Adm. Robert Papp steps down as top US Arctic diplomat

By Alaska Dispatch News - January 26, 2017
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Adm. Robert Papp, U.S. Special Representative for the Arctic, speaks to reporters at Alaska Dispatch News offices on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016. (Loren Holmes / Alaska Dispatch News)
Adm. Robert Papp, U.S. Special Representative for the Arctic, speaks to reporters at Alaska Dispatch News offices in August 2016. (Loren Holmes / Alaska Dispatch News file)

Retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Robert Papp has stepped down from his State Department post as U.S. Special Representative for the Arctic and joined a shipbuilding company as its Washington, D.C., lobbyist.

Papp, who had served as a Coast Guard officer for nearly 40 years, stepped down as the agency’s top official — commandant — in 2014.

In a statement issued earlier this month, Eastern Shipbuilding Group Inc. of Panama City, Florida, named Papp as its first permanent official in D.C. The company is a major contractor with the Coast Guard and is set to design and build nine new patrol cutters under a contract that could exceed $10 billion for 25 cutters.