Just as a follow on, you talked about the health of the ocean, living marine resources. Obviously as Pacific Area commander you saw many of those issues firsthand. How specifically is the Coast Guard responding to that?

We work closely with the regional fishery council and look at the various studies of the biomass and which fisheries may be jeopardized. When I was in the Pacific, my biggest concerns were the Pacific Island nations and the exclusive economic zone surrounding those nations, recognizing that was really the only natural resource many of those countries had to sustain their economy. If those exclusive economic zones are being plundered by intruding foreign-flag fisheries, so goes their economy. And those then become islands of instability. So we look at fish in a regional stability context when we look at the Pacific – especially in economies that are really one-dimensional. That was our view on fish there. In the Bering Sea, there’s a very good fishery management program, which is proving to be rather sustainable. The biggest threat up there isn’t so much overfishing as much as ensuring the safety of those who make their life at sea in that area, as it is clearly the most hazardous operating environment where the Coast Guard routinely deploys.

So, we have a lot of authorities and not a lot of resources. As we look at what is the world of the 21st century, what are the real threats going to be?

When you look at what areas you assign less risk to in order to cover higher order of magnitude risks, such as the unimpeded flow of contraband, human trafficking, and so forth, those are some of the tough decisions that I’ll need to make during my term as commandant as we look at the Western Hemisphere. This is not unlike how the Navy has looked at threats to the Pacific. They’re not rapidly building a whole new fleet of ships to surge to the Pacific, but you’ve got to take from one place to augment another. So we’ll use a similar methodology as we look at the fishery threat, the safety of life at sea, port security, and then again the Western Hemisphere as well.

As I hear you discussing this – the Arctic and all the challenges that exist there because of the melting sea ice and the opening of the Northwest Passage, resource contentions from different nations, the fisheries question where resources are becoming more constrained, climate change, growing populations, you have the fact that America has become a net exporter of natural gas for the first time in 60 or 70 years, and it looks like we’re going to be exporting more fuel. And that’s again a maritime resource that needs to be protected and maritime trade that has to be protected. All those are challenges that obviously the Coast Guard is cut out for. And at the same time, you were talking about having to cut personnel. If there is an argument for cutting down the number of troops in the Army because we’re cutting back on boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, is there also an argument for increasing the number of Coast Guard personnel because it’s a new world and there are all these new challenges?

That gets to my emphasis on holding fast on force structure, and just as you mentioned when I look at the increasing requirements that are literally at our threshold right now, energy is clearly one of those. Every day a new tank barge is being constructed. It’s imperative that the waterways that bring crude [oil] to market are kept open, are properly marked, and those barges are inspected. There clearly has been a demand for services from the Coast Guard. The transnational organized crime threat – that is another concern of mine. It’s also a concern of much of the Department of Defense as well, especially the Navy. But we have the authorities. We have the captain of the port authorities. As you may well know under Title 33 Code of Federal Regulations [CFR] that deals with movement of hazardous cargo and then 46 CFR, the inspection of vessels that carry those products, including passenger vessels as well, are all resident with the Coast Guard. And then there’s this whole compendium of bilateral agreements for drugs, for fisheries. And we also have about a dozen bilateral agreements that deal with weapons of mass destruction on ships that may be suspect on the high seas. So, we have a lot of authorities and not a lot of resources. As we look at what is the world of the 21st century, what are the real threats going to be? And in a just-in-time economy, obstruction to that flow of commerce is a significant concern.

On a happier note, you’re approaching the Coast Guard’s aviation centennial, and the Coast Guard has definitely been an innovator and a pioneer in a lot of areas of naval aviation. Do you have any thoughts on how the service might celebrate that or get the word out?

Yes, we’ve had some real heroes in the aviation community. Some of them are very quiet about their heroism. Probably no one more so than our former Vice Commandant [Vice Adm.] John Currier. I’m going to put him back in a flight suit perhaps and let him tell the rest of his story. I call us the silent service, not because we’re like the submarine service, but because we don’t tell our story. I’ve been at several of our Coast Guard Foundation dinners where we recognize heroism. When I was out on the West Coast, we had an aviation survival technician, all of 26 years old, named Corey Fix. He is fairly new to the Coast Guard, but in the last year, he has saved 13 lives. All of these were people in danger of crashing into a rocky cliff. They had three different rescue attempts. It was almost a scene out of the movie The Guardian. And he said, “Well, it just happened to be my duty day and this is what I do.”

I went over to Jacksonville, Florida, where we have our helicopter interdiction squadron. This is a squadron that has the machine gunners and the precision marksmen that shoot the outboards out of go-fasts. That unit is now credited with removing over $11 billion – with a B –$11 billion worth of cocaine since it was stood up, in conducting about 280 interdictions. And they just take this in stride. It’s what we do. So I think there’s a number of areas where we have people who put themselves in harm’s way just doing phenomenal things. Those are some of the folks that I really want to put a spotlight on, some of our heroes that have since retired. But that heroic activity takes place day in and day out. We’ll look for an appropriate venue to do that. Ideally we would do it at our national museum in New London, Connecticut. But that hasn’t been built yet, so we’re looking for an appropriate venue to highlight our 100th year in aviation.

You’ve covered a great deal of ground. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A lot of people ask what my leadership philosophy is. So I spent a lot of time in All Hands talking about that. I wrote letters to every incoming commanding officer in charge when I came into this job, which is about 370 letters, I think. It really comes down to the value of our people and your responsibility as a commanding officer. And I’m a commanding officer, too. No one in this organization is immune to human error. And human error will take place if you isolate yourself or you shut down people around you that would otherwise speak truth to power. So make sure you engender a climate where people feel free to speak up; they feel free to take some degree of professional risk and not find themselves working in a zero-defect environment because, quite honestly, you don’t grow professionally, especially at the most junior levels, if you don’t step out of your comfort zone. To be able to reward that and forgive those honest mistakes, use those as teachable moments, if you will.

And above all else, it’s our job to grow the next generation of leaders. It’s not what you did yourself, but what are you doing to promote the future of the Coast Guard. Everyone wants to leave the Coast Guard a better place than they found it, and in that regard, regardless of budget, I couldn’t be more optimistic when I look at the quality of our people. I’m a little biased, but we are truly getting the best of the best that take their oath to be members of the Coast Guard. Many of our junior enlisted have an associate degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, the E-3s of the Coast Guard. I even met one that had a Ph.D. I don’t have quantity, but I certainly make up for it in quality. On that note, I could not be more optimistic for the future of the Coast Guard.

This interview first appeared in the U.S. Coast Guard 225th Anniversary publication, a special edition of Coast Guard Outlook.