Dr. James J. Shanley received his Bachelor of Science degree in biology from St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont, and a master's degree in microbiology from St. John's University in Jamaica, New York. He received his doctor of dental medicine degree from the New Jersey College of Dentistry in Jersey City in 1965 and did a dental residency at the Naval Dental School in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1976 to 1979. Dr. Shanley pursued a full-time career in the U.S. Navy for 30 years and held a variety of teaching and administrative positions. He was executive officer of the Naval Dental Center at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina, from 1983 to 1986. He was the commanding officer at the U.S. Naval Dental Clinic in Yokosuka, Japan, for three years from 1986 to 1989. In 1989 he joined the Office of the Naval Inspector General in Washington, D.C. as Deputy Inspector General of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and subsequently became Inspector General, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, in Washington, D.C. In 1991 he became commanding officer of the National Naval Dental Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and remained in that position until his retirement from the Navy on August 26, 1994.