Major General Joseph Franklin
(USA, Retired, USMA 1955)
Born
in 1933 in the small Appalachian town of Cumberland, Maryland, Franklin
won a competitive appointment to the United States Military Academy at
West Point in 1951 and graduated in 1955 with a a commission in the
United States Army Corps of Engineers.
After preliminary military schooling, which included Parachute and
Ranger qualification, Franklin was assigned to Karlsruhe, Germany where
he served with Combat Engineering units until 1959. He was then sent to
MIT to earn a Masters Degree in Civil Engineering and Nuclear
Engineering. In 1961 Joseph Franklin was assigned to the Army's Nuclear
Power Program, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. where he was
Project Manager for the installation of a nuclear power plant on board a
converted Liberty ship. In 1963 Franklin was assigned to command Camp
Century, a nuclear-powered research outpost on the Greenland Icecap. He
directed the shutdown and disassembly of the nuclear power plant,
shipping the entire facility back to the United States in 1964.
Selected for instructor duty at West Point in 1965, Franklin taught
the first Nuclear Engineering course and coached the football and ski
teams during his three years as an Assistant Professor at the Academy.
After a year's further study at the Naval War College, Franklin he
shipped out to Vietnam to command a Combat Engineer Battalion in the
Central Highlands, ending his tour after participating in the 1970
operations in Cambodia.
The decade of the 1970's was taken up with Joint Staff duties in the
Pentagon, including assignment as Executive Assistant to the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, plus a Brigade Command at Fort Knox,
Kentucky, and another year of study at the Army War College.
Promoted to Brigadier General in 1979, Franklin was selected to be
Commandant of Cadets at West Point where he served until 1982. A tour of
duty as Assistant Commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii was
followed by promotion to Major General and assignment in 1983 as Chief
of the Joint US Military Group and Senior US Defense Representative in
Spain. Franklin chose to retire in 1987, and remained in Spain, founding
Franklin, S.A. a Spanish business consultancy located in Madrid,
specializing in investments and joint ventures.
He was elected to the Board of Directors of several Spanish and
American companies and returned to the United States in 1993, when he
was elected Chief Executive Officer of Frequency Electronics, Inc. He
has remained as Chairman of the Board of Frequency Electronics, Inc.
since 1999. He also serves on the Board of Directors of RKO Pictures and
Kriss-USA, a Swiss manufacturer of advanced technology small arms for
military and civilian applications.
