Olmstead Foundation Honors Trost '53

The Olmsted Foundation, a non-profit organization that funds service academy international travel, language immersion and foreign affairs conferences, as well as multi-year active duty officer language and culture immersion, celebrated its 60th class of military scholars this summer by recognizing one of its first: Admiral Carlisle A.H. Trost ’53, USN (Ret.). Admiral Trost served as the 23rd Chief of Naval Operations before retiring and later serving as chairman of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association.

Then-Lieutenant Trost was one of the first six Olmsted Scholars named in 1959, and the first Navy scholar. He accepted the Register of Scholars, a hardbound book featuring biographies of all 670 Olmsted Scholars and Foundation officers and the history of the program, at the Foundation’s annual meeting in June. A quarter of those scholars have been Naval Academy graduates, including Admiral Kurt Tidd ’78, USN, Commander, U.S. Southern Command, and Admiral James R. Foggo III ’81, USN, Commander, Allied Joint Force Command Naples, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Africa.

More than 130 Naval Academy graduates have been named Olmsted Scholars, who receive up to a year of intensive language training and immersion in a foreign culture, followed by two years of of graduate school at a non-English speaking university. After completing the program, Scholars return to operational assignments in their service.

“The Olmsted experience is a life-changing leadership opportunity of personal and professional growth,” said Vice Admiral Doug Crowder ’74, USN (Ret.), chairman of the Olmsted Foundation and a former Olmsted Scholar. “After two years of total cultural immersion, including funded regional travel, Olmsted Scholars grow intellectually, think differently, anticipate others’ perspectives and question assumptions.”

The Olmsted Scholar program was the brainchild of Major General George Olmsted of the West Point Class of 1922, first Captain of the Corps of Cadets, the equivalent of the Naval Academy’s Brigade Commander. The same year, his older brother Jerauld served as the Naval Academy’s Brigade Commander—a feat never repeated by a sibling pair. 

The Olmsted Foundation has provided more than $3.6 million in support for the Naval Academy since 2007, including more than $3 million for the International Programs Office to create 500 overseas immersion opportunities for midshipmen. The Foundation has also supported the Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference and Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

Source: The Olmsted Foundation and Shipmate, October 2018