Rear Admiral Rosa assumed command of the Fifth Coast Guard District on 7 June 2007. In this capacity, he has overall responsibility for the full range of Coast Guard maritime safety and security missions carried out in the mid-Atlantic region, from central New Jersey down through North Carolina.
After his commissioning in 1975, Rear Admiral Rosa served first as a Deck Watch Officer and then Operations Officer on the Cutter Mariposa (WLB 397), followed by successive assignments as Commanding Officer of Loran Station Wake Island in the Central Pacific and Chief of Port Operations at Marine Safety Office Cleveland, Ohio. He then joined the Humanities Department at the Coast Guard Academy, where he taught political science and psychology from 1981-1986. While on the faculty, he served during the summer of 1984 as an Action Officer in the Political Military Bureau at the Department of State.
His next assignment took him to the Maritime and International Law Division at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C. During this period, he was the Deputy U. S. Representative to the Legal Committee of the International Maritime Organization in London, England. In 1990, he was reassigned within Headquarters to the Office of Law Enforcement and Defense Operations, serving until 1993 as the Legal Advisor for the Enforcement of Laws and Treaties Program.
Rear Admiral Rosa served next as Deputy Commander of Group Detroit, and then as Director of the Maritime Intelligence Center in Miami. He was subsequently detailed in 1996 to the staff of the National Security Council at the White House, where he served initially as Director for Gulf War Illnesses, and then as Director of the International Crime Group within the Office of Transnational Threats until 2001.
Following his departure from the White House, he served as Commander, Group St. Petersburg, Florida. In this capacity, he was responsible for coordinating all Coast Guard marine air and surface operations along Florida’s west coast in support of the maritime homeland security, search and rescue, and law enforcement missions. His next assignment was as Deputy Commander for the Seventh District headquartered in Miami, Florida. The Seventh District is responsible for carrying out all Coast Guard missions across a 1.8 million square mile maritime area that encompasses South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and the entire Caribbean region.
In early 2004, Rear Admiral Rosa returned to the White House to serve as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Border and Transportation Security on the staff of the Homeland Security Council. In this capacity, he was responsible for interagency policy coordination and oversight related to ongoing U. S. Government-wide efforts to enhance security along our Nation’s borders and throughout the transportation system.
Rear Admiral Rosa's immediate past assignment was at Coast Guard Headquarters, where he served as the Coast Guard’s Deputy Director of Intelligence and Criminal Investigations. These two multi-faceted programs support the full range of Coast Guard missions including maritime security; drug and illegal migrant interdiction; fisheries law enforcement; environmental protection; search and rescue, and national defense.
Rear Admiral Rosa is a graduate of the U. S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, and the U. S. Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He also received a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law.