The surface warfare community is in the midst of change—good change. Notable progress includes the increased focus on developing tactical prowess and the refined career paths to expand professional experiences and enhance community competitiveness. The energy of change is encouraging; however, there is a long-standing requirement to validate the surface warfare officer skill set as our retiring SWOs transition to the civilian maritime industry.
The Navy’s SWOs separate from active duty with no “credentials” to support their transition to the waiting civilian maritime sector. If they do switch to a seagoing maritime job, it is at a significant personal cost of time, expense, and dislocation, because they often encounter a process where their career skills and accomplishments are not accepted or valued. The aviation and diving communities have impressive resumes of training with parallel certifications and logbooks easily translating to their respective civilian industry. The SWO community has no such process that applies a vast maritime resume of experience to certifications and credentials when they separate from the Navy. U.S. Army Transportation Command mariners are all credentialed upon completing training, suggesting that more Army soldiers transition to the seagoing maritime industry than Navy sailors.
The U.S. maritime industry has a shortage of mariners at all levels. This is becoming particularly acute for engineering ratings and officer billets. The U.S.-flag maritime sector is actively pursuing initiatives to get some movement in the Navy and Coast Guard to achieve equivalent qualifications.
At job fairs it is commonplace for civilian maritime recruiters to turn away SWOs because they don’t have the credentials to join the maritime industry.
The industry has launched a few initiatives. The Merchant Marine Personnel Advisory Committee has established “Task Statement 30” to evaluate military education and training, then assess these against Standards of Training Certification and Watchstanding and U.S. Coast Guard certifications. The goal is to determine which career skills can be accredited to the military member. The campaign has two paths: first is the invitation to refine Navy training so graduates easily earn equivalent Coast Guard certifications. The second, and probably more suitable strategy, is the opportunity for the Navy’s training leadership to “cross-talk” with the Coast Guard’s National Maritime Center. This could serve to validate existing SWO career achievements and experiences that should earn levels of qualification and certifications without requiring service members to make up perceived educational gaps.
The opportunity to translate, validate, and accredit SWO career milestones such as the Surface Warfare Qualification, Command at Sea Qualification, and the Engineering Officer of the Watch Qualification would fill a void. Significant career milestones, as well as operational experiences from transoceanic transit planning/execution to choke point transits, can be accredited to the appropriate level for a civilian mariner without changes to Navy courses. But a commitment from Navy leadership is essential.
The maritime industry’s “Military2Mariner” initiative is an organized effort to validate military maritime training and hire veterans transitioning out of service. This initiative—which covers all maritime ratings, not just SWOs—has White House and congressional support mandating “credentialing” to assist in the hiring of veterans. The strongest argument by legislators is the extreme cost of unemployment benefits being paid to maritime veterans who are struggling to find civilian jobs.
A testament to this commitment is recent legislation passed by Congress. Notably, the Veterans Skills to Jobs Act of 2012 directs the head of each federal department and agency to treat relevant military training as sufficient to satisfy training or certification requirements for Federal Licenses.
The first step certainly will be to create a working group within the Navy to review and assess the opportunities in this area. The Navy’s earned qualifications are not arbitrary, and in many cases the standards are higher than those in the maritime industry.
A “SWO Credentialing” panel discussion is scheduled for the Surface Navy Association’s 28th National Symposium in Crystal City, Virginia, in January 2016. This forum promises to be an opportunity to allow key leaders an opportunity to interact and discuss this issue and strategize a way ahead.
These are advantageous times in this effort. Never before has there been such a demand from the maritime industry for veteran employment; the planets are aligned.
Captain Nygaard retired from the Navy in 2014 after more than 30 years. He commanded the USS Paul F. Foster (DD-964), Vicksburg (CG-69), and TACTRAGRULANT. He now works for Crowley Maritime Corp., headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.