Biography: BC-BLC
Paul Leuchner
Paul Leuchner (email) joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary in 1993 after completing an Advanced Coastal Navigation course offered by a local flotilla. He entered the operations program shortly thereafter receiving his boat crew qualification while training side by side with active duty Coast Guard crews at Station Niagara in Youngstown, NY. Paul is a qualified instructor, vessel examiner and aid verifier. He is also AUXOP qualified and has served as Flotilla Commander and Division Vice Captain. Paul has held a variety of staff positions at the Flotilla, Division and District levels and also served for several years as the Auxiliary Sector Coordinator for Coast Guard Sector Buffalo. In addition to his Auxiliary qualifications, Paul is also a Certified Boating Safety Instructor for the State of New York and currently serves on the Town of Grand Island Commission for Conservation of the Environment. Paul is also one of the original charter members of the Niagara River Greenway Commission and a former volunteer firefighter.
His career in the environmental sciences has spanned several decades. During the late 1960’s he was a research assistant at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution serving aboard the Research Vessel Atlantis II. He joined the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1973 and worked as a field biologist, wetlands ecologist and water resource project planner. Collateral duties included the formulation of workplace water safety policy and the management of emergency operations during natural disasters. Most of his career was spent as the Chief of the Water Resource Regulatory Branch at the US Army Engineer District, Buffalo, New York. He also served as an environmental policy advisor while assigned to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works in Washington and worked in the Office of the Chief of Engineers drafting portions of the national environmental compliance plan for the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Paul has been active in the paddlesports area for more than two decades. He is an accomplished kayaker and has considerable experience plying the waters of the Great Lakes, Pacific Northwest and the Florida coast. He is a passionate advocate for paddlesports safety and has organized many safety campaigns in the Western New York region. In 2005, while serving on the Niagara River Greenway Commission, he established the annual Paddles Up Niagara Paddlesports Festival and continues to serve as the event chairman.
Paul received an Associate in Applied Science degree in Marine Technology from Suffolk County Community College in 1967. After working for several years as a research technician he went on to obtain a BS degree in Natural Sciences at Dowling College in Oakdale, NY. While working for the Corps of Engineers he earned a MS degree from the State University College at Buffalo. Paul is married to Linda who is an adjunct professor at Daemen College Amherst, NY. They live on Grand Island in a home overlooking the Niagara River.