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The Outstanding Young Alumni Award is given for outstanding professional performance and achievements to those who have graduated in the last 20 years. After earning a B.A. in criminal justice administration from Mansfield in 1986, Russ received his flight training through the U.S. Army.
In 1990 he transferred his commission to the Coast Guard where he is currently the operations officer and chief pilot for HH-60J Operations in Kodiak, Alaska. He and his crew are responsible for providing homeland security and search and rescue operations in an $18 million helicopter. This four-million-square-mile area of Alaska provides some of the most challenging flying conditions found anywhere in the world. Russ holds the Coast Guard’s highest aviator qualification, that of Alaska Area Qualified Flight Instructor.
During his service with the Coast Guard he has saved 90 lives and assisted 63 others, earning him the following awards: Coast Guard Commendation Medal, Coast Guard Achievement Medal (3), Commandants Letter of Commendation and the Sikorsky Life Saving Award (37).
In 1999 Russ participated in the most dramatic and harrowing rescue ever attempted on Alaska’s high seas. Accounts of this dramatic rescue have been published in “Coming Back Alive” by Spike Walker. Most recently Lieutenant Commander Zullick was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, America’s highest peacetime award, noting his aeronautical skill and valor during a perilous rescue of a woman from a downed aircraft in the steep mountainous terrain of the Alaskan Peninsula.
Russ and his wife Deborah (Robison), a 1987 Mansfield graduate, are the parents of a 20-month-old son, Russell IV.