John Heneghan, 79; advocated maritime jobs for women and minorities
WASHINGTON - John Martin Heneghan, who opened many doors in maritime employment and training for women and minorities, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Sept. 3 at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 79.
In 1974, Mr. Heneghan persuaded the administrator of the Maritime Administration to open the Merchant Marine Academy to women, making it the first federal service academy to go coeducational. He significantly increased the number of women and African-Americans in shipyard jobs and delayed the contract for an aircraft carrier until an effective affirmative action program was in place.
Taking those actions required a spine of iron, an element that was forged from his work in the Mississippi Delta during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Mr. Heneghan, who was working in the Navy's Atlanta office as an equal employment opportunity contract compliance officer, volunteered to go to Mississippi with Navy colleague Gene Heller to track down and take complaints against companies that held federal contracts.
"It was sort of tense," said Heller, who lives in Denver. "Word quickly got out within the establishment that we were doing investigations and compliance reviews for the government. . . . We used our rearview mirror quite a bit."
Mr. Heneghan was born in the Bronx, N.Y. He enlisted in the US Navy during World War II and served in the United States. He later graduated from Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y., and became the research and training director for the cement workers' union in Chicago. He received a master's degree in industrial relations from Loyola University in Chicago in 1957 and was an assistant professor at the school for the next six years. He retired from the Navy Reserve as a commander in 1978.
While working as a civilian for the Navy in Atlanta, he was a member of the initial task force in 1965 that helped set up the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. By 1966, Heneghan had become deputy regional director of the EEOC in Atlanta. Two years later, he moved to the Maritime Administration in Washington. During the next 10 years, he increased the shipyard employment of women in blue-collar jobs from 0.2 percent to 5.4 percent and that of skilled black workers from 14.6 percent to 25.6 percent.
