Captain Lexia M. Littlejohn
Chief of Staff, First Coast Guard District
U.S. Coast Guard
CAPT Lexia Littlejohn currently serves as the Chief of Staff for the First Coast Guard District (D1), headquartered in Boston, MA. As Chief of Staff, she assists in overseeing Coast Guard missions across eight states in the Northeast including over 2,000 miles of coastline from the U.S.-Canadian border to northern New Jersey and 1300 miles offshore.
CAPT Littlejohn previously served as the Commandant’s Advisory Group Director for Admiral Linda Fagan, the nation’s first female military Service Chief. In this role, CAPT Littlejohn and her team supported the Commandant in articulating her vision for the Coast Guard through deliberate engagement and messaging.
Before this assignment, CAPT Littlejohn served as the Sector Commander for Sector Buffalo where she oversaw Coast Guard operations across three states and as Deputy Commander for Sector Key West, where she led a multi-agency team of more than 400 responders and 40 assets in conducting over 100 rescues and effecting salvage operations to reopen the Port of Key West following Hurricane Irma.
CAPT Littlejohn’s other assignments have included advising Senators on Coast Guard and maritime security issues as a Coast Guard Fellow for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, formulating the Coast Guard’s $1.4 billion counterdrug budget, and leading a team in the production of over 300 interviews, press releases, and news conferences, which earned her unit the Commander Jim Simpson Award (the Coast Guard’s highest award for public affairs). CAPT Littlejohn has responded to numerous marine oil spills and spoken at domestic and international pollution conferences on complex incident response.
In 2013, CAPT Littlejohn received the Coast Guard Innovation Award’s honorable mention for her crisis management database that improved unit operational readiness for major contingencies. Her other military awards include three Meritorious Service Medals and seven Coast Guard Commendation Medals. CAPT Littlejohn holds a B.S. in Marine and Environmental Sciences from the Coast Guard Academy and M.S. and Engineer degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. She is the second African American female in Coast Guard history to reach the rank of Captain and the first to command a Sector. CAPT Littlejohn is married to Conor Heelan of the Republic of Ireland, and they have three children, Kaia (12), Kasey (10), and Ciara (7).