Maritime Law Enforcement Academy Instructional Staff

Our instructors are former or retired Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Officers and Agents as well as former U.S. Navy and other military personnel who have been involved in law enforcement and security operations at home and abroad. Below is a list of some of our instructors with short biographies.

Woodrow F. Clookie, USCG Ret.

Woodrow Clookie, whose expertise is in counterterrorism and counterintelligence, retired from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) most recently as the NCIS liaison Intelligence Specialist to the National Security Agency and formerly as the NCIS liaison to the U.S. Department of State and its Office of Foreign Missions.  Mr. Clookie served as a member of the Port Security Committee for the National Security Council and a member of the Overflight Security Working Group for the Pentagon’s Overflight Security Committee.

Prior to NCIS, Mr. Clookie served 25 years in the Coast Guard and retired as a Senior Special Agent for Coast Guard Investigative Service.  Mr. Clookie established the first security detail on the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.  He performed extensive port security duties while assigned to shore and afloat units. These varied by geographical area (Hawaii to Maryland) and by mission (national security issues, liaison responsibilities with local, state, and federal authorities). Mr. Clookie also acquired a broad background in maritime drug interdiction.

Mr. Clookie is a two-time recipient of both the Coast Guard Achievement Medal and the Coast Guard Commendation Medal.  He is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a BS in Business Administration and a minor in Law Enforcement and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy. 

Dan Edwards, USCG Ret.

Mr. Edwards is an FBI National Academy graduate, former Special Agent in charge of USCG District 14, Hawaiian Islands, conducted numerous covert narcotic operations, criminal investigation and various protection operations from various dignitaries to the President of the U.S. Mr. Edwards has worked with many Federal, State, and Local agencies and INTERPOL in his over 20 years of federal law enforcement experience. Mr. Edwards instructs various aspects of maritime law enforcement tactics, operational

planning, investigations, and emergency maritime critical incident response.

USCG CWO4 Randy Trapp Ret.

Mr. Trapp Trapp began law enforcement in the United States Coast Guard as a Marine Environmental Pollution/Port Safety Law Enforcement Investigator.  He was then assigned to USCGC CAPE KNOX (WPB 95312) / USCGC CAPE GULL (WPB 95304), Miami Beach, FL, as the First Lieutenant and the senior law enforcement boarding officer. He was involved in several major narcotic seizures. Following this, Mr. Trapp conducted Marine Casualty Investigations in Miami. He became a Special Agent with Coast Guard Investigations in 1979 and conducted internal and external criminal investigations including homicide, rape, fraud, theft, smuggling, intelligence gathering, and undercover narcotics over the next 15 years. For Protective Service assignments, Mr. Trapp attended Special Weapons and Tactics and Secret Service Executive Protection Training programs and became a Police Combat Instructor. He holds a Black Belt in Kushinryu Karate and holds designations in weaponry. He was assigned as Senior Special Agent in Cleveland, OH, where he was a member of the Caribbean Task Force targeting the Jamaican drug posses. He was named the Outstanding Federal Criminal Investigator by the Navy League. He concluded his tenure with Coast Guard Investigative Service as Special Agent in Charge New York, NY, where he supervised operations that included a five-ton maritime cocaine seizure, the conviction of "snakeheads" smuggling in excess of 300 Chinese nationals, and protective movement of Sheik Rahman and the initial bombers of the World Trade Center. Under his supervision, protective services were provided for the Haiti Peace Talks and government witnesses instrumental in the conviction of crime bosses in organized crime.  As a Senior Marine Inspector holding qualifications as Hull Inspector, Mr. Trapp has military and civilian experience in the operation, plan review for new construction, inspection, testing, surveying, and consulting on all types of domestic and foreign flagged vessels from inflatable life rafts to tankers, freight ships, barges, and cruise ships.  His qualifications as a Machinery Inspector allow him to perform inspections on inboard direct, inboard sterndrive, outboard engines for gasoline, diesel and steam propulsion systems.

Tim Donaldson, USCG Ret.

Mr. Donaldson has an extensive back ground in small boat operations, seaport security, along with other aspects of Maritime Law Enforcement. Mr. Donaldson has served as training officer for the US Coast Guard's Tactical Law Enforcement Team-North, based in Chesapeake, Virginia. In addition, Mr. Donaldson has served as lead inspector for maritime containerized hazardous materials being transported via the ports of Morehead City, NC; Wilmington, NC and Savannah, GA.

BMCM John Apecelli, USCG Ret.

Mr. Apecelli is a retired Michigan State Trooper, is presently an instructor with the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. Assigned to Training Center Yorktown, Virginia, Mr. Apecelli has instructed small boat operations with USCG 41' UTBs, and various non-standard vessels. He brings a unique perspective having served in both state and federal law enforcement. Mr. Apecelli was an instructor in SeaPort Security and anti/counterterrorism for the Coast Guard's Port Security Units and later deployed with them to the Middle East during Desert Shield/Storm. He has recently been working with the USCG International Training Division in Republic of Georgia where he is responsible for training and development of that country's maritime law enforcement division, a division of the Border Guard. Mr. Apecelli instructs in vessel operations, patrol planning, agency assessments, and maritime critical incident response.

MKC David Marsters, USCG Ret.

Mr. Marsters retired from the U.S. Coast guard as a Chief Petty Officer, Engineering. His last tour of duty was with the Coast Guard's International Training Team in Yorktown, Virginia where he was in charge of instructor training. Mr. Marsters was team leader on numerous deployments to include Republic of Georgia, Benin, Uganda, Haiti, and Panama. Mr. Marsters instructs maritime engineering, emergency outboard repair, maritime law enforcement tactics, and instructor training.

Captain Ray Mach, USN Ret.

Captain Mach has served as Salvage Officer and Boat Group Commander aboard USS Seminole (LKA-104); as Officer-in-Charge of YFU-97 at NAD, Earle, New Jersey; as Weapons Officer aboard USS Jonas Ingram (DD-938); as First Lieutenant aboard USS Charleston (LKA-113); as Executive Officer aboard USS Shreveport (LPD-12); as Commanding Officer aboard USS Fairfax County (LST-1193), and as Squadron Commander for Maritime Prepositioning Squadron One (MPS-1). Captain Mach's tours ashore include two tours at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland; the first as an instructor of seamanship and navigation, and later as Personnel and Administration Officer and instructor of management and economics. Captain Mach's most recent tour was served at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. While at the War College he held the Richmond Kelly Turner Chair of Amphibious Warfare and was a member of the Joint Military Operations faculty. Captain Mach is an instructor of navigation, rules of the road, seamanship and vessel handling as well as operational command and control.

Colonel David Bruening, USA Ret.

Col. Bruening completed, in May 2000, a 32-year career in army intelligence. Drafted in May 1968, he went through basic and advanced training before entering Engineer OCS, where he finished as a distinguished graduate and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in Military Intelligence in April 1969. In the more than thirty years that followed, Colonel Bruening was assigned to successively higher positions of rank and responsibility in the intelligence field. Duty at posts in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina were combined with overseas tours in Vietnam, Turkey, Belgium and Panama. Almost a third of his career was spent at Fort Bragg, NC, where he performed intelligence duties while assigned to Army airborne and Special Forces units. Performing intelligence duties at ranks from Battalion to Army Staff, as well as at the national level and NATO, Colonel Bruening also commanded intelligence units as a Captain, Major and Lieutenant Colonel. As a Colonel, he culminated his career as the Defense Attache, U.S. Embassy Panama. Colonel Bruening earned his M.A. in National Security Studies and is a graduate of the Military Intelligence Officers Advanced Course, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College.  

Commander Chris Hunt, Royal Navy Ret.

Cdr. Hunt, a graduate of the U.K. Naval Academy, had a varied career as a Surface Warfare expert in the British Royal Navy with two Commands Afloat and a range of Senior Staff appointments ashore. Mr. Hunt retired as the Senior Naval Intelligence Officer at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. to work for NASA.  He is fully retired now and  is an instructor of navigation, rules of the road, seamanship and vessel handling as well as operational command and control.  

Robert M. Wells

 Mr. Wells has served in law enforcement for twenty-three years. A former Special Agent with United States Coast Guard Investigative Service, Mr. Wells served in an undercover capacity in numerous successful drug investigations. He has been involved with protective operations afloat during the 1984 Presidential campaigns, as well as for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England with the Royal Yacht, HMY Britannia.

As a master instructor at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center, Mr. Wells taught maritime law enforcement and port security operations. Later assigned to the port security training detachment, Mr. Wells trained Coxswains on the  NAPCO Raiders in Tactical Boat Operations for deployment to Desert Shield/Storm.  In 1993 Mr. Wells joined the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center as a lead instructor in the Physical Techniques Division. While there, he was asked to assist with instruction and course design for the Marine Training Division.

Mr. Wells completed a Coast Guard Reserve tour with the International Training Division where he assisted developing nations (Haiti, Bulgaria, Uganda, and Republic of Georgia) build their Coast Guards and maritime law enforcement divisions.  Mr. Wells also instructed for the USCG Training Center’s International Maritime Officers Course (IMOC) which trains officers from around the world in various aspects of the United States Coast Guard's missions.