It is time the Coast Guard abandoned its present personnel assignment policy. The routine and arbitrary transfer of personnel every two-to-four years, while perhaps of some utility to the Department of Defense, is counterproductive to the Coast Guard's missions and monstrously expensive. It fosters a bureaucratic mediocrity unacceptable in an organization that purports to be the world's premier maritime service. The Coast Guard's transfer policy also is dangerous, because it thrusts inexperienced junior personnel into vital operational billets, requiring too-swift qualification. I propose a new model of personnel management: Leave personnel in their billets until they get themselves promoted out of their jobs; and establish regional stability, transferring personnel only within well-defined geographic limits.
If routine personnel transfers are not aiding in mission accomplishment, why do we do it? A common response I get from most folks E-6 and above with regard to our present system is that our policy does aid long-term mission accomplishment because it "broadens" us. No one is quite certain of the reason for all this broadening. The only time this broad knowledge becomes valuable is at the very senior enlisted and officer level; at the more junior levels it just looks like mediocrity. Are we grooming an entire service for performance at a rank that few reach?
Coast Guard missions are not the same as Department of Defense mission—and DoD trains for the mission, not necessarily the geography. The typical Coast Guard unit, on the other hand, has a well-defined area of responsibility and a mission that can be accomplished only through detailed knowledge of the area. Our first class boatswain's mate enforcing fishery regulations has more in common with a county sheriff than he does with one of his peers in the U.S. Navy. Coast Guard personnel issue licenses to merchant mariners and are deeply involved in regulating our nation's commerce. It matters if they are unfamiliar with their duties; people notice and the nation is ill-served.
When my patrol boat got under way every summer, after 50% of the crew had swapped out during the summer transfer season—and our boarding officers were trying to enforce regulations on fisherman who knew the law better than they did, and our operations department was completely unfamiliar with the area of operations—how was it justifiable for us to decrease our capabilities in this way intentionally? To broaden our people? Most of the personnel in key positions were one tour away from retirement. My acute embarrassment—when told that a Coast Guard helicopter pilot asked directions from a local mariner on the VHF radio for a well-known local bay—did not go away, even though I guessed that the pilot had served in tours all around the country.
I am a customer of the Coast Guard: I call District; I call the Marine Safety Office; I call the cutters. It is routine to get someone on the phone who has no idea of what is going on. They are new and they are struggling, and I am not talking about quarterdeck watchstanders—these are people in positions of responsibility. People assume that we are experts in local maritime matters, in the same way the local National Marine Fisheries Service office has the best information on the nuts and bolts of regional fisheries topics. And they are disappointed when they find out they are wrong.
We need to remake the Coast Guard into an organization that can be counted on for its expertise. How can we get there? Recruit from within geographic boundaries to fill billets within those boundaries (at sea and on shore). This will build much needed geographic stability, ensure that personnel have a certain amount of area familiarization, and eliminate difficulties that arise from dislocating people across the country. Leave personnel in the billets they are filling until they get promoted out of their jobs—E-4s/E-5s stay until they make E-6, E-6s stay until they make E-7; and so on. A similar policy would apply to officers. When personnel do transfer, it would be only to fill vacancies within those same geographic boundaries. Vacancies that cannot be filled from within the district would be put out for bid, to be filled from other districts.
I believe the resulting change will be dramatic. We will be a more professional, safer organization. The Coast Guard has much to do. Missions come to us unbidden and the budgetary environment is as fickle as the weather. The equipment, vessels, and aircraft we use seldom are on the cutting edge of technology. This is all largely outside of our control. Our assignment policy, however, is absolutely within our control. Let's make it better, to get the job done.
Lieutenant Button was commissioned in 1994. He has eight years of sea service and has served in a wide variety of billets.