s degrees — and had a family. She said she had thought about leaving the Coast Guard, “but I never got out.”
Thomas served as a ship’s captain and had also run the Coast Guard Boot Camp. She represented the United States as head of a delegation that negotiated international agreements for search and rescue and oil spills in the Arctic. Her last assignment was in charge of the Coast Guard’s presence in the central and western Pacific Ocean.
Seeks to help military women, veterans, disaster survivors
“Social work was a perfect fit, helping others,” she said of the next step in her life’s journey. Her first-year classes are supplemented by an internship with a Tucson city council member.
“What excites me? I love to learn,” Thomas said. “I am a person who believes you should be in a state of continual improvement.”
She said she has no firm career plans after graduation and is exploring options that would involve helping female service members and veterans or survivors of disasters and trauma.
Thomas said she and her husband love living in Tucson, where not only her mother lived but her grandmother before her, and where she enjoys horseback riding.
For her post-service work leading CGMA, in September the Coast Guard presented Thomas with its 2024 Spirit of Hope Award. Its namesake, comedian Bob Hope, dedicated more than half a century to entertaining American troops stationed abroad, from World War II to the Persian Gulf War, before his 2003 death at age 100.
Her ability to adapt to evolving challenges and her unwavering commitment to the men and women of the Coast Guard reflect the enduring legacy of Bob Hope, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
In addition to the Spirit of Hope Award, Thomas’ personal awards include one Distinguished Service Medal, two Legions of Merit, the Department of State Superior Honor Award and various other personal, unit and campaign military awards. She is also the recipient of a Distinguished Public Service Award and a Meritorious Public Service Award.
The School of Social Work is part of the ASU Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions.
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