December 2010 Commander's Comments

Shipmates,
Over the last few weeks I've had cause to reflect on the sense of calm in the face of challenge that the mentorship, training and operational experience I've received as a member of the Auxiliary and the Coast Guard has granted me. I find myself responding calmly and competently to events that once would have caused consternation or even panic. I consider this sense of calm as one of the many gifts I've received from my shipmates, one for which I am very grateful. This particular gift does not come without a price, for me that price is the concern that I've not done everything I can do to ensure the safety of my shipmates. Our area of greatest inherent risk remains our surface and air operations programs. We work hard to give you the equipment, training, policies and procedures to operate safely but when it comes time to operate we rely on your integrity and judgement. This model has served us well in many ways -- we play by the rules, we use the provided PPE at the requisite times, we call off missions and evolutions due to conditions, and exercise our judgement and integrity in many other ways while operating.

We also need to count on that judgement and integrity when it comes to personally determining if each of us has the physical capability and mental focus to conduct our operational mission on a particular day or even if the time has come to switch the focus of our duties to other non--operational Auxiliary missions. The causes of such determination can be a passing illness, onset of disease, stress at work or home, a family tragedy, simple lack of rest, or any of a number of other factors. Honestly we are all aware age plays a part as well although it impacts each of us differently. We need to look to our core values and assure our culture allows honest dialog about our readiness, does not question the hard call to scrub a mission, and honors the extremely difficult decision to give up an operational qualification.

Our policy includes qualification or flight examinations. Part of the reason for this policy is to check that we are mentally and physically capable of completing the tasks for our qualification. We cannot expect our few members with responsibilities as Qualification Examiners or Flight Examiners to carry the whole burden of these judgements - hopefully we have all considered our level of competence and physical capability well before it comes time for our examinations. You should also expect your leadership to be willing to have respectful and frank conversations on these readiness topics. We owe it to each other.

This brings me back to my original point, I'm honored to work with such incredibly dedicated and competent shipmates - friends I've come to rely upon and would be willing to stand with in any storm. It is important to assure that our competency does not lead to a sense of complacency. We need to be introspective about our personal readiness and have honest conversations about operational readiness with our shipmates. We need to be able to answer yes to questions like "Can we quickly get any member of our crew out of the water?" and "Is our vision and hearing adequate to the conditions?". Again, we owe it to each other.

It is somewhat counterintuitive when discussing "when not to go out", but one thing that can make a huge difference in safety is operating regularly, participating in training opportunities, and building beyond being qualified to being truly proficient at our operational missions. There is nothing like actually operating to bring any concerns about readiness into focus.

Thank you for your service. Be safe out there and look to the safety of your shipmates,
Daren