COLUMBUS, Ohio – He is well-remembered in his hometown, and continues to add to a long list of achievements, from am illustrious military career to a leader at the country’s top universities, making locals proud to be a fellow Bronco.
The Board of Trustees for Ohio State has named a Burrillville native, retired Vice Admiral Walter Edward Ted Carter Jr., as the next president of the university.
Carter, a 1977 graduate of Burrillville High School, has served as president of the University of Nebraska since 2020.
He first began a 38-year military career in 1981, as the first Bronco to graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and oceanography. Carter was designated a naval flight officer in 1982, and graduated from the Navy Fighter Weapons School Top Gun in 1985.
He would go on to fly 125 combat missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, and earn the record for successful landings on 19 different aircraft carriers, assisting pilots in 2,016. Carter also started the Navy’s 21st Century Sailor program, focused on mental health and resiliency among enlisted sailors.
He served as president of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport from 2013 to 2014, then took on a role as superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, which he held from 2014 to 2019, the longest continuous service in the position since the Civil War.
According to an article in Ohio State’s student publication The Lantern, Carter is also Chairman of Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute’s board of directors, and a board member for the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the American Council on Education Board, the Association of Public Land-Grant Universities’ Council of Presidents and the Council on Competitiveness.
But Carter has never forgotten where he came from, and served as the virtual keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony for the Burrillville High School Class of 2020. In 2021, local officials renamed the school’s gymnasium in his honor, in hopes to encourage and inspire future generation of students.
Carter was reportedly chosen to serve as the next president at Ohio State following an extensive six month search. He will officially take the helm at the university on Jan. 1.
