[1] On 13 July 1965, a new United States Government scientific agency, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), was created.

In July 1971, as a commander, he became the deputy director of the Lake Survey Center in Detroit, Michigan, serving there until March 1973.

[3] Early in his tour at the Pacific Marine Center, he was the operational coordinator of the United States Government's participation in Operation Breakthrough, an international effort in October 1988 to free three gray whales from pack ice in the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow, Alaska.

[3] On 26 July 1990, President George H. W. Bush nominated Petersen to succeed Rear Admiral Francis D. "Bill" Moran as Director of the NOAA Corps.

Department of Commerce Silver Medal In a ceremony on 21 October 1975 in Washington, D.C., Petersen was among a group of four NOAA personnel who received the Department of Commerce Silver Medal for their work in planning and implementing the Global Atmospheric Research Project's Tropical Atlantic Experiment.