Evelyn Fields: A trailblazer

First African American woman in NOAA Corps
RADM Evelyn Fields began her career at NOAA as a cartographer in 1972, only two years after the agency formed. Less than a year later, the NOAA Corps began accepting women into its commissioned officer ranks, and she became the first African American woman to join. Her first sea assignment was on NOAA Ship Mt. Mitchell, a hydrographic survey vessel (now decommissioned) with a home port in Norfolk. Through the years, all but two of Fields’ assignments at sea and on shore were within the National Ocean Service and related to nautical charting. Fields also served as chief of the Hydrographic Survey Division and administrative officer of the National Geodetic Survey.