Zeita Merchant: Following a Passion for Service on Sea and Land

Zeita Merchant is a National Security Fellow

When asked about her lengthy career in public service, National Security Fellow and active-duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard Zeita Merchant said she never did anything that she did not want to do. 

“I allow my passion to drive what I do,” Merchant said of her desire to help people, which has taken her all over the world—from the Arctic to Capitol Hill, where she served on the staff of the late Representative Elijah Cummings.

In the unprecedented 2017 hurricane season, Merchant deployed as Incident Commander to Texas and Puerto Rico to oversee response operations and maritime transportation reconstitution. 

"When you think about people not getting gas and the basic things that fuel their homes and support their needs - it was our job to provide that," Merchant said. 

As a Maritime Transportation and Emergency Management Specialist, Merchant was the first African-American woman to command a marine safety unit—Marine Safety Unit Chicago—in the city where she was born. Her outstanding service has been recognized through awards that include the 2019 Alumni Spotlight Award from the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration.

Merchant said her time at the Kennedy School will include outreach with the Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative to inform the dialogue surrounding conservation and commerce in the Arctic regions from a national security perspective. 

“Presence equals influence. And the Coast Guard provides the only surface asset (heavy ice breaker) in the Arctic,” Merchant said. The service oversees U.S. access to the Arctic’s vast energy, mineral, fisheries, and other commercial resources as well as search and rescue operations in the area. 

Merchant did not always know the Coast Guard would be her future. She had no idea what that particular branch of the military was responsible for until she was a junior in college in Jackson, Mississippi. When she spoke to a recruiter, she realized her skills as a biology major and a public servant could be highly applicable to a maritime operations role. 

Merchant said the biggest threat the military faces going into the 21st century is the difficulty in adjusting to the needs of current members and prospective candidates. Her primary focus of research at the Kennedy School is to improve military recruitment and retention, particularly of women and underrepresented minorities.

“The battlefields of today and tomorrow are totally different from the battlefields in which we have operated historically,” Merchant said. The same people the military wants to recruit to work in cybersecurity are the people corporate America wants. “So, we have to ask ourselves,” she said, “what drives people to join the military?”