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December 2013Volume 5, Issue 4

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Dedicated to Those Who Are Always Ready

Education for the Coastie O Helo Sustainment Cold Weather Gear O Small Vessel Threat O Maximizing Training

Capabilities Integrator

Rear Admiral William “Dean” LeeDeputy for Operations Policy & Capabilities

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U.S. Coast Guard Forum

Border Security & Emergency Preparedness

Cover / Q&AFeatures

ReaR admiRal William “dean” lee

Deputy for Operations Policy & Capabilities

U.S. Coast Guard

16

Departments Industry Interview2 editoR’s PeRsPective3 nav notes14 on the hoRizon27 ResouRce centeR

JosePh BattagliaPresident and CEOTelephonics Corporation

10sustaining much-imPRoved choPPeRsHow can the Coast Guard keep their rotary wing fleet at optimum readiness? With an eye on the budget, they focus on smart modernization and sustainment.By Henry Canaday

20small vessel thReatCoordinating interagency efforts to develop a comprehensive security plan—harder than it sounds. There are programs monitoring large vessels but small boats represent a challenge.edited By Jeff MCKaugHan

22maximizing tRainingAdvances in virtual training systems have increasingly allowed Coast Guard personnel to train on simulators that accurately emulate operational conditions. These devices allow easier access to training resources and replace, to some degree, the emphasis on live training. By Peter BuxBauM

25BaBy, it’s cold outsideThe Coast Guard works to ensure its personnel have the right gear to protect them from the elements. Cold weather may bring its own set of challenges, but protecting its personnel from prolonged exposure to the water is a priority. By SCott nanCe

December 2013Volume 5, Issue 4U.S. CoaSt gUard forUm

28

“We did not take any

cuts—would not accept any cuts—with regard to our ability to respond to urgent

search-and-rescue and

distress calls 7/24.”

- Rear Adm. William “Dean”

Lee

degRees of excellenceKnowledge is power—and the best way to gain knowledge is through education. That’s why the Coast Guard encourages its members to pursue higher education and provides most to all of the funding to help them do it.By HeatHer Baldwin

A comprehensive listing of the Schools that belong to the Coast Guard SOC consortium.

5

7

Guide to SOCCOAST Institutions

As this issue of Coast Guard Forum was headed to the press, Russia dropped the charges against at least one Greenpeace activist detained in September 2013. The Russians charged that 28 Greenpeace staff—and two freelance journalists—tried to board and take charge of a Russian oil rig in the Arctic. Members of the same organization boarded the same rig in the summer of 2012 with little response from the Russians. The arrests and seizing of the Greenpeace ship surprised some, but came at a time when Russia and other countries are ratcheting up claims—and efforts to support claims—of rights and sovereignty to portions of the Arctic.

As part of its claim of privilege, Canada has confirmed that it intends to claim the North Pole within its jurisdiction—has Santa heard about this!! Reportedly, Canada has spent upwards of $200 million on the scientific discovery process for the region. The Canadian application came as the 10-year deadline neared following its ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Guess which country is not a signatory? Guess which country had to resurrect a heavy icebreaker that had been tied up to the dock since 2006 to give it a single heavy icebreaker? The U.S. may be playing a great game of poker, holding its cards close to its chest and not making a move too early in the Arctic scramble.

As much as the legal maneuvering for these claims is important, so too is the physical, break some ice and plant a flag aspect of supporting a claim. The U.S., because of a lack for funding and foresight, now has a Coast Guard that is ill-equipped and hard-pressed to demonstrate, in a physical manner, our national sovereignty.

This is about the money, and the administration and Congress should make sure that rightful juris-dictional claims are pursued and legally defended. Estimates are that 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are in the areas of unresolved national claims. It would be hubris to think that we would be given our fair share out of the goodness of someone else’s heart. To think that we could sail until we bumped into ice and walk from there is not a great strategy. We need the infrastructure and the tools—meaning at least one modern ice breaker to support industrial development and exploration.

The Coast Guard is worth the investment and action is needed sooner rather than later.


Editorial

Editor-In-ChiefJeff McKaughan [email protected] EditorHarrison Donnelly [email protected] EditorSean Carmichael [email protected] Baldwin • Peter Buxbaum • Henry Canaday • Cheryl Gerber • Steve Hirsh Nora McGann • William Murray • Scott Nance

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Willard Marine, a 56-year-old builder of composite and aluminum boats, has received a contract to supply 42 rescue boats for U.S. Army supply ships and landing craft.

Under the contract, awarded by the U.S. Army Contracting Command in Warren, Mich., Willard Marine will deliver 16-foot rigid-hull inflatable boats (RIBs) for eight logistic support vessels (LSV) and 34 landing craft utility vessels. The boats will be built at the company’s plant in southern California. Deliveries will take place between March and August 2014.

The Willard Marine Sea Force 490 SOLAS OB RIBs are powered by Evinrude lightweight 40 hp E-TEC outboards and have a capacity for up to six passengers. The boats are certified by the U.S. Coast Guard to meet the provisions of the inter-national Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) treaty.

“The U.S. Army contract solidifies Willard Marine’s solid presence in the SOLAS response-boat market,” said Ulrich Gottschling, president of Willard Marine. “This large order is an important validation of position as the preferred U.S. supplier of USCG-approved SOLAS boats.”

New Army Rescue Boats Meet SOLAS

Compiled by KMi Media group staffNaV NotES

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service have signed a memorandum of understanding to highlight common missions, interests and capabilities, along with opportunities for collaboration for mutual benefit.

The MoU will benefit the U.S. and Australia partnership by strengthening mari-time cooperation through the sharing of information needed for maritime domain awareness activities. Also, it will encourage and promote cooperation in the areas of personnel development, research and other areas relating to civil maritime law enforcement operations.

“This agreement allows the Coast Guard and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service to combine our strengths in common missions, interests and capabilities,” said Rear Admiral Christopher Tomney, assistant commandant, Coast Guard Intelligence and Criminal Investigations. “Australia has long been an ally of the United States and we look forward to continuing to work together on maritime operations.”

Tomney and Michael Pezzullo, chief executive officer, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, signed the agreement at U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

On the Prowl

U.S. Coast Guard crews intercepted a panga boat with approximately 7,100 pounds of marijuana and three suspected smugglers aboard in inter-national waters some 155 miles southwest of San Diego, December 10, 2013.

It was the second time this month that Coast Guard and partner agencies have thwarted a major marijuana-smuggling operation in the area.

In the most recent incident an aircrew aboard a Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft initially detected the 30-foot panga and multiple assets, including the Coast Guard cutters Active and Edisto and a 45-foot response boat crew from Station San Diego, responded.

When Coast Guard vessels converged on the area a brief pursuit ensued in which the smugglers refused to stop. An aircrew from the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron that was operating from Active used warning shots, followed by engine disabling fire to render the panga inoperable. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Air and Marine Multi-role Enforcement Aircraft crew also flew on the case to provide continuous aerial coverage.

“All our crews, especially those of the cutter Active and the Helicopter Interceptor Tactical Squadron, should be proud of their accomplishments,” said Captain Michael Eagle, 11th Coast Guard District Chief of Response. “In a little more than a week, Active has been involved in stopping two major shipments of illegal drugs. The Coast Guard aviators and interceptor boat crews who tracked down, warned, and then shot out the engines of the fleeing pangas in these two cases used their law enforcement training, tools and techniques to safely apprehend five suspected smugglers and stop the delivery of more than six tons of marijuana. The Coast Guard, along with our interna-tional, federal, state and local partners will continue to work to counter these transnational criminal organizations and we will use every available resource to protect our maritime border,” he said.

The 74 bales, three suspects and panga from the interception were taken to San Diego and turned over to the San Diego Marine Task Force, which includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

This is the second major interdiction in the area in December, resulting in the seizure of more than 13,100 pounds of marijuana. The first occurred on December 2 when Coast Guard crews interdicted a panga boat with 201 bales of marijuana and two suspected smugglers aboard approximately 140 miles southwest of San Diego.

Counter-smuggling and law enforcement efforts in the San Diego area are coordinated through a Regional Coordinating Mechanism comprised of the U.S. Coast Guard, CBP’s Office of Air and Marine, Office of Field Operations, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and state and local law enforcement partners. The ReCoM utilizes the fusion of intelligence, planning and operations to target the threat of transnational crime along the coastal border.

U.S. and Aussies Sign MoU

The 110th Congress (2007-2008) enacted legislation to establish the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program. The mission of the Coast Guard Yellow Ribbon Program is to provide Coast Guard members, families and designated others with sufficient information, services, referral and proactive outreach opportunities throughout the entire deployment cycle. The four phases of deployment are pre-deployment, during deployment, demobilization and post-deployment/reconstitution. The Coast Guard also provides Reserve members who either will be, are currently, or have been deployed outside the continental United States for 90 days or more, and their families/designated individuals access to Yellow Ribbon events.

As part of the program, Massachusetts will hold a Yellow Ribbon event January 10-12, 2014, for about 75 families.

Massachusetts Yellow Ribbon Event

www.CGF-kmi.com CGF 5.4 | 3

Coast Guard’s Top Videos of 2013The U.S. Coast Guard has released its top 10 video compilation for 2013,

highlighting the year’s most compelling cases from the work done every day by America’s Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard also announced its 2013 Video of the Year contest, in which the public is invited to vote for their favorite video. The contest begins December 22, with voting open through January 13, 2014. The Coast Guard’s official blog, the Coast Guard Compass, will publish one of the 10 videos each day along with commentary from a servicemember who partici-pated in the mission.

The public can vote by choosing “Like” for their favorites on the Coast Guard’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/uscoastguard or on the Coast Guard’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/uscgimagery. All 10 of the videos competing in the Video of the Year contest were recently premiered for Coast Guard recruits at Training Center Cape May, N.J., the service’s only enlisted basic training center.

“Most Coast Guard operations and missions aren’t caught on camera,” said Captain Todd Prestidge, commanding officer of Training Center Cape May. “Much of our work occurs in the black of night during the most brutal weather conditions or thousands of miles away from U.S. shores in some of the most dangerous places on earth. This gives the people we serve an opportunity to see what Coast Guardsmen do every day.”

The Top 10 video compilation includes:

• A look into the Coast Guard’s rigorous basic training program at Training Center Cape May, where more than 80 percent of the Coast Guard’s enlisted force begin their careers. Recruits wait an average of more than six months to attempt the program where more than 30 percent are either reverted, rephrased or washed out of training.

• Coast Guard Cutters Tackle and Shackle break ice along the Penobscot River in Bangor, Maine, February 21, 2013. These crews regularly break ice along Maine’s rivers to keep the waterway open for commercial traffic and to prevent flooding.

• An aircrew aboard an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., medevac a 47-year-old man from a 780-foot cargo ship being tossed in heavy seas approximately 200 miles east of the Chesapeake Bay March 6, 2013.

• Surfmen from Coast Guard Station Cape Disappointment battle the waves of the Columbia River during surf drills. Surfmen are considered to be some of the best boat coxswains in the world and are famous for piloting vessels through breaking waves.

• An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter aircrew from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City rescues a sailor 70 miles east of Kitty Hawk, N.C. The sailor asked for help after he hit his head and was injured.

• Coast Guard personnel participate in underwater egress training in an indoor pool at the Coast Guard Aviation Technical Training Center located in Elizabeth City. The Coast Guard implemented underwater egress training July 2013 at the ATTC aimed at increasing a member’s survivability in the event of a small boat capsizing.

• Coast Guardsmen use warning shots and disabling fire to stop a drug smuggling vessel off the coast of southern California October 5, 2013. Coast Guardsmen found 31 bales of marijuana and apprehended two suspected smugglers when they boarded the vessel.

• An Air Station Kodiak HC-130 Hercules airplane crew conducts an Arctic Domain Awareness flight with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, July 16, 2013. Many people do not know of the extensive research that is being conducted in the Arctic.

• Coast Guard divers demonstrate new equipment that will improve safety for the divers and allow them to remain underwater longer and work in harsher conditions March 26, 2013.

• Coast Guard Cutter Hollyhock travels from the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore to its homeport of Port Huron, Mich., in this time-lapse video spanning October 11 to 26, 2013. The Hollyhock spent more than three months in dry dock undergoing necessary maintenance to prepare it for a busy winter season on the Great Lakes.

The Top 10 video compilation is available for viewing and download from the Coast Guard visual information site at www.dvidshub.net/branch/coast+guard.

Compiled by KMi Media group staffNaV NotES

New Lights, Better LightsRevolution Lighting Technologies’

Seesmart brand was recently selected by the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command to supply Lewis and Clark class T-AKE dry cargo/ammunition ships with 17,000 2- and 4-foot LED tube lamps. QuaLED Lighting, a woman-owned small busi-ness based in Scottsdale, Ariz., is the Revolution Lighting distributor on the project.

Military Sealift Command is the leading provider of ocean transporta-tion for the Navy and the rest of the

Department of Defense, operating approximately 110 ships daily around the globe.

“We are honored to support the U.S. Navy on this project to implement our high-quality LED tube lamps and drive significant long term savings,” said Robert V. LaPenta, chairman and chief executive officer of Revolution Lighting Technologies. “This project is one more example in a growing list of large-scale installations across a variety of public and private organizations and institutions.

We look forward to additional projects with the Navy, as well as other military branches and government entities.”

Seesmart’s DLC-listed LED tube lamps are manufactured in Simi Valley, Calif., and designed to be a direct replacement for fluorescent tube lights, offering maximum light output and energy savings. In line with the U.S. Navy’s requirements, Seesmart’s LED tube lamps are light-weight and extremely durable, require virtually no maintenance, and have a long life expectancy.

www.CGF-kmi.com4 | CGF 5.4

Knowledge is power—and the best way to gain knowledge is through education. That’s why the Coast Guard encourages its mem-bers to pursue higher education and provides most to all of the fund-ing to help them do it. “The more educated the workforce, the better the workforce is,” said Gerard Walsh, SOCCOAST project director, Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges.

Coast Guardsmen are eligible for two primary educational benefits. The Post-9/11 GI Bill, which can be used on active duty or after leav-ing the service, covers full tuition and fees for all public school in-state students, a monthly housing allowance, and an annual books and supplies stipend. GI Bill ben-efits can be transferred to a dependent. Coasties are also eligible for the Coast Guard’s tuition assistance (TA) program, which enables active duty servicemembers to access money for education without having to tap into their GI Bill. Under the new TA program, the Coast Guard covers 75 percent of a student’s tuition needs up to $250 per credit for a first degree. Servicemembers cover the remaining 25 percent.

The 75/25 split, effective in 2014, is a change from the previous 100 percent coverage, and many service-members are disappointed in the change. However, the near-term investment of 25 percent of tuition costs can pay big dividends down the road. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers with a bachelor’s degree earn, on average, $500 more per week—or $2,000 more per month—than someone with a high school diploma. College graduates also have far lower rates of unemployment than those with only a high school diploma.

Walsh said the first stop for anyone considering a post-high school education is their education services officer (ESO). The ESO will help students find the right degree program at the right school, help navigate the process of using military education benefits to pay for classes and explain how schools can accommodate the unique needs of service-members. In short, they de-mystify the education process.

“A lot of people join the military instead of going to school, so school is new to them and they may be hesitant about it,” said Walsh.

“Whether they are 22 or 32 or 38 years old, they have probably thought about it for a number of years, but they’ve been away from education for awhile and now they are wondering what it’s like.”

Worries about balancing an education with family and a job that commonly demands unusual hours or unexpected deployments can also make members of the Coast Guard hesitant about pursuing a degree. However, Walsh said SOC schools understand the unique demands of military service and are very good about extending dead-

lines and working with students individually to accom-modate these types of needs.

Marine Science Technician 3 Blake Wallace has experienced this kind of support firsthand. Wallace joined the Coast Guard five years ago with 70 under-graduate credits. A year ago, he returned to school to pursue a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in order to better position himself for a post-military career. While he enjoys his current work investigating and responding to water pollution incidents along the Maryland shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay, he is also looking to his future outside the military, where the most attractive opportunities require an education.

Once he made the decision to go back to school, he visited his ESO, Roberta Bernhard, who “provided tremendous assistance when it came time to apply for military tuition assistance,” said Wallace. She provided information resources, set up meetings with vari-ous universities in the area and explained “the many complex details that make being a military student easier.” Today, Wallace has two semesters remaining at the University of Maryland University College before he completes his B.S. in criminal justice. He plans to begin a master’s degree program shortly after he finishes his B.S.

While the courses are already paying dividends by making him more effective in his work, Wallace acknowledges that balancing classes with a job that often requires long hours hasn’t been easy. “We often have late-night or long-day pollution response cases. This uncertainty in my schedule can sometimes make classes difficult and requires me to try to complete much of my assignments

By HeatHer Baldwin

CGF Correspondent

Gerard Walsh

MST3 Blake Wallace

MaxiMizinG tHe eduCation BeneFits For every Coastie.

[email protected]


and course work early,” he said. “That said, I feel this has helped me develop a great work ethic and a proactive approach toward tasks in the workplace.”

Wallace urges other servicemembers to consider going to school. “Any bit of education helps and can improve motivation, work ethic, sense of self worth, attitude and overall knowledge,” he says. “School not only teaches academic knowledge, it also teaches someone how to learn—an acquired skill that is a valuable asset in the military.” For someone still not sure, he said to just give it a try by taking one class a semester, a very manageable load.

It is never too late to begin an education. Boatswain’s Mate Chief Petty Officer Dustin Allman has 15.5 years in the Coast Guard, includ-ing 7.5 years of sea time. He had no post-high-school education going into the service, and while he talked about going to school for many years, the process seemed confusing so he never committed to it. Today, he has his associate degree in criminal justice and is just 10 classes away from receiving his bachelor’s degree in homeland secu-rity and emergency preparedness.

Allman said it is important to him not only to get the education but to set the example for the junior personnel in his unit. “They see a chief who has not completed higher education, with a plate full of responsibilities at work and at home with a wife and two young chil-dren, finding the time to make it work,” he said.

They also see a chief who is continuing to learn and grow and be more effective. “Every class is something new and allows me to expand my toolbox to confront more dynamic situations,” observed Allman.

“I just finished a class called Critical Thinking for Homeland Security, which teaches individuals how to adapt their skills to understand what information they will need and how to figure out how to get that correct information in any situation or conflict.”

Allman said he makes it a point to talk to the 350-plus active duty servicemembers with whom he works about working toward a degree. In these conversations, he has been hearing some grumbling about the Coast Guard cutting its TA program from 100 percent to 75 percent, but he urges his fellow Coast Guardsmen not to let the reduction dissuade them. “With the state of our economy and the pressure on the government to watch its spending, having any tuition assistance is a blessing,” he said. “My opinion is that the bounty is still available—don’t waste it just because the amount has dropped.”

If the cost seems prohibitive, Allman suggested exploring Pell grants and other scholarship opportunities to make up the gap in TA. The important thing is simply to take advantage of the benefits that are available and get a degree, as it will open up countless opportuni-ties in the long term. “Higher education is the difference between a comfortable life after the service or a harsh reminder of what could have been,” Allman concluded. “Everyone’s time in the service will end. How it ends is up to you.” O

For more information, contact Editor-In-Chief Jeff McKaughan at [email protected] or

search our online archives for related stories at www.cgf-kmi.com.

• Classroom,online,andself-paceddegreeoptions

• 8-weekterms,year-roundschedule

•Regionallyaccredited

•Generousacceptanceofcollegecreditsandmilitarytraining

•ServicemembersOpportunityColleges(SOC)coreinstitution

•TuitionbenefitsandscholarshipprogramsfortheTotalMilitaryFamily

CenterforDistanceEducation800-553-4150 • www.uiu.edu/yourdegree

UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY

YOURDEGREE.YOURWAY.

US Coast Guard ad - 7.375 x 5.25.indd 1 12/12/2013 4:53:35 PMwww.CGF-kmi.com6 | CGF 5.4

Servicemembers Opportunity College (SOC), co-sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the American Association of Community Colleges, functions in cooperation with 13 other higher education associations, the Department of Defense, Active and Reserve components of the military services, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand and improve voluntary postsecondary education opportunities for servicemembers worldwide.

The SOC Consortium, comprised of more than 1,900 col-lege and university members, enrolls hundreds of thousands of

servicemembers, their family members and veterans annually in associate, bachelor and graduate-level degree programs on school campuses, military installations, armories within the United States and overseas, and through distance learning and learn-ing assessment. These voluntary programs are a significant joint venture and require strong commitment and coordination among academic institutions and agencies, the military services including the Coast Guard, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

SOC is a vehicle to help coordinate voluntary postsecondary educational opportunities for servicemembers. SOC does this by:

Appropriately accredited institutions are selected by the Coast Guard to offer associate and bachelor’s degrees to Coast Guard per-sonnel, their spouses, and adult children worldwide. These colleges have flexible policies that allow mobile Coast Guard personnel and their families to complete degrees without suffering a loss of credit.

For Coasties, these degrees are offered via traditional and distance-learning delivery in popular academic areas or networks, and unique degrees tailored to military experience and training.

Coast Guard Forum has pulled together a list of the two- and four-year SOCCOASTs. O

• seeking to stimulate and help the higher education community understand and respond to special needs of servicemembers;

• advocating the flexibility needed to improve access to and availability of educational programs for servicemembers;

• helping the military services, including the Coast Guard, understand the resources, limits and requirements of higher education;

• helping the higher education community understand the resources, limits and requirements of the military services, including the Coast Guard; and

• seeking to strengthen liaison and working relationships among military and higher education representatives.


a CoMpreHensive listinG oF tHe sCHools tHat BelonG to tHe Coast Guard soC ConsortiuM.


AmerICAn PublIC unIverSITy SySTem - AmerICAn mIlITAry unIverSITywww.amuonline.com/mae

Contact:[email protected]: AMU is the #1 provider of edu-cation to the U.S. armed forces and a respected educator for public service and national security communities, offering more than 170 degrees and certificates.

Anne ArunDel COmmunITy COlleGeArnold, Md.www.aacc.edu

AShfOrD unIverSITyClinton, Iowawww.ashford.edu

ATlAnTIC CAPe COmmunITy COlleGeMays Landing, N.J.www.atlantic.edu

AvereTT unIverSITyDanville, Va.www.averett.edu

bAker COlleGe OnlIneFlint, Mich.www.baker.edu/military

bellevue unIverSITyBellevue, Neb.www.bellevue.edu

bISmArCk STATe COlleGeBismarck, N.D.www.bismarckstate.edu/military

brAnDmAn unIverSITyIrvine, Calif.www.brandman.edu

CenTrAl TexAS COlleGeKilleen, Texaswww.conn.cd.edu

ChArTer OAk STATe COlleGeNew Britain, Conn.www.charteroak.edu

COASTlIne COmmunITy COlleGeFountain Valley, Calif.www.military.coastline.edu/

COlOrADO TeChnICAl unIverSITyColorado Springs, Colo.www.coloradotech.edu

COlumbIA COlleGeColumbia, Mo.www.ccis.edu

Devry unIverSITyDowners Grove, Ill.www.devry.edu

embry-rIDDle AerOnAuTICAl unIverSITyDaytona Beach, Fla.www.erau.edu

emPIre STATe COlleGeSaratoga Springs, N.Y.www.esc.edu/veteran-military

exCelSIOr COlleGeAlbany, N.Y.www.excelsior.edu

flOrIDA STATe COlleGe AT JACkSOnvIlleJacksonville, Fla.www.fscj.edu

fOrT hAyS STATe unIverSITy600 Park Street Hays, KS 67601-4099www.fhsu.edu/virtualcollege

Contact:Jeremy CarltonMilitary Success Specialist785-628-5541 [email protected] Description: FHSU’s commitment to serving Coast Guard members and their families sits at the ready with a dedicated support staff and over 40 flexible program offerings.

GrAnD CAnyOn unIverSITyPhoenix, Ariz.www.gcu.edu

hAwAI’I PACIfIC unIverSITy1164 Bishop Street, Suite. 215Honolulu, Hawaii 96813www.hpu.edu

Contact:Jason morganAssistant Director of Recruitment and [email protected]

Description: HPU has received numerous national honors for its service to military students and veterans, including the “military-friendly university” designation from Military Advanced Education and GI Jobs magazines.

JOneS InTernATIOnAl unIverSITyCentennial, Colo.www.jiumilitary.com

lAmAr unIverSITyBeaumont, Texaswww.lamar.edu

lIberTy unIverSITyLynchburg, Va.www.liberty.edu

mISSISSIPPI Gulf COAST COmmunITy COlleGeGulfport, Miss.www.mgccc.edu

nATIOnAl unIverSITyLa Jolla, Calif.www.nu.edu

nOrThern vIrGInIA COmmunITy COlleGeAnnandale, Va.www.nvcc.edu

OlD DOmInIOn unIverSITyNorfolk, Va.www.odu.edu

PArk unIverSITyParkville, Mo.www.park.edu

Penn STATe unIverSITy wOrlD CAmPuSUniversity Park, Pa.www.worldcampus.psu.edu

rIO SAlADO COlleGeTempe, Ariz.www.riosalado.edu/military/html/default.aspx

rOGer wIllIAmS unIverSITyBristol, R.I.www.rwu.edu

SAInT leO unIverSITySaint Leo, Fla.www.saintleo.edu

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PRIDE IN THE COAST GUARD...PRIDE IN YOURSELF.You are a member of an elite military organization that values education.

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The Coast Guard has largely completed, or is nearing completion of, upgrades on its critical rotorcraft, the MH-60 Jayhawk and MH-65 Dolphin. With budgets tight, the aim now is to keep these veteran helicopters flying for perhaps a decade or more, and to do this sustainment very economically.

The Coast Guard’s primary goal for the Jayhawk is to keep it going with program depot maintenance (PDM) every 48 months until it reaches the end of service life, according to Commander Michael Frawley, H-60 systems manager. The next major milestone for the Jayhawk is 20,000 flight hours. “Then we have to make an investment decision: Do we upgrade again or not?” Frawley explained.

Jayhawks are now completing upgrades to MH-60Ts, while Dolphins are getting upgrades with glass cockpits and new electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) systems. Frawley said further upgrades are available, but the budget environment does not currently favor upgrades.

The Dolphin goes through PDM about every 54 months, “but we shoot for 48 months,” Frawley noted. This 48-month cycle minimizes operating cost and variability due to corro-sion—for example, between helicopters flown over the salty Gulf of Mexico and those flown over Lake Michigan.

With Jayhawks flown since 1992 and Dolphins since 1983, almost all these aircraft have more than 10,000 flight hours.

The exception is a few MH-60Ts converted from Navy H-60Fs, which have 4,000 to 8,000 hours. The Coast Guard would like to convert more Navy H-60Fs if it gets the funds. “For a very affordable price, we get a new MH-60T,” Frawley explained.

PDM takes 180 days for the MH-65, and between nine and 11 months for both rotorcraft. The Coast Guard would like to apply Lean manufacturing techniques to the two helicopters, but would need to identify funding to do this correctly.

Although upgraded and sustainable, the two models have “the problems inherent in a 20- to 30-year-old fleet,” Fraw-ley said. The Coast Guard has a very active corrosion control program and gets substantial value out of its 48-month PDMs. The Dolphin does not contain as much corrodible metal as the Jayhawk, having more composite components. But the next decision milestone for the Dolphin is also 20,000 flight hours. Several major life extension projects for the MH-65 have been identified but implementing them would require the Coast Guard to find funding in an environment of tight budgets.

“These are still old aircraft,” Frawley stressed. “If you have a 1987 BMW, you may have maintained and upgraded it, but it is still an ’87 BMW.”

Some improvements actually increase sustainment chal-lenges. “The aircraft are, for all intents and purposes, becom-ing flying computers. Like your computer at home, after three

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to five years it becomes very difficult to acquire replacement parts or effect repairs because older models are out of production. This forces the Coast Guard to budget funding for programmed upgrades to ensure we are able to maintain a baseline performance level.”

David Spracklen, Sikorsky’s manager of govern-ment business development for the Coast Guard and other federal agencies, expects the sustainment work-load for the Jayhawks to remain fairly constant over coming years. The service has been converting HH-60Js to MH-60Ts while in PDM. The last HH-60J was inducted in September 2013 and its MH-60T version is expected to roll off the overhaul line in March of 2014.

“This was largely an avionics upgrade,” Spracklen explained. “There is a new CAAS (Common Avionics Architecture System) cockpit and some EO/IR and some basic structural changes to accommodate FLIR (forward looking infrared).”

If funding becomes available, the Coast Guard will also convert the remaining Navy H-60Fs to MH-60Ts. Converted aircraft can be used to compensate for crash damage or to grow the fleet. This conversion is similar to that of MH-60Hs, but with a bit more structural work.

After that, mostly normal maintenance is expected at field and depot levels. Although the Coast Guard generally tries to bring MH-60s to depot every 48 months, Spracklen said, “if it is in a non-corrosive environment, they might be able do it in 60 months.”

Depot visits are frequent because the Coast Guard flies the aircraft constantly, about 70 hours per month. This is double the Navy usage of rotorcraft in peace-time and up to three times the Army peacetime rate.

Spracklen said Sikorsky is always working to enhance service life of dynamic parts, and the Coast Guard reviews its maintenance intervals annually to see if these should be changed. But he said it is difficult to suggest sustainment improvements because the Coast Guard already manages logistics very aggres-sively. Rather than work through a general defense contract, the service deals directly with GE on engines and Sikorsky on gearboxes and rotor blades. This speeds things up. The Coast Guard’s small volumes get more attention in these direct deals than they would if mixed with much larger Army orders. Thus they obtain faster turnaround times.

Sikorsky has informed the Coast Guard that air-frames on MH-60Ts are not life-limited. But Spracklen expects new technologies will prompt the service to replace the rotorcraft eventually. The Coast Guard is participating in DoD’s future vertical lift study and looking at helicopter options and requirements for the next decades. Requiring relatively small volumes, the service usually does not take the lead in buying new models but waits for the Army and Navy to choose and then picks one of their choices, if it suits Coast Guard needs.

GE’s T700-GE-401C engines power the MH-60T, along with Navy H-60s and Marine Corps H-1 Hueys. Jennifer Dolan, T700 U.S. Navy,

Coast Guard and Marine Corps, Program Manager, said this large installed base, plus robust international sales of both the H-60 and H-1, ensures continued support for the engines. “The Coast Guard also ben-efits from the multi-service Component Improvement Program, which provides a strong roadmap for engine improvements.”

Dolan recommended that “the Coast Guard’s very successful proactive maintenance practices should be continued.” She said that if the Coast Guard desires alternative support options, such as performance based logistics (PBL), “this could be explored.”

Sustainment cost reductions are always possi-ble, according to Dolan. “For instance, an in-depth study could be performed to identify top cost driv-ers and suggest ways to reduce cost.” And engine improvements can increase time on wing and reduce lifecycle cost.

The MH-65 Dolphin short range recovery helicop-ter is used by the Coast Guard for search and rescue, law enforcement and homeland security missions. It is certified for night and all-weather operations, with the exception of icy conditions. The MH-65 is the only Coast Guard aircraft used aboard certified cutters during deployments.

“American Eurocopter provides ongoing support for the Coast Guard’s fleet of 101 MH-65s,” said Norm Walker, senior director-federal programs for the Grand Prairie, Texas-based company. The company manages spare parts supplies and provides sustaining engineer-ing support, onsite technical support and individual programs designed to reduce the cost of ownership.

Walker said his company continually focuses on ways to improve safety and performance of Dolphins. “We are looking at ways to reduce overall maintenance costs. We are focused on the long-term sustainability of these aircraft. The Coast Guard has said it wants to keep operating the MH-65 for at least another decade. We’re looking at ways to extend its life far beyond what was originally expected.”

As with Jayhawks, the Coast Guard does its own depot maintenance and major upgrades for the Dol-phin. “We sell parts and provide technical support as needed,” Walker noted. Although possible upgrades are discussed, there is “nothing the Coast Guard has said it wants to do or at this point has any formal plans to undertake.”

Rockwell Collins has been working with the Coast Guard for 15 years under a PBL, noted Program Man-ager Kurt Kaufman. He said Rockwell CAAS avionics, already on Jayhawks and going on Dolphins, offer both

operational and sustainment benefits. CAAS is used across Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy

aircraft. “Leveraging thousands of CAAS users, any updates to both hardware and software can be utilized also by the Coast Guard,” Kaufman explained. The cost of obsolescence management can also be spread across this wide base.

Further, CAAS’s new technology makes hardware more reliable. Kaufman estimated CAAS on the MH-65E will yield three times the

Jeff Markel

[email protected]

Kurt Kaufman

[email protected]

Norm Walker

[email protected]

Joseph Battaglia

[email protected]


reliability of avionics on legacy MH-65Cs. This means less flight-line maintenance, fewer spares, lower sustainment cost and increased availability.

Even the best technology needs the right sustainment plan, which Kaufman said is the PBL approach taken by the Coast Guard and Rockwell. “This PBL partnership will be the cornerstone of future sustainment of the CAAS cockpit in the Coast Guard helicopters.” He expects CAAS to be sustain-able over the next 20 years with availability over 95 percent.

Telephonics has submitted a bid to replace its original weather radar on the Dolphin in response to a request for proposal earlier this year. The firm has supported Coast Guard helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft with radar and communication systems for many years. “They are a key customer,” said President and CEO Joseph Battaglia.

A decision on Dolphin radar upgrade was anticipated in 2013, but the announcement may be delayed until January 2014 as budget issues are resolved. Telephonics has been promoting improved radar for Coast Guard helicopters for five years. Battaglia believes a decision will be made soon since funding is available and “we are proposing a very cost-efficient, best-value solution.”

Telephonics products have been the standard for Euro-copter SAR configurations for years, and new Dolphins are delivered with the latest Telephonics SAR radar as standard equipment. The firm has a huge installed base of this type of radar on Eurocopters. “We consistently deliver the best-performing and most economical system, and our technology is world-class,” Battaglia stressed.

In addition to SAR radar on Eurocopters, Telephonics supplies multi-mode radar for Navy MH-60R maritime strike helicopter and MQ-8B unmanned helicopters.

Battaglia expects over 100 Dolphins to be upgraded with new radar, and industry could handle some of the workload. Telephonics has a facility in Elizabeth City, N.C., across the runway from the Coast Guard’s Aviation Logistics Center. It could install and integrate some of new radar systems if desired. Telephonics’ hangar can accommodate four Dolphins.

Moog designs and manufactures precision control systems, sub-systems and components for many fixed and rotary wing aircraft, including Jayhawks, said Business Unit Director Jeff Markel. Moog hardware on the MH-60T includes primary flight-control actuation and active vibration controls.

Moog’s main work for the Coast Guard involves overhauling both Moog and other firms’ products. Moog provides overhaul services for all integrated trim/boost servoactuator assemblies on the Jayhawks, including pitch-trim, roll-trim and yaw-boost servoactuator configura-tions. It inspects and disassembles the integrated assembly, overhauls and tests line replaceable units and reassembles and tests the inte-grated assembly.

The firm recently won a second consecutive five-year contract with the Coast Guard to provide overhaul services for Jayhawk flight controls, having previously demonstrated a 50 percent reduction in turnaround time while significantly lowering overhaul costs.

Moog also offers a variety of upgrades for Jayhawks. For example, an upgrade to the pitch-trim actuator, now in the last phase of approval, would enable the servoactuator to stay on-wing longer and perform better in harsh environments such as salt water, humidity and sand. An improved coating on the booster piston, combined with

upgraded seals and other modifications, provides longer operational service life.

Moog can also provide active vibration controls for legacy helicopters that currently operate with passive vibration systems. Active vibration control saves weight, reduces pilot fatigue and mus-culoskeletal damage, and reduces structural vibrations throughout the airframe.

Markel predicted that sustainment will become even more important as Coast Guard helicopters age. “In addition to developing enhancements and upgrades to Moog hardware, we are also adept at providing solutions to address obsolescence, vanished supplier sup-port and reliability improvement upgrades for non-Moog products,” he noted

Moog has developed an integrated support solutions (ISS) team that is focused on tackling sustainment challenges on non-Moog hardware. ISS provides comprehensive repair and overhaul support as well as reliability enhancements and technology insertion. It offers obsolescence solutions, turnkey logistics and advanced sur-face repairs using additive manufacturing such as Moog’s own Cold Spray processing.

Cold Spray reduces repair costs and shortens lead time by accel-erating micron-sized particles of metal powder to supersonic speeds and directing them at a surface. Upon impact with the substrate, the particles plastically deform and generate a coating.

Using Cold Spray, Moog has recovered aerospace components such as magnesium transmission housings and covers, titanium hydraulic tubes and aluminum panels that had been scrapped due to corrosion and wear. “Cold Spray can revive these pieces by dimen-sionally restoring the lost features,” Markel stressed. The technique thus reduces both lead times and costs. “In most cases, repairs can be performed at a fraction of the cost of replacement.” O



The Coast Guard rotary wing fleet is nearing completion of critical upgrades with the focus now on the economic sustainability of the fleet. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard]


Bollinger Shipyards Inc. has delivered the Charles Sexton, the eighth fast response cutter (FRC) to the United States Coast Guard.

The announcement was made by Bollinger President Chris Bollinger: “We are very pleased to announce another successful on-time and on-budget FRC delivery to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Charles Sexton was delivered to the 7th Coast Guard District in Key West, Fla., and will be stationed at USCG Sector Key West. We are all looking forward to the vessel’s upcoming commissioning, as well as honoring and celebrating the heroic acts of Charles Sexton.”

The 154-foot patrol craft Charles Sexton is the eighth vessel in the Coast Guard’s Sentinel-class FRC program. To build the FRC, Bollinger Shipyards used a proven, in-service parent craft design based on the Damen Stan Patrol Boat 4708. It has a flank speed of 28 knots, state-of-the-art command, control, communications and computer technology, and a stern launch system for the vessel’s 26-foot cutter boat. The FRC has been described as an operational “game changer” by senior Coast Guard officials.

The Coast Guard took delivery on December 10, 2013, in Key West, Fla., and is scheduled to commission the vessel in Key West during March 2014.

Each FRC is named for an enlisted Coast Guard hero who distinguished him or herself in the line of duty. This vessel is named after Coast Guard Hero, Petty Officer Charles W. Sexton, who was posthumously awarded the Coast Guard Medal for extraordinary heroism. Sexton exhibited courage and devotion to save others in the face of grave danger. Petty Officer Sexton was on duty at Coast Guard Station Cape Disappointment, Wash., on January 11, 1991, as the fishing vessel Sea King, a 75-foot trawler, was taking on water four miles northwest of the Columbia River bar. Four fishermen were aboard and the decks were awash, the engine room was filling up with water. After stabilizing an injured crew-member on board, Sexton focused on dewatering the vessel. The Sea King was so flooded that it required several pumps to remove the seawater from the engine room. After more than six exhaustive hours of Sexton manning the pumps, the Sea King rolled over without warning and threw its passengers into the agitated seas. Sexton, along with two fishermen, was trapped in the enclosed pilothouse. He and the two fishermen went down with the vessel.

The U.S. Coast Guard has announced its intention to procure, on a sole source basis from Lockheed Martin, Moorestown, N.J., engineering services, production software builds, equipment consoles, rack manufacturing, and system integra-tion of USCG Segment 2 Spiral 2 (S2S2) command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR).

This requirement is to procure, produce and deliver four ship sets. Each comprises one quality assurance software build, eight classified local area network cabinets and components, six next generation work stations, engineering to manage diminished manufacturing sources, upgrade to design drawings, assembly methods/drawings, technical manuals, maintenance analysis and provisioning data.

It is expected that delivery of four ships will be 48 months, ending in May 2018.

Lockheed Martin is the sole developer of the C4ISR S2S2 System and possesses the detailed knowledge of the existing system design as well as the corresponding hardware and software code, and data rights.

Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a contract by prime contractor Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) to supply the ship integrated control system (SICS) on the sixth national security cutter for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The company received a contract worth $6.9 million to supply the SICS, which consists of an integrated bridge system as well as the steering control, steering gear, machinery control and monitoring system. The contract also covers engineering services required to complete the installation, as well as inte-gration, testing and commissioning of the systems at HII’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. The Coast Guard plans to build a total of eight national security cutters, and Northrop Grumman previously supplied SICS for the first five.

“The SICS provides the national security cutter with a sound, time-tested architecture and reliable shipboard infrastructure for the integrated bridge, machinery controls and steering systems, three major components where correct integration is particularly essential to mission effectiveness and long-term efficiency,” said Bill Hannon, vice president of Northrop Grumman’s Maritime Systems business unit. “Our improvements in performance and cost control measures demonstrate our ongoing commitment to providing superior customer service to the Coast Guard.”

Ship Integrated Control System

C4ISR ProgramCoast Guard Receives the Charles Sexton


oN tHE HorIZoN

Home Port Capacity BuildingHaskell has been awarded a $4.6 million U.S. Coast Guard design-build contract for home

porting fast response cutters at USCG Station, Pascagoula, Miss. This work will ensure that that Station Pascagoula is ready to support the arrival of the fleet’s soon-to-be commissioned fast response cutters, scheduled for the end of 2014. These state-of-the-art vessels replace some of the Coast Guard’s aging fleet and are vital to our national security.

“Haskell is committed to the timely delivery of these improvements without impacting the Station’s ongoing operations,” said the company in a statement. “The design-build scope will include the renovations to three support buildings, shore-tie services, pier utilities, fenders and cleats, along with the resurfacing of an existing parking lot. Haskell recently completed similar work at USCG Station Key West in support of fast response cutters’ arrival at that location.”

USCG Station Pascagoula manages search and rescue; ports, waterways, and coastal secu-rity; as well as federal law enforcement from 10 statute miles north of Interstate 10, to 30 miles south of the barrier islands, and in between the tips of Dauphin and Deer Island.

Non-lethal—What’s Out There?During the past decade the Coast Guard

has been outfitting its boarding team members with non-lethal impact muni-tions (NLIM). At present, the Coast Guard employs several different NLIM systems to enforce maritime law. Mission execution by the Coast Guard typically follows the sequential activities involved in the use of force continuum. The Coast Guard would like to expand the application of non-lethal technologies to compel compliance. It is anticipated that additional NLIM resources could reduce the need for use of additional, possibly lethal force.

The Coast Guard recently issued a request for information (RFI) as part of a market research effort by the Coast Guard Research and Development Center (RDC) to assess NLIM technologies.

The RDC is conducting research to identify both operational and advanced prototype technologies. “Operational” in this context refers to existing technolo-gies and equipment that are currently used in commercial and/or government application, while “advanced prototype” in this context refers to proven and near-proven technologies that are expected to be available in the commercial and/ or government market in the next 30 to 36 months.

The RDC intends to use the informa-tion collected from this RFI to conduct detailed systems analysis that quanti-fies and evaluates technology readiness and applicability, device or equipment capability, and acquisition (non-recurring) and life cycle operating costs (recurring).

Underwater Egress Training

The Coast Guard implemented underwater egress training in July 2013 at the Coast Guard Aviation Technical Training Center in Elizabeth City, N.C., aimed at increasing a member’s surviv-ability in the event of a small boat capsizing. To date, approximately 200 people have completed the underwater egress training.

The training stems from a mishap in 2005, where a Coast Guard maritime safety and security team response boat capsized while conducting high-speed maneuvers in the Port of Valdez, Alaska. The four crewmembers exited the cabin via the rear door and crawled onto the hull of the overturned boat. An investigation into the mishap found the crew had previously received egress training at their unit, which was credited to saving the lives of the crew.

The Coast Guard Office of Boat Forces worked with the Coast Guard Force Readiness Command and the training center to develop a boat dunker course designed to expose boat forces personnel to underwater egress training in a modular egress training simulator.

“The course is set, and our goal is to ensure we are providing the best safety training to our folks as our tactics and boat speeds increase to ensure they’re able to egress from a worst-case scenario, a capsized boat,” said Lieutenant Commander Sara Wallace, the strategic platform policy and compe-tency manager at the Office of Boat Forces.

The first of two training days include class-room time followed by water exercises that famil-iarize a member with the operation of doors and windows of the response boat. The second day focuses primarily on members completing four rides in a mock response boat as it is turned upside down in an indoor pool. Members complete two rides; one in the front seat and another in the back seat in daytime conditions and two rides in night-time conditions.

The Coast Guard’s boat forces operations repre-sent nearly half of the service’s daily operations and accounts for 80 percent of lives saved, 65 percent of security operations and 77 percent of law enforce-ment boardings. The evolving Coast Guard missions during the last 10 years have fostered small boats that operate at higher speeds and are more maneu-verable than previous generations, such as the 45-foot Response Boat-Medium, which can respond at nearly twice the speed as the 41-foot Utility Boat built in the 1980s that it replaces.

Written by Petty Officer 1st Class Brandyn Hill


Compiled by KMi Media group staff

Rear Admiral William “Dean” Lee reported to Coast Guard Headquarters to be the deputy for operations policy and capabilities (DCO-D) in May 2012, following his assignment as the Fifth District Commander in Portsmouth, Va. As DCO-D he oversees integration of all operations, capability, strategy and resource policy.

While assigned as the Fifth District commander, Lee directed more than 3,000 Coast Guard active duty, reserve and civilian personnel in the Mid-Atlantic region. Mid-Atlantic units were responsible for conducting nearly 20,000 search and rescue cases during his tenure, as well as supporting response operations fol-lowing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricanes Earl and Irene.

Lee has spent 13 years in six different command assignments, including Fifth District, and spent a career specializing in boat opera-tions and search and rescue. He has served along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts, in addition to supporting operations overseas as commander, Deployable Operations Group (2009-2010). His other operational assignments include: commander, Sector North Carolina (2005-2007); commander, Coast Guard Group Fort Macon in North Carolina (2000-2003); commander, Group Monterey in California (1995-1997); commanding officer, Station Atlantic City in New Jersey (1988-1991); and assistant operations officer at Group St. Petersburg in Florida (1981-1984).

Lee’s staff assignments include: chief of staff, Coast Guard Seventh District in Miami, Fla., (2007-2009); chief, Office of Boat Forces at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., (2003 to 2005); chief of Search and Rescue, Coast Guard Fifth District, (1998-2000); chief of the Atlantic Area Command Center (1997-1998); branch chief, Search and Rescue Division at Coast Guard Headquarters (1991-1995), and instructor, officer candidate school in Yorktown, Va., (1984-1988)

Lee is a 1981 graduate of officer candidate school. He holds a Bach-elor of Arts degree from the University of South Alabama, and a Master of Arts from George Washington University.

His military decorations include the Legion of merit (four awards), Meritorious Service Medal (two awards), Coast Guard Commendation Medal (three awards), Coast Guard Achievement Medal (two awards), and various other personal and unit awards.

Q: What have been the effects of sequestration on Coast Guard operations?

A: There are two aspects to that question. One, how did sequestration and the lack of a budget affect us operationally as a service? Second, how is the current budget climate—what we’re looking at for ’14, ’15, ’16—potentially going to impact our ability to deliver services to the maritime public?

Let me just lead off with the obvious fact that sequestration hit all of the country. It hit the federal government pretty hard, particularly military and the interagencies. Everybody took a bit of a hit in that. For the Coast Guard, we reduced our operational activities by about 25 percent. We had to make some hard decisions about where we were going to take that 25 percent from.

The commandant made a very difficult, and I think right, decision early on by deciding not to break faith with our civilian workforce. As a result, we did not furlough our civilians as a means of taking that sequestration hit. The decision was made to take it out of the operational account.

During those deliberations we decided that we would protect those core missions that really revolved around the protection of life and property at sea. We did not take any cuts—would not accept any cuts—with regard to our ability to respond to urgent search-and-rescue and distress calls 24/7.

Therefore, our reductions had no impact on search and rescue. They also did not have any significant impact on critical ports, water-ways and coastal security operations, what we call the PWCS mission. We did reduce the number of hours of patrols for PWCS, but we at all times had the ability to surge if there was a threat. We delegated down to the sector commanders, our major shoreside operational commanders, the ability to decide how they were going to adjust

Integrating Operations, Capability, Strategy and Resource Policy

Capabilities Integrator

Rear Admiral William “Dean” LeeDeputy for Operations Policy and

Capabilities

Q&AQ&A


those hours. We didn’t try and dictate their operational allocations from headquarters.

We also decided that we had to reduce our effective presence down in the transit zone, where we primarily are conducting our counter-drug/counternarcotics mission. This actually had a fairly significant impact down there, in both the counter-drug mission and in the migrant mission. For example, our preliminary figures show that we removed 88 metric tons of cocaine from that 6 million square mile transit zone area last fiscal year, but this was a decrease of about 19 metric tons compared to FY12, and it’s 27 metric tons below the annual average.

Also in FY13, the total flow of undocumented migrants—i.e., those who were seeking entry into the U.S. by sea—increased by approxi-mately 36 percent from FY12 levels, and this is largely attributable to a nearly 100 percent increase in the aggregate flow of Haitian migrants due to policy changes that came about after the Haitian earthquake.

Despite this increase in flow, we interdicted 860 fewer undocu-mented migrants at sea than in FY12—t about 26 percent less..

Q: Are there missions that you were performing 12, 15 months ago that you are simply not performing at all now because of a funding decision?

A: Well, no, we haven’t completely stopped doing any particular mis-sion—we’ve just dialed back the rheostat on many of them. Things like fishery enforcement and buoy maintenance, for example.

Q: When you first decided to reduce your capabilities in the transit zone, what was the process for letting the other partners know?

A: We were right upfront and told them what we were preserving and then where we were going to cut back. Everyone at DoD was doing the same thing.

The transit zone mission is a Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF) operation, led by SOUTHCOM. DoD and interagency elements handle the detection and monitoring, and we handle the endgame. We basically had to tell them that we couldn’t make as many hulls and aircraft available to them as we had in the past—fewer hulls for fewer days equals fewer seizures.

Q: What is the status of the development of the concept of operations for the Western hemisphere?

A: Back during the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton presidencies, the government decided we were going to conduct a war on drugs. For years we fought that war.

Well, we no longer use that lexicon, because I believe we’ve finally come to the joint agreement that this measure was not comprehen-sive. What we’d been doing every year was every agency with a dog in that fight would throw their metrics out, beat their chests about how many tons of this or that that we seized or took off the streets, and we’d go around and make a big deal of what the street value of that was, et cetera, et cetera.

In my opinion, that’s only one piece of what we need to be measur-ing and looking at. What I believe we also need to measure, from a new strategic standpoint, is the impact [of making a seizure] to the federal government writ large. How does that affect the transnational organized crime networks that are trafficking illicit drugs and how are we impact-ing them? And if we don’t make those seizures, what is that effect and

how does that impact our national security and economy? We’re work-ing with ONDCP, who has lead here, and our interagency partners to get the best set of comprehensive metrics for this mission space.

The new strategy is really built around our network of assets and capabilities attacking their network, so it’s network-on-network strat-egy. We’re trying to disrupt organized crime and keep the pressure on those people, because if not, we understand the destabilizing effect that can have in our country and downrange to the south of us.

Q: Tell me a little more about the Coast Guard’s responsibilities in the transit zone?

A: Responsibility for detection and monitoring (D&M) of drug traffick-ing activity is a DoD function. The Coast Guard plays a D&M role and also supports the U.S. Drug Control Strategy by providing interdiction and apprehension capabilities within the transit zone. Every year the Pentagon gets together with us and we go through what we call the GFMB, global force management board, process. This is where all of the services, all of the COCOMs, come together and decide who’s going to get what support for what missions, and where. This is really important, as there’s just not enough to go around.

With respect to the JIATF South/SOUTHCOM mission, they will ask for a certain amount of days and a certain number of hulls and air-craft flight hours, both in the Western Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, to cover the transit zone. Remember, this is about a 6 million square mile swath, which the narcotraffickers use to move their drugs.

Traditionally, the Navy has supplied a number of hulls and aircraft, the Coast Guard supplies a number of hulls and aircraft, and our allied partners—for example, the U.K., the Canadians and the Dutch—sup-ply a number of hulls and aircraft.

When a target of interest is located, a decision will be made as to the best course of action to intercept, investigate and stop that vessel if necessary. Now the issue is how to find a way to stop that vessel and ascertain what it is carrying—bad guy or not. Because DoD does not have maritime law enforcement authorities, the endgame mission at that point is transferred to us. A U.S. Coast Guard operational com-mander then takes over and, if it is determined to be a non-compliant vessel, will be the one that makes the decision “shoot or not shoot,” in terms of using either airborne or surface use of force to stop a vessel. History tells us that if it’s a bad guy, a majority of the time they are noncompliant, which means they’re not going to stop on their own.

Q: What kinds of systems and technologies do you rely on for mission performance in the transit zone?

A: I can’t talk about all of them, but I can talk about those that are generally open-source.

In concert with DoD and Customs and Border Protection, we are trying to take full advantage of unmanned aerial system capabilities. I would not say that we’re at FOC (full operational capability) yet but working towards that.

Unmanned systems can be a game changer for us, because they allow us to more economically provide critical aerial surveillance with a lighter weight, long-range platform.

Other aspects are a more robust intelligence network that’s able to produce better intelligence about when shipments might be leaving certain ports from within the source countries.

To be honest with you, and as you’re aware, we’ve been churning off of the production line a number of new national security cutters,


our most capable offshore patrol assets. These are long overdue. They have far superior capabilities than what our aging fleet is currently able to do, and are an absolute requirement to meet Coast Guard mission requirements and demands. The long pole in the tent for us is trying to recapitalize the rest of our aging fleet.

Our 210 fleet is long overdue for decommissioning and we’re trying to recapitalize that fleet. The 270s, by the way, are at the end of their original service life, but we are putting money and effort into those to keep them running as long as we can before they will have to be replaced.

We recognize, like the other armed services, we face significant resource challenges in recapitalizing our major cutter fleet, and we’ve taken significant steps to address affordability concerns in establishing requirements that maximize the efficiency and effec-tiveness of these new assets. Our focus continues to be ensuring we provide our cutter crews with the right asset to safely conduct the full range of missions in the offshore environment, whether that’s drug interdiction in the Caribbean or Eastern Pacific transit zones, or fisheries enforcement and search and rescue operations in the Bering Strait.

Q: How is the Coast Guard managing its icebreaking capabilities and duties with the current fleet, and what is your projection about relief with new icebreakers coming on board?

A: You’re aware that we just brought the Cutter Polar Star back to life. She was commissioned in 1976 with a designated service life of 30 years. So back in June of ’06 we didn’t decommission it, but put her in a caretaker status, which basically means we tied it up. Of course you know when you tie up a ship it starts to rust at the pier really quickly.

This effectively took us out of the heavy icebreaker business until we could find a way to fund and build a new heavy-duty icebreaker. We ended up in concert with other elements of the federal government, the National Science Foundation in particular, and with support of Congress, started to bring her back in 2010, starting with a very extensive overhaul.

We just finished all those repairs and upgrades, including hull, mechanical and electrical work, in December 2012. We completed a series of sea trials in January and in April she was deemed ready for sea. In August, Polar Star successfully completed some ice trials where we tested all the machinery and propulsion.

At this point in time though, we didn’t upgrade any of the science equipment. We basically needed a ship to break through to McMurdo Station in Antarctica to be able to supply and replenish the mission.

Bottom line is that Polar Star’s deployment for Operation Deep Freeze started in December and we are expecting it to reach the edge of the ice sometime around January 17.

For now, we’re going to provide the icebreaker capability with Polar Star and Healy until we can figure out how to get a new one to meet the current mission and the emerging mission requirements.

Q: How is the Coast Guard positioned today to better respond to and manage oil spills in the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon?

A: The Federal Water Pollution Control Act, coupled with the Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, promul-gated in the National Oil and Hazardous Subsidies Pollution Contin-gency Plan, designates us, the Coast Guard, as the lead federal agency for direct removal and mitigation of spills.

Since the Deepwater Horizon incident, we’ve identified a lot of things we need to do, corrective actions and enhancements that focus on this particular mission area. In 2013 we revised the OSRO (Oil Spill Removal Organization) Classification Guidelines; the most significant item in here was the creation of a classification program for dispersant, providing OSRO with a new capability request classification based on their ability to apply and set a volume of surface dispersants within a set timeframe. This improves our national dispersant capacity and our preparedness.

Secondly, we’ve stepped up in participation with BSEE, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. In 2011 we released guid-ance about participating in the BSEE government initiated unan-nounced exercises. This policy emphasized the FOSC, the federal on scene coordinator, participation in these exercises, which are unan-nounced exercises in areas where there are offshore oil facilities.

Q: What are the major initiatives, your primary focus areas, in the general broad area of maritime security for the coming calendar year?

A: We’re reviewing the integration of our MSSTs (maritime safety and security teams) in the major port cities. Since the disestablishment of the Deployable Operations Group, the operational control of those par-ticular units has been transferred back to the respective areas in which they reside. We’re now working to make sure that we’re standardized to meet mission requirements.

I might add to that, in addition to all of those things, we have many other programs and elements that concern us as a mari-time nation—issues such as the changing competition in the Arctic region, sea level rise, ocean policies, international engagement and maritime governance.

I’ll give you one more that we’re really concerned about—that’s cyber. So why does an agency like the Coast Guard concern itself about cyber? Well, it’s because our adversaries have the ability to hack into the computer systems of the maritime industry. This could be incred-ibly dangerous and they could create a great deal of havoc.

Q: Any final thoughts about the men and women of the Coast Guard?

A: It’s a different Coast Guard than I entered almost 34 years ago, but it’s a better Coast Guard.

If I’ve learned anything the last three decades, it’s that our budget is going to go up and down; there’s an ebb and flow, and we just have to have the flexibility to adapt and adopt. And we’re doing that.

I can tell you that the men and women that are coming through our accession points, both in the enlisted and the officer side, are far more smart/more capable men and women than I entered with. They’re really smart folks. They’re connected, they think differently than we did, they’re resilient, they’re hard chargers.

One thing that I have learned is that each generation likes to sit around underneath the maple tree in the back yard on Saturday and talk about how much harder they had it or how much harder they work than the newer, younger generation before us. I’m here to tell you that these young people work just as hard as we did, and they’re going to take the organization into the next decade and make it even better than it is now.

I have no worries about the future of the Coast Guard in general. I do worry whether we can meet the recapitalization challenges that are facing us right now with dwindling federal budgets. O


Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard. Use of this photo does not constitute endorsement by the USCG.

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edited By JeFF MCKauGHan

KMi Media Group editor-in-CHieF

CoordinatinG interaGenCy eFForts to develop a CoMpreHensive seCurity plan—Harder tHan it sounds.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, maritime enforcement efforts have been primarily focused on large com-mercial vessels (over 300 gross tons), while federal efforts to address small vessels have been more limited. In particular, large commercial vessel security is governed by Coast Guard regulations issued pursuant to the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 and other relevant legislation. For example, certain larger vessels are required to submit information—in advance of U.S. arrival or departure—on crewmembers, passengers, cargo and vessel operations.

This advance information allows the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to conduct risk-based analyses and gain a greater awareness of large commercial vessel operations, their passengers and their crews. In addition, certain large com-mercial vessels are also required to carry and operate transpon-ders—such as an automatic identification system—that broadcast information on the vessels and their locations, allowing authori-ties to track their movements.

In contrast, small vessels are generally exempt from these requirements. As a result, the federal government has limited knowledge regarding the owners and locations of small vessels.

Although small vessels are generally unregulated, the federal government has put in place some requirements for these vessels. For example, small vessel operators traveling to foreign ports or places are required to report to CBP upon their return to the United States.

However, CBP estimates that only a small percentage of the international small vessel traffic returning to the United States actually report this information.

Recognizing the risks posed by terrorists using small ves-sels to attack targets or as a conveyance for terrorists and their contraband to enter the United States, the Department of Home-land Security (DHS) issued its Small Vessel Security Strategy (SVSS) in April 2008 and its follow-on SVSS Implementation

Plan in January 2011 to help guide its efforts to mitigate the security risks arising from small vessels. The SVSS and Imple-mentation Plan identify several DHS components that have a key role in addressing small vessel security, including the U.S. Coast Guard, CBP, DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate, and DHS’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, as well as other federal stakeholders.

no FundinG—no priority

DHS officials have stated that there is no plan to update the SVSS Implementation Plan because it is not a priority, given bud-get constraints, and it is too early to measure the effectiveness of action items in the plan.

According to a senior DHS Policy official, although the SVSS Implementation Plan states that DHS should assess and update the plan annually, given these constraints, an annual review is too frequent. The senior DHS official added that per the Secretary of Homeland Security’s direction, DHS components are focusing on maintaining their ongoing operations under constrained budgets, and so efforts to update the SVSS Implementation Plan are not currently a priority.

For example, Coast Guard officials have stated that, in many instances, the ability to expand certain efforts in scope or scale so as to more effectively address small vessel security risks may be dependent on the funding of particular port programs or the availability of related grant funding, which can be affected by budget constraints.

Coast Guard officials added that America’s Waterway Watch—a program highlighted in the SVSS Implementation Plan that provides outreach to the public, including the small vessel community, on awareness of threats and how to report suspi-cious activity—may not receive funding in DHS’s fiscal year 2014 appropriation.


Better Coordination

Although DHS components have various initiatives under way, DHS does not know the extent to which its components or other relevant stakeholders have made progress in addressing SVSS Implementation Plan action items because DHS is not sys-tematically gathering information on their efforts.

Officials from four of the key DHS components that have responsibility for leading the majority of the action items in the SVSS Implementation Plan stated that while they are tracking efforts and initiatives of their component-specific missions that may address risks posed by small vessels, they are not system-atically tracking these efforts as they relate to the specific action items listed in the plan.

DHS officials involved with the SVSS working group, as well as officials from four of the DHS components, have stated that receiving updates on progress or lessons learned from efforts to implement the action items in the SVSS Implementation Plan would be valuable information. For example, officials from DHS Policy and the Coast Guard stated that they recognize the value in updating the progress of the SVSS Implementation Plan to incorporate new information about threats, changes in technolo-gies, requirements and lessons learned as programs are assessed, prioritized and implemented. In addition, a Coast Guard port security specialist added that updating the progress of the plan could help DHS better determine where to focus its research and development efforts and prioritize the related funding and resources needs.

To improve DHS’s ability to monitor progress, prioritize action items and identify successes, it was recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security systematically gather infor-mation from the department’s components and other relevant stakeholders to regularly update the progress they are making in addressing action items in the SVSS Implementation Plan.

FoCused lens

Originally created by the Coast Guard’s District Eleven as Operation Focused Lens, the initiative was piloted in 2008 to address small vessel security risks. As a continuing Coast Guard initiative, Focused Lens is intended to increase awareness of suspi-cious activity in and around U.S. ports. In particular, Focused Lens is intended to assist Coast Guard units in preventing small vessel attacks in their areas of operation by directing additional resources and efforts toward the most likely points of origin for a small ves-sel attack, such as marinas and vessel ramps. Focused Lens relates to the SVSS goals, particularly the goal to develop and leverage a strong partnership with the small vessel community and public and private sectors.

Focused Lens is composed of three phases. In phase one, Coast Guard officials are to identify small vessel launch sites in their area of operation and assess their attributes, including the size of the launch sites and their proximity to people, homes and businesses, and whether the sites have security measures in place, such as video cameras and lighting.

In phase two, Coast Guard officials are to enter the data they collect on launch sites in their area of operation into the Coast Guard’s Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model (MSRAM). A MSRAM analyst is to evaluate the data to determine the potential

of the launch sites to be used by terrorists based on the various attributes, and prioritize the launch sites accordingly.

In phase three, the Coast Guard is to decide on where to con-duct security activities (i.e., boarding small vessels, conducting surveillance patrols or promoting citizen awareness programs) based on the prioritization of the launch sites. These security activities are to be conducted at the discretion of Coast Guard officials in their specific areas of operation to prevent and deter terrorist activity.

Even if activities are not routinely conducted, MSRAM data can be used to provide the Coast Guard with important information on launch sites so that it can prioritize and focus its security activities during times of emerging terrorist threat conditions. According to Coast Guard documentation, citizen awareness programs can help to increase understanding among the general public—including marina and small vessel operators—regarding the process for reporting suspicious activities.

Since the initiative was first piloted in District Eleven in 2008, the Coast Guard has identified Focused Lens as a best practice, and it began to expand the initiative in fiscal year 2012. Focused Lens has been implemented, or is being implemented, in various locations within Coast Guard districts and sectors.

According to Coast Guard officials, it is left to the discretion of Coast Guard commanding officers whether to implement Focused Lens in their area of operation, given their competing priorities and limited resources. Coast Guard officials stated that Focused Lens may not be feasible to implement in some locations, such as areas that include a river that has no designated launch sites, and where a vessel could be launched at any location along its length.

Further, Focused Lens may not be implemented in locations where the area of operation is relatively small and response teams can respond in a timely manner. For example, Coast Guard port officialstated that they decided not to implement Focused Lens because their area of operation was condensed and all launch sites could be reached within a matter of minutes. Through regular analysis and refinement, and with feedback from its field units, the Coast Guard reported that Focused Lens is expected to remain a useful tool for operational decision makers.

This article is edited from Maritime Security, a recent Gov-ernment Accountability Office report.

assessing Risks

MSRAM is the Coast Guard’s primary approach to assess-ing and managing security risks. MSRAM is designed to cap-ture the security risks facing different types of targets, allowing comparison between different targets and geographic areas at the local, regional and national levels. After District Eleven piloted Focused Lens, the Coast Guard modified MSRAM to accept launch site attributes, and MSRAM is capable of priori-tizing launch sites based on security inadequacies, the proxim-ity of those sites to and vulnerability of infrastructure, and the consequences of a successful attack.

For more information, contact Editor-In-Chief Jeff McKaughan [email protected] or



Advances in virtual training systems have increasingly allowed Coast Guard personnel to train on simu-lators that accurately emu-late operational conditions. These improvements in sim-ulated systems have a num-ber of implications. They allow Coast Guard person-nel easier access to training resources. They replace, to some degree, the emphasis on live training. These two factors save the Coast Guard training dollars in an ever-tighter budget environment.

“From the Coast Guard perspective, the biggest advances in simulated train-ing systems have been in visual systems and databases,” said Chris Broxterman, the flight training system branch chief at the Aviation Training Center-Mobile, the Coast Guard’s graduate school for flight training. “We now have products available that allow us to replicate the Coast Guard maritime operational environment. These

include weather effects and the ability to create three-dimensional sea states up to

sea state five. This enables us to create simulated pro-ficiency courses that put crews under realistic and stressful conditions and allows us to observe crew behavior under real-world circumstances.”

“The goal of training and simulation technologies is to provide more realistic train-ing in a cost-constrained

environment,” said Clar-ence Pape, vice president for simulation and training at Intelligent Decisions. “Main-taining operational profi-ciency is important. Mistakes are costly and the impact of errors can be substantial. This kind of training can be offered anywhere, anytime to simulate discrete tasks to increase proficiency.”

“As declining budgets impacts gov-ernment organizations, there is a grow-ing realization that more simulations are needed to maintain the tempo of training,” said Mark Campsey, director of operations for Laser Shot.

In the past few years, there has been movement towards greater adoption of simulation technologies for operational events, according to Pape. “The military and Coast Guard want to train person-nel for real world circumstances without facing life-threatening dangers,” he said. “Simulation training is making advances

to reduce the cost of train-ing and education while enhancing the realism of the training experience.”

The Coast Guard’s Avia-tion Training Center inte-grates virtual training systems with computerized courseware and includes desktop flight management desktop trainers as well as operational flight trainers

By peter BuxBauM

CGF Correspondent

siMulation traininG is an eFFeCtive way to ManaGe Costs and Maintain sKill sets.

Chris Broxterman

Clarence Pape


with a fully-functional cockpit. “Students who experience this training in realis-tic but virtual environments know what to expect when they get out there and perform the task in the real world,” said Broxterman. “The use of this technology is being driven largely from a cost-benefit standpoint. The Coast Guard doesn’t have to use operational assets when it trains in a simulated environment.”

The Coast Guard, in particular, can make good use of training simulators in connection with the introduction of new classes of vessels, noted Timothy Park, sales manager for marine technologies at Transas USA Inc. “Crewmembers need to be trained on the new technologies,” he said. “We have development tools that can quickly and economically develop custom engine rooms and bridges that can be used to train on those vessels.” Transas recently piloted a project with Bollinger Shipyards that will enable the train-ing of Coast Guard crews on bridge and engine room operations even before the ships are launched.

That is not to say that vir-tualized training completely displaces live training. “There is no replacement for live training, but chang-ing cultural attitudes that recognize that the goal of simulation is to make the live training situations as effective as possible is help-ing to shift the culture,” said Pape. “Leadership’s adoption of simulation as an effective method of training contin-ues to either drive or limit the use of this technical capability.”

Over the past 20 years, it has become an accepted practice for trainees to spend a certain number of hours in a simulated aircraft prior to actually flying an airplane, noted Pape. “These trainees later go on to train further in real aircraft, but the begin-ning steps and lessons are more effectively and safely taught in the simulator,” he said. “This type of simulation translates to gunnery and many other areas, includ-ing boating skills, that can be simulated prior to boarding and piloting a vessel. As technology advances and budgets shrink, organizations are looking to simulation as an effective and proven method for training prior to a live event.” The Coast Guard con-ducts half or more of its aviation training in simulators for some of the aircraft in its fleet, according to Broxterman.

Intelligent Decisions’ simulation and training capabilities support a variety of markets and needs, including those of the U.S. Coast Guard. “We are working on tactical vessel simulators that would be of value to the Coast Guard for navigation and gunnery,” said Pape. “Essentially, these are gunships for security and interdiction. Additionally, we offer the capability for tactical ship boarding, close quarters battle and other types of training where weapons are needed.”

Laser Shot has a new line of weapon training simulators that was introduced toward the end of last year, known as the PSATS, or Portable Small Arms Training Simulator, a dozen of which have been ordered by the U.S. Coast Guard. PSATS users shoot sidearms emitting a laser signal at a screen while standing 10 to 12 feet away.

The primary advantage of the PSATS-Military prod-uct is that they are acces-sible, according to Campsey. “They can be used wher-ever servicemembers are and whenever time allows, provided they have elec-tricity,” he said. “It doesn’t require contractor support to schedule or operate the system. Older systems are positioned in static locations and trainees have to sched-ule training and travel to get there. They end up training on marksmanship once or twice a year. The portabil-ity of this system makes it accessible to customers to use whenever the trainees have ability to use it.”

The PSATS provides a hard copy or digital file of the training activity so that it can serve as a

local digital gate table to ensure training on fundamentals of marksmanship has been achieved prior to expending live fire training resources. “The software is fun, motivating and allows competitiveness,” said Campsey. “It sustains students’ desires to shoot and maintain marksmanship proficiency. The weapon used is not tethered to a box, which many users feel makes for a more realistic shooting experience.”

The system is also man-portable. “It is capable of going to where servicemem-bers are,” said Campsey, “saving time and money associated with transportation requirements.”

PSATS weighs less than 33 pounds, minus the screen and the weapon. “To develop the PSATS, we miniaturized the computer and put in a box,” said Campsey. “We also executed efficiencies to tremen-dously reduce the price. That makes the system capable of being deployed with a unit to support marksmanship training in austere environments.”

PSATS is also capable of network-ing multiple systems for high through-put or can be used individually in small units. “The units are in charge of a tre-mendous training resource and they can roll their members into training and sustain that training throughout the year,” said Campsey.

Tim Park

[email protected]

Mark Campsey

[email protected]


Transas’ approach to simulation is to create simulations that are not ship specific but that can later be custom-ized to emulate the look and functionality of bridges and engine rooms. “What we would like to do is to provide the Coast Guard not only an exact replica of its vessels but also a classroom system to augment the sim-ulation,” said Park. “You can put a lot more people into a classroom training envi-ronment than into a full-mission engine room.”

Transas developed just such a system for the New Zealand Navy. The simulator system was made compatible with any number of ships. Users can then touch a display to allow the system to conform to the actual equipment to be found on a particular ship.

“We have developed tools that can deliver this kind of capability very quickly and inexpensively,” said Park. “Legacy simulations can take years to develop. With our system it is a matter of months before the crew is presented with photo-realistic representations of the equipment in a real vessel.”

This is accomplished with Windows-based tools that can be dragged and dropped onto a screen from a library of equipment prototypes. “That library is growing at an exponential rate and allows us to create systems drawings using off-the-shelf tools,” said Park. “This was pre-viously done with coding that was very specific to the simulation tools. If the budget allows, the real equipment can be integrated into the simulated system.”

The significance of Transas’ pilot proj-ect with Bollinger, builder of the Coast Guard’s new fast response cutter (Senti-nel-class), is that personnel can train on a simulator before the vessel is actually launched. “Historically, the Coast Guard has had to wait for the ships to be built before training on them,” said Park. “That doesn’t create the most efficient training environment. We have the capability of providing a training environment well before ship is actually splashed.”

Transas’ ultimate goal is to be able to deliver simulations of every system onboard a vessel, from the bridge and engine room to cranes and weapons. “We are pretty far along with that process,”

said Park. “We can now simulate just about every operation on a maritime ves-sel. We can also simulate how systems

interact with one another. When a change takes place in the engine room, that too carries over also to the navigation system on the bridge.”

“Our product converts actual weapons to shoot non-lethal munitions,” said Eric Seto, military training manager at UTM, a provider of training munitions to the

Department of Defense. “Whether it is for boarding a ship or any other type of operation, the weapon looks exactly the same. This enables personnel to train as they fight.”

The training ammunition is made of aluminum and is non-toxic, so that it is environmentally friendly for training on open waters. The low-velocity muni-tions are accurate to 30 meters. “Using the training munitions also eliminates the safety risks associated with using live ammunition during training,” said Seto.

Use of the munitions requires a sim-ple user modification to the weapon. “It takes seconds,” said Seto. “For an assault weapon they would take out the bolt and put in a UTM conversion bolt. The magazine and everything else is the same. Most handguns require a barrel or slide swap.”

The ease of the conversion means that units can transition smoothly from train-ing to operations. “A unit in the middle of training can get a call that they are needed on an operation,” said Seto. “On the way, they can undo the conversion and load up with live ammunition.”

While research and development dol-lars are limited in today’s markets, Pape expects that simulation capabilities will continue to be enhanced and applied to training needs in an effort to opti-mize training dollars. “This year, we’ve begun work in support of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command on new advancements in simu-lation and training,” he said. “To create a more realistic training environment, we’re working to improve the fidelity of autonomous avatar’s behavior so they will react to user’s actions. Projects like this are an example of how we can build on and improve current capabilities.”

As with any large project in today’s fis-cal atmosphere, funding is the issue that prevents Transas’ proposed type of system from coming to fruition. “We hope we can convince the Coast Guard to move forward with this type of system,” said Park. “It is not inexpensive, but if the training can prevent an accident or a mishap, the simu-lation training pays for itself.”

Pape expects that distributed group simulation training efforts will play a greater role in the future. “More and more, organizations must operate as a geographically dispersed team, collaborat-ing and working together,” he said. “Social media has enabled group collaboration on projects or activities and in the future, simulation training will be used in a similar way. Multi-user simulation train-ing can aid disparate teams to practice surgeries, combined arms exercises, boat maneuvers, emergency response and other functions that require action to be taken across multi-functional organizations.”

The future of maritime simulation will likely involve greater levels of inte-grated training among different aspects of vessel operations, as well as coordi-nation between naval and other aspects of military operations. “The bridge and engine have to work together to make the ship run as effectively as possible,” said Park. “An integration of engine and bridge training capabilities would foster coopera-tion between the two departments, which traditionally have been separate. There is growing interest in bringing different types of simulations in one exercise.” Transas has worked with a company that has developed shipboard and aircraft sys-tems, such as battle management systems and command and control systems, to integrate those into bridge simulation systems to provide users with a complete training solution.

As for the Coast Guard, Broxterman is looking at emerging technologies that will allow the service to export simulations to operational air stations to augment recur-rent training. “We are starting to evaluate some new technologies for crew training,” he said, “with a view toward reducing training inside the aircraft and increasing virtual and simulated training.” O

For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan [email protected]

or search our online archives for related stories at www.cgf-kmi.com.

Eric Seto


The Coast Guard works to ensure its personnel have the right gear to protect them from the elements, whether they are deployed in Maine, Puerto Rico, or anywhere in between. Cold weather may bring its own set of challenges, but protecting its personnel from prolonged exposure to the water—and the threat of hypothermia which that brings—is a priority for the service no matter where they may be stationed.

Doing that requires a close relationship with industry, according to Chief Warrant Officer Donald Slowik, rescue and survival systems program manager, who manages all personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Coast Guard.

It’s critical that Coast Guard personnel are kept as dry as possible because water transfers heat out of a human body faster than air, said Brian Dalgliesh, military market manager for Mustang Survival, an Annapolis, Md.-based provider of PPE to the Coast Guard.

“Cold water does a lot of bad things to the body,” Dalgliesh said. “Twenty minutes can deprive you of mental and physical capacities, leading to hypothermia, unconsciousness and even death. Shock is rolled into that. Shock can cause you to panic and drown, or shock can induce cardiac arrest.”

Hypothermia is a concern even in water that isn’t cold, Dalgliesh added. “The constant wet exposure just draws the heat out of your body, and you actually get hypothermic in warm water far faster than in the air,” he said.

The Coast Guard guards against those risks by issuing personnel an anti-exposure coverall regardless of whether they are stationed in colder or warmer climates. That coverall “is normally known as the Mustang, but there are different brands,” Slowik said. “When someone says, ‘Grab your Mustang,’ they’re usually talking about the anti-exposure coverall, which is just an insulated coverall that will float.”

Lined with foam, which provides flotation and insulation, the anti-exposure coverall provides warmth out of the water and hypothermia protection in the water, Dalgliesh said.

“We were the first ones to develop that suit,” he said. “Before that, U.S. Coast Guard boat crews were literally wearing wet suits—they had to operate in wet suits when the weather got cold.”

U.K.-based Survitec Group is another provider of suits that offer “your best guard against hypothermia in the cold water,” said Connie Schreifels, eastern regional sales manager for the firm.

“It’s going to give you the necessary time to get rescued and still be able to survive that cold water,” she said. “Your survival in cold water, depending on your age, your health, the situation that you went

under in, is all going to play a part in how long you can survive in the water. … It really depends on possibly even how much you had for breakfast that day as far as how your body is going to react to that cold water.”

Survitec’s Imperial brand suits are unique because they are “more generous in their fit,” Schreifels said. “It’s going to fit a wider range of users,” she said.

The Imperial suit also features a dual-toggle, which makes it easier for a user to don, Schreifels said.

“It gives you a whole lot of leverage. If you don’t have that, you’re really struggling against that big, waterproof zipper that the suits can contain,” she said.

Beyond the basic anti-exposure garment, the gear that personnel are provided and are required to use is largely determined by air and water temperatures.

“When the air temperature [or] water temperature drops below 60 degrees, they should be in anti-exposure coveralls. When it’s below 50 degrees, they should be in dry suits. That’s the main pieces right there of the rules we follow,” Slowik said.

Beyond the anti-exposure coverall, there are differences in what’s used to protect personnel whether they work in a hot-weather or cold-weather unit.

“Hot-weather units only get funded for anti-exposure coveralls, where a cold-weather unit will get all that funding plus extra funding that covers the dry suit, the thermal underwear, the glove system, the insulated footwear, the thermal socks, the neoprene hood and their headgear,” Slowik said. “Cold-weather units get a little extra money. … All that gear I listed there is required for cold-weather units to have.”

Specialized personnel may get even additional protection. Coast Guard ice divers, for instance, wear a “beaver tail,” which is a strap between their legs that keeps the groin area warm, Slowik said.

tHe 50/50 Box

Specific direction of what Coast Guard personnel should be wearing is guided by the so-called 50/50 box found in the Rescue and Survival Systems Manual, which determines required gear based on a combina-tion of air and water temperatures.

“That 50/50 box is their bible as to what they have to wear [depending] on the environment, aside from raingear,” said Dalgliesh. “We make something in every one of those categories. In some cases, we’re the only one and/or the first one.”

providinG a Barrier oF proteCtion witH Cold and severe weatHer Gear. By sCott nanCe, CGF Correspondent

Connie Schreifels

[email protected]


Mustang Survival goes so far as to provide the Coast Guard its own version of the 50/50 box that describes its own products in each of the categories designated in the box, so personnel “know which of our products they can use when,” Dalgliesh added.

Some use of protective gear also is based on per-sonal preference, Slowik said.

“Some people like it colder than others. Some like to stay really toasty warm, so they’ll probably want a heavier-duty thermal set. It also depends on the temperature outside, and what their mission entails,” he said.

Personnel who work mostly in the cabin of a cut-ter probably will want to opt for lighter gear, for instance, Slowik said.

“Also, they have thermal socks, which are wool or synthetic—no cotton because cotton will just absorb the water. Like everything else, it needs to be a wicking material,” he said. A wicking material is any fabric designed to draw moisture away from the body. “Most of the stuff we use, like the dry suits and stuff like that, is a Gore-Tex material which, of course, will allow breathing but no water,” Slowik added.

testinG Gear to ensure it worKs

Dewark, Del.-based manufacturer W.L. Gore Associates’ Military Fabrics Division supplies its water-resistant Gore-Tex material to Mus-tang Survival and other makers of military anti-exposure suits.

“Gore wants to make sure that those suits are designed properly, and of course, we use the design expertise of the companies that we work with—coupled with our in-house design expertise to make sure that everything is put together properly,” said Tom Dykes, a Gore product specialist.

Gore also works closely with its partners in industry on product testing to make sure they are “fit for use” in the intended application, Dykes said.

At Mustang Survival, that means sending most of its anti-exposure garments to independent laboratories for testing against immersed hypothermia by putting a garment on a mannequin in a pool of water, Dalgliesh said.

“They measure how much electricity it takes to hold the man-nequin at a certain temperature. They have some scientific model that says how much current relates to immersed survival time,” he said. “It’s not an exact science, but it’s the best thing that exists today. At Mustang Survival, we will actually do that for most of our survival equipment, even though, in a lot of cases, it’s not required. We send it to an independent lab to have that testing done.”

The Coast Guard puts protective gear through “a pretty rigorous” testing and evaluation process of its own before it can go into general use, Slowik said.

“It’s not just me looking on the Internet saying, ‘Hey, these clothes look nice, let’s get them.’ I’ll find out who else is using them [and] I’ll call the manufacturer,” he said. “That plays a big part because usually, when it comes to PPE, let’s say a manufacturer contacts me and says, ‘Hey, we’d like you to try our product,’ the first thing I say is, ‘Do you really want us to?’ The Coast Guard is a pain, and what I mean by that is we are very particular on what we are wearing.”

That’s because the Coast Guard just puts more demands on the gear its personnel use than many other users of similar equipment do, Slowik said.

“Where most of the marine field—boaters, for exam-ple—may use PPE anywhere from four hours to 20 hours a month [or] maybe a year, we’re using it around the clock—24/7—so we really put the gear through abuse with the amount of time and hours worn,” he explained.

Usually a new piece of gear can take between one to three years before it becomes authorized for general use, Slowik said. “There is a process that we try to follow,” he added.

looKinG For tHe Best Gear— on a BudGet

Slowik works closely with industry and other military services, however, because unlike other services that often maintain even a small staff related to acquiring PPE, “in the Coast Guard, there’s only one person—me,” he explained.

“I work quite bit with industry. … I’m talking to these guys constantly. I’m talking to [Coast Guard personnel] out in the field constantly: ‘What’s working, what’s not working? Are your toes getting cold? Well, what do we need to do?’

“Some of it is trial-and-error. A lot of it is research from the manu-facturers, from the Internet, from certain groups doing cold studies, things like that. Again, some of it comes from the other services,” Slowik said. “ We try to share as much as we can so we’re not duplicat-ing work, and just trying to do the best we can at keeping everyone safe and warm.”

Slowik said he particularly has to keep up with industry because “new things are coming out all the time.

“Also [we] have to think about budget. Some new things are com-ing out, but sometimes we have to wait until they come down to a price where I can afford for the Coast Guard to buy 14,000 of them,” he added.

One such innovation coming down the pike is BattleShield X, a new type of fabric developed by Gore in partnership with Ashland, Ore.-based manufacturer Massif.

“The BattleShield X is the next generation of fleece materials,” explain Gore’s Dykes. “Fleeces, by themselves, are comfortable, rela-tively warm, [but] provide no wind protection and when they get wet, they soak up water really badly. Whereas now if you put a Gore-Tex waterproof, windproof, breathable layer as the outer layer of that fleece, you now get a fleece that has all of those nice qualities—stretch, com-fort, kind of looks good—but now you have the fleece being protected so it becomes windproof and waterproof.

“The Navy has approved it. The Air Force is close to approval. Coast Guard probably would be the next one that will go through the approval process, based upon what the Air Force and Navy services have done,” Dykes added.

But, Slowik emphasized, the price manufacturers charge for such innovations is keenly important.

“I can’t afford to buy overpriced stuff; our budget is too low. … The manufacturers themselves have to be a little flexible,” he said.

The size of a company offering the Coast Guard a new product also matters, Slowik added. “We have to make sure the company can handle the load that could come in” if the service decides to go ahead and pur-chase the firm’s offering, he said. O



Tom Dykes

[email protected]


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Joseph BattagliaPresident and CEO

Telephonics Corporation

Q: What are your primary business areas with the Coast Guard?

A: Our primary business areas with the U.S. Coast Guard are in maritime surveil-lance radar products for search and rescue operations, weather avoidance and small target detection. We also supply the USCG with wired and wireless intercommunica-tion systems for their fixed and rotary wing airborne platforms.

Q: How have you adjusted your Coast Guard-related business to maximize efficiencies and help keep costs down?

A: Telephonics takes advantage of large quantity purchasing power by manufactur-ing radar and intercom systems for inven-tory even when USCG quantities are small. Since our products are sold domestically to DoD as well as to numerous interna-tional customers, we fund material costs out of pocket for the larger quantities and pass those savings on to our customers who may have smaller orders. We also have an ongoing and aggressive manufac-turability engineering effort to eliminate repetitive touch-labor efforts, which add nothing to the product but add to the cost of production.

Q: How do you coordinate your business development efforts to make sure they match what the Coast Guard is looking for?

A: Our business development (BD) people are all highly experienced, technical people that can translate mission requirements into system specifications/capabilities. Fre-quent BD meetings with the USCG users allow Telephonics to spend our discre-tionary research and development (R&D) dollars in areas that will directly pro-vide the end users with products to help them do their specific jobs better, faster and more efficiently. Knowing the mis-sion requirements allows Telephonics to tailor our R&D efforts more closely to the USCG’s needs.

Q: How would you describe your after-sale support capabilities?

A: We are very proud of our after-sale sup-port capabilities. Telephonics is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. As such, we have many systems currently deployed that were sold to customers as much as 30 years ago. We are still supporting those systems with needed spares and repairs both in the field and at our repair depots like those in Elizabeth City, N.C., which is very near to the USCG Air Logistics Center. When redesign is necessary due to parts obsoles-cence, we apply the resources necessary to implement a low cost solution with form, fit and function replacement parts. As the occasion requires, we may make lifetime buys of parts when we are notified by our suppliers that they will no longer be manu-facturing those parts. At the same time, we are constantly seeking ways to reduce our turn-around times (TAT) for repairs, with a goal of achieving less than 30-day TATs for all repairs regardless of how major they might be.

Q: What do you see as major challenges over the next 12 months and how are you addressing them?

A: The effects of sequestration are the most concerning to us at the moment. Industry in general always strives to “do more with less,” but the across-the-board budget cuts that are anticipated will put a real crimp in the R&D resources that are available to provide the innovation that U.S. com-panies have always been at the forefront of. Telephonics is making changes in our

manufacturing operations, working with our suppliers to improve the quality and reliability of the products they deliver to us, upgrading our enterprise resource management systems for more efficient administrative control of our internal pro-cesses, and streamlining our engineering and engineering management resources to meet these challenges head-on.

Q: Is partnering with other companies an important part of your business strategy?

A: Telephonics is always willing to part-ner with other companies who can bring concepts, technology, or complementary products to the table that we do not already have ourselves. We are staunch advocates of not re-inventing the wheel for the sake of going it alone. In addition, Telephonics is ready to play whichever role makes sense for either partner in the relationship as well as for the customer. We believe that 10 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing.

Q: How do you measure success?

A: Success is measured in a number of ways. At the very top of the list is customer satisfaction. A happy customer is a return customer. Market share is grown by keep-ing the customers you have and consis-tently adding new customers. Success is also measured by the job satisfaction of your employees. Employees that are happy at their job will spend their time being creative and innovative, will have a happier home life, and most importantly, will pay close attention to the product they produce for their customer both within and outside the company. Finally, success is measured by the ability of the products that you pro-duce to fulfill the mission desired by the end user. Nothing is more satisfying than to know that use of a system or product you produced results in saving lives or enabling a complex mission to be success-fully completed. O

[email protected]

INdUStrY INtErVIEW U.S. Coast guard forum


Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Deputy Commandant for Mission SupportU.S. Coast Guard

NEXTISSUEFebruary 2014Vol. 6, Issue 1

FEATUrES:Harbor CraftHarbors are by nature a relatively confined area, and fast but maneuverable boats are required to monitor those waterways.

Maritime SurveillanceThe maritime environment is a challenge for surveillance optics, but industry has a number of solutions.

BiometricsBiometric data is critical in today’s security environment. The Coast Guard needs collection systems that are mobile, rugged and reliable.

Oils & LubricantsPetroleum-based products and new synthetics are creating state-of-the art machinery protection.

DISTrICT PrOFIlE:Protecting the last frontier—a detailed look at District 17-Alaska.

Insertion Order Deadline: January 28, 2014 • Ad Materials Deadline: February 4, 2014

SPECIAl SECTIOn:Maritime Propulsion SystemsThe Coast Guard uses everything from small outboards to large diesels to power its boats and cutters. Power, reliability, sustainability and efficiency all must come together to create the right system.


VICE ADM. MAnSOn K. BrOwn

MISSION READINESS

For the most challenging missions in the toughest environments, America can always

count on the U.S. Coast Guard. Vigor Industrial is proud to help sustain the mission

readiness of our fleet.

Semper Paratus.

USCG photo by PA2 Mariana O’Leary

VIGORINDuStRIAl .COM

SEVEN ExtENSIVE fACIlItIESOregOn • WashingtOn • alaska

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