Mr. Philip Merrill, a prominent citizen, disappeared from his sailboat on Saturday June 10 while sailing alone on the Chesapeake Bay.
According to WikiPedia:
"Merrill is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Business School. He is president and CEO of Capital-Gazette Communications, Inc., which publishes The Washingtonian magazine, the Annapolis Capital, and other Maryland newspapers.
"Merrill served as counselor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 1981 to 1983; as a member of the Defense Policy Board from 1983 to 1990; and as assistant Secretary General of NATO in Brussels from 1990 to 1992 under President George H. W. Bush. He was appointed to head the Export-Import Bank of the United States by George W. Bush, serving from 2002 to 2005.
"In 1988 he received the Medal for Distinguished Service from the Secretary of Defense.
"In 2001 Merrill donated US $10 million to the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park which now bears his name. He also donated $4 million in 2003 to create the Center for Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The Center for Strategic Studies was headed by Eliot Cohen, a key neoconservative scholar."
The Coast Guard will decide today whether to change the mission from search and rescue to one of search and recovery.
More up-to-the-minute news on the matter can be found by going to:
http://news.google.com/news?q=Philip+Merrill+sailboat
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=Philip+Merrill+sailboat