The Coast Guard is taking steps toward retooling its permanent change-of-station rotations, to boost job proficiency, benefit service members and their families and, tangentially, save money.
Tour lengths for more than 2,000 billets will be see extended tour lengths this year, according to a recently released ALCOAST message.
Moving around is a fact of military life. However, there are some benefits to staying put a little longer.Meghann, can we include the message number so people can find it?
"Increasing tour lengths for certain billets will allow members to become more proficient in applying the training required and competencies gained for a longer period of time," Rear Adm. David Callahan, assistant commandant for human resources, told Navy Times in a Jan. 8 statement.
"Longer tour lengths also allows for greater geographic stability and should reduce the number of PCS moves members are required to make during a career," he added.
Officers and enlisted members reporting to one of these billets in 2015 will see a one-year increase in their tour lengths. Of the range of 2,399 billets affected, almost 70 percent are in electronics or information technician jobs.
The Coast Guard determined which tours to extend based on the billets' workforce proficiency, application of critical skills gained through formal training and career progression, Callahan said.
The tour extensions only apply to new orders into the specific billets listed below. Also shown are the , along with the new standard tour lengths and estimated number of billets affected:
Enlisted
- All ranks and ratings for afloat training groups; 51 billets; four years
- Health services technicians and storekeepers assigned to tactical law enforcement teams; 13 billets; four years
- Health services technicians and storekeepers assigned to helicopter interdiction tactical squadrons; nine billets; five years
- Food service specialists assigned to 87-foot coast patrol boats; 74 billets; three years
- CONUS ashore electronics and information technicians assigned to electronic support detachments/C4IT centers; 1,637; five years
- CONUS ashore marine science technicians; 435 billets; five years
- All rates, E-5 and above, at Pay and Personnel Center; 62 billets, five years
- Avionics electrical and aviation maintenance technicians at Air Station Washington, D.C.; 21 billets, five years
- AETs assigned to unmanned aerial system units; 11 billets; five years
Officers
- O-7s assigned to district staff; 18 billets; three years
- O-3s and O-4s assigned to Alaska patrols; 12 billets; three years
- O-3s and O-4s assigned to HITRONs; 39 billets, four years
Improving proficiency
The lengthened tours are an expandsionof a push on an initiative of begun by former Ccommandant Adm. Bob Papp, who told Navy Times in 2011 that the service he had extended some tours for admirals and captains, and was working on pushing those changes to the enlisted side.
"There were some places where we're leaving people in place for only one year," he said. "You could hardly learn your area of operations in that one year, plus the relationships you need to establish and maintain with industry and with the public."
That same Also that year, in a memo concerning the death of Marine Enforcement Specialist 3rd Class Shaun Lin, the former vice commandant of the Coast Guard, now retired then-Vice Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara, former vice commandant, wrote that Lin's death could have been prevented if he and his team had proper training.
Extending tours, Callahan said, gives Coast Guardsmen more time to learn their jobs.
"With an extended amount of time at a certain billet, members will increase their proficiency in their primary and collateral duties," he said.
Additionally, spending a longer time in one geographical region increases local knowledge, including infrastructure, marine resources and law enforcement issuesfocus, Callahan said.
Although Callahan said savings are not the reason for the changes, fewer moves do result in less cost. Papp said the Coast Guard saved $20 million on PCS moves in 2011, when his initiative took effect.
Tour extensions also benefit families with children in school and spouses who have careers of their own.There are also personal benefits to consider, for children in school and spouses with their own careers.
In a June interview with Navy Times, Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft pointed out that his four-star tour is his 21st set of orders in a 37-year career.
"Shame on us, where you have to move that many times," he said.
Plus there are the financial benefits. Papp said the Coast Guard saved $20 million on PCS moves in 2011. That's not the aim with the restructuring, Callahan said, though savings are possible.
Looking ahead
Zukunft told Navy Times that the ability to homestead is his "desired end state," but for now, the Coast Guard is taking an incremental approach to changes.
While the service is looking at possibilities for follow-on tours within a particular area, it's unlikely that a member will be able to spend most or all of his or her career in the same place.
"Assignment diversity is a key component of building leaders with an organizational perspective that encompasses the various challenges and competing interests across regions, missions and types of units," Callahan said.
For now, they're balancing geographic stability with the needs of the service, he said.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
