Just over a year into his tenure as the service's top enlisted member, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Steven Cantrell has his sea legs.
He's spearheading an overhaul to enlisted professional education that he expects to see fully implemented late next year, while focusing on chief development. There have also been smaller victories, like the move to have all recruits fire live ammunition at boot camp.
"We are the world's premier maritime law enforcement service, so getting that done was important," he said. "For six years we hadn't shot. It was a simulator-based training at recruit training."
In addition to the professional education overhaul, Cantrell wants to boost participation in the indoctrination for chief selectees and to improve manning and job satisfaction in the operations specialist and food service specialist ratings. Cantrell discussed those initiatives Aug. 12 in his first interview with Navy Times.
Enlisted education
Last October, the Coast Guard opened up a survey to its entire enlisted force for suggestions on how to beef up its professional military education program for the roughly 30,000 enlisted members.
The goal was to mirror its Enlisted Ratings Advancement and Training System, which requires certain coursework to advance in your rating, but no specific leadership training.
"What I thought when I got the job was you could potentially have a chief petty officer that is 20 years in the service, 22 years in the service, that really hasn't had any formal enlisted education and leadership," Cantrell said.
That's not to say that the service is littered with uneducated chiefs, he added, but an acknowledgment that they can do a better job preparing enlisted leaders.
Today, "A" schools are piloting a three- to four-day leadership course for new third class petty officers, as a stepping stone to the Leadership and Management School every member attends to make E-5. The next step, Cantrell said, is to make the Chief Petty Officer's Academy mandatory.
"Our vision right now is every chief-select will attend," he said.
Right now, the academy is a five-week residency course in Petaluma, California. Cantrell said he envisions cutting orders for every chief-select to attend, and having attendees complete two weeks of distance learning and three weeks of training in the Petaluma schoolhouse.
They're looking at modeling the system after the Navy, which has made its Senior Enlisted Academy mandatory for senior and master chiefs. The Coast Guard's current system only requires a specific course for making command master chief, Cantrell said.
The goal would be to have both mandatory leadership courses up and running by November 2016, he said.
Chief's Call
Speaking of chiefs, MCPOCG would like to see more selects take part in the service's Chief's Call to Indoctrination, his service's version of the Navy's chief season.
It's not mandatory, Cantrell said, but he'd like to see more future chiefs take advantage of it.
He estimates that about 90 percent of 300 to 400 chief-selects go through indoctrination annually, but he wants to get those numbers up.
"There are still folks that for whatever reason will say, 'I don't need that' or 'I heard this' or 'I don't want to be part of that,' " he said. "We are trying to dispel that and get the master chiefs out there talking to the new chief-selects and go, 'This is important. Bring them in early in the process.' "
Like the Navy, Coast Guard chiefs traditionally underwent rough transition rites, some bordering on hazing, but Cantrell said those rituals have been weeded out.
"I recall mine, when I went through — it was hazing, plain and simple," said the former boatswain's mate, who made chief in the mid-1990s. "There were other pieces that you pulled out of it, but at the end of the day somebody could have said, 'What did you get out of it?' I got sick and I felt humiliated, and that is not what we want our leaders to feel like."
Things have changed, though. Today, command master chiefs oversee ceremonies to make sure things are above board, and Cantrell himself gets involved.
Each command is in charge of its own indoctrination, but Cantrell holds twice-yearly teleconferences with all of the master chiefs in charge to talk about best practices, ways to improve the process and exit interviews with new chiefs, who can bring up any issues.
"At the end of the day we want everyone to go through and get something out of it because that is — other than the chief's academy — that is the only professional development they get, that we bring them into the chiefs' mess," he said.
But there are no plans to make it mandatory.
Undermanned ratings
The food service specialist and operations specialist ratings are notoriously undermanned, particularly in the E-4 and E-5 billets.
In recent years, rating force master chiefs have offered certain perks to go FS or OS. The Coast Guard is unique in that it makes its members do a tour as unrated seamen before heading to "A" school.
Advanced training waits can be up to a couple of years for the more impacted ratings, but right now, potential FSs and OSs can go straight from boot camp.
To sweeten that deal, Cantrell said, they're looking at re-enlistment bonuses for those rates, which haven't been available in the past few years.
Personnel managers are looking for ways to boost shore duty opportunities for food and operations specialists.
To improve OS retention, personnel managers are looking at relaxing some of the duty-based advancement requirements, offering bonuses, and looking into other communities where OS skills can be used.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
