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MALONEY COL. ELBERT SEVIER MALONEY "Mack" USMC (Ret.) Colonel Elbert Sevier "Mack" Maloney, USMC Ret., author of Chapman's Piloting and Seamanship, the bible of small boat handling, died January 6, 2014, in Pompano Beach, Florida. He was 94. Col Maloney was born in Richmond, VA in 1919, and grew up in Virginia and Washington, DC. He graduated with honors from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1940 with a BS in Electrical Engineering and later received his Master of Engineering Administration from The George Washington University in 1964. He was a member of the honor societies Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, and Eta Kappa Nu. Col Maloney enlisted in the US Marine Corps Reserves in 1936 while in college and commissioned in the USMC in 1940. During World War II he served in the Pacific theater; with the Second Marine Division on Guadalcanal and the First Marine Division on Okinawa. After the war Col Maloney was stationed in China from 1945-1947 assisting the Chinese Republic Army. He went on to hold many positions in the Marine Corps, the US Navy missile R&D programs, and ended his military career as Assistant Director of the Defense Communications Agency, which he helped establish in 1960. He retired from the Marine Corps in 1964 with the rank of colonel. In 1953 Mack acquired his first boat while stationed in Norfolk, VA. He joined the USPower Squadron (USPS) to learn how to properly operate and maintain his new boat. During this time, advanced electronics were moving from the military and commercial ships onto private yachts. Recognizing that boaters needed training for the new marine electronics, Mack developed a course for the USPS. Mack's work brought him to the attention of Mr. Charles Chapman, author of Chapman's, who, in 1964, was looking to expand coverage of marine electronics. He asked Mack to submit a chapter on marine electronics and then to update several additional chapters. When Mr. Chapman retired in 1967, he personally requested that Mack take over the principal authorship of Chapman's, a position Mack held until 2009 when he became the senior editor. After retiring from the Marine Corps, Mack served as president of the Capitol Institute of Technology in Washington, D.C. from 1965 to 1967 before taking up boating and writing full time. He authored several books in addition to Chapman's, including two editions of U.S. Naval Institute's Dutton's Navigation & Piloting and articles for Motor Boating and other nautical magazines. A lifelong Amateur Radio operator (W4PWX/W4CGG), Mack was instrumental in setting up a radio communication link between US troops in China after World War II and their families back home. Mack was a senior member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers. He held a US Coast Guard license as Master of Near-Coastal Motor Vessels, was a Director of Education for USPS from 1971 to 1976, member and Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Safety Advisory Council, Chairman Emeritus of the National Advisory Council of Boat US, and a technical expert for maritime case law. Mack Maloney married twice. His first wife, of 46 years, Mary Queally Maloney, died in 1988. His second wife, of 23 years, Florine Carley Maloney, died in 2013. Survivors include his son from his first marriage, Elbert S. Maloney, Jr. and daughter-in-law Nancy Blasco Maloney of Arlington, VA, stepson Keith Carley of Pompano Beach, FL, sister-in-law Kathleen Salata Smith Jeschke of Chevy Chase, MD, three grandchildren and five great grandchildren, two nephews, and a niece. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Published in The Washington Post on Feb. 9, 2014
