Coast Guard All Contingency Preparedness Summit
Guest Blog by CAPT Vincent Atkins (CG-53D), Deputy Response Policy,
Tuesday, Feb. 10, I had the honor and pleasure to kickoff the Coast Guard's 2009 All Contingency Preparedness Summit at the National Conference Center in Lansdowne, Virginia. There were over 150 Preparedness professionals, planners, and exercise staff from the Sectors, Groups, Marine Safety Units, Districts, Areas and various Headquarters offices in attendance at this 3-day conference.
Significant discussions focused on initiatives to: share best practices for more efficient and effective operations; improve training and exercises; define a career path for military and civilian personnel; and, improve the network of preparedness professionals in the Coast Guard?s All Threats / All Hazards response environment.
A brief scan of the operational horizon reveals the Coast Guard living its motto of Semper Paratus, and being successful, in part, due to the contributions of its preparedness/planning community. Every Coast Guard District can point to recent responses that were anticipated, exercised and critiqued. Lessons were learned and plans improved. From mass rescues in D1 (USAIR) and D9 (ice floe); massive security operations in D5 (inauguration), D7 (Superbowl), and D13 (Olympic exercises); environmental responses in D14 (grounded vessel) and D17 (potential volcanic eruption); to critical LE operations in D11 (Southwest border), the preparedness community clearly played an important role in meeting the challenges of an all threats / all hazards environment. While the public often sees the end-game of operations that result in sensational rescues, averted disasters and successful law enforcement actions, these do not happen by luck and/or by the sole actions of the operators. As former Commandant Admiral Loy said quite frequently, "preparation equals performance."
Plans and exercises are great, but it is the process of planning and exercising that drives our best results. No plan survives first contact, but the intellectual capital and interagency/industry relationships that derive are sure to pay off when a response is required. Through the preparedness process, we gain a better picture of our capabilities, resources, gaps and most importantly, our critical relationships required to effectively respond to All Threats and All Hazards. It is through this cycle of Preparedness (Assess; Plan; Resource; Train; Exercise; Improve) that we create future success. As a former Sector Commander, I relied on my preparedness team of planners, subject matter experts and exercise staff to guide my approach to operations. From my current seat as Deputy Response Policy, the question is how to best prepare the preparedness community so that operations across the Coast Guard remain successful.
During my Q&A period, I was struck by this group's sense of purpose; their sense of ownership for the Coast Guard's operational challenges; and their very real desire to improve their community of professionals. Clearly, the preparedness community is energized and is looking for the support of the chain of command (at all levels) to support the planning, exercising and self-learning so critical to the Coast Guard's success.
Semper Paratus.
Tuesday, Feb. 10, I had the honor and pleasure to kickoff the Coast Guard's 2009 All Contingency Preparedness Summit at the National Conference Center in Lansdowne, Virginia. There were over 150 Preparedness professionals, planners, and exercise staff from the Sectors, Groups, Marine Safety Units, Districts, Areas and various Headquarters offices in attendance at this 3-day conference.
Significant discussions focused on initiatives to: share best practices for more efficient and effective operations; improve training and exercises; define a career path for military and civilian personnel; and, improve the network of preparedness professionals in the Coast Guard?s All Threats / All Hazards response environment.
A brief scan of the operational horizon reveals the Coast Guard living its motto of Semper Paratus, and being successful, in part, due to the contributions of its preparedness/planning community. Every Coast Guard District can point to recent responses that were anticipated, exercised and critiqued. Lessons were learned and plans improved. From mass rescues in D1 (USAIR) and D9 (ice floe); massive security operations in D5 (inauguration), D7 (Superbowl), and D13 (Olympic exercises); environmental responses in D14 (grounded vessel) and D17 (potential volcanic eruption); to critical LE operations in D11 (Southwest border), the preparedness community clearly played an important role in meeting the challenges of an all threats / all hazards environment. While the public often sees the end-game of operations that result in sensational rescues, averted disasters and successful law enforcement actions, these do not happen by luck and/or by the sole actions of the operators. As former Commandant Admiral Loy said quite frequently, "preparation equals performance."
Plans and exercises are great, but it is the process of planning and exercising that drives our best results. No plan survives first contact, but the intellectual capital and interagency/industry relationships that derive are sure to pay off when a response is required. Through the preparedness process, we gain a better picture of our capabilities, resources, gaps and most importantly, our critical relationships required to effectively respond to All Threats and All Hazards. It is through this cycle of Preparedness (Assess; Plan; Resource; Train; Exercise; Improve) that we create future success. As a former Sector Commander, I relied on my preparedness team of planners, subject matter experts and exercise staff to guide my approach to operations. From my current seat as Deputy Response Policy, the question is how to best prepare the preparedness community so that operations across the Coast Guard remain successful.
During my Q&A period, I was struck by this group's sense of purpose; their sense of ownership for the Coast Guard's operational challenges; and their very real desire to improve their community of professionals. Clearly, the preparedness community is energized and is looking for the support of the chain of command (at all levels) to support the planning, exercising and self-learning so critical to the Coast Guard's success.
Semper Paratus.
Posted at
11:29 AM
5 Comments:
Great post, thanks Vince!
I had the pleasure of being the close-out speaker for this group, and I couldn't help but be impressed with their dedication and enthusiasm. And why wouldn't they be all charged up? As planning and preparedness folks they are:
- Essential for a modernized Coast Guard - We have to be deliberate, thoughtful, thorough, and predictive in everything we do. Our planning and preparedness folks help keep us from just responding to alarms and trying to squeeze in everything else as we are able.
- Ensure Coast Guard is the 10% that makes the 90% successful - As a service we understand that maritime safety, security, and stewardship is a community-wide effort. We can't do it without industry, local governments, other federal agencies and the public. Our planning/preparedness folks ensure we are continually engaged and coordinated with all our stakeholders, and that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
- Semper Paratus - Who wouldn't want to have a job title that is the same as our service's motto? If we want confirmation of the centrality of our planning and preparedness staffs, we need look no further.
Alcon have my greatest respect and appreciation for the work we do.
Thanks again, and Semper Paratus!
DG
Admiral, Captain,
It is heartening to see such a group come together. The CG has indeed come far in it's ability to plan for major events. As a famous military/political figure once stated "Plans are nothing, planning is everything". The CG proudly continues to tread that line. Today's tabletop drill is tommorow's CNN ticker.
One comment I would make is to wonder why if Incident Command System (ICS) has been so critically identified for the planning and response process have our civilian ICS billets been cut so dramatically? At one point we had over 8 personnel dedicated to ICS development and implementation. Now we only have two? Can we remedy this?
V/R
CPO Wardwell
CAPT Atkins and CAPT Goward,
Thank you for this terrific post and for raising the visibility of our dedicated preparedness professionals in the field. As a District program manager, I could not be more proud of all the hard work that these folks are doing everyday.
VR,
LCDR Connie Rooke
I would like to forward that plans are essential to what we do. While they may not survive first contact they are the basis from which one can adapt and overcome to the given situation. I can think of many real live situations that we engage in daily that point to the critical nature of planning.
I had this long message prepared about how we need to improve on our service doctrine before we could truly begin to help preparedness planners to plan for standardized operations in order to facilitate preparedness by establishing common ways of accomplishing our task. Then it occurred to me that I should focus on one message, Logistics.
I did a short review of a numbered plan to reinforce what I already knew. Logistics is at least half of the plan. This means that logistics is at least half of the preparedness planning process. If you look at the NIMS/ICS world you?ll find the same relationship exists. So where is the logistics effort to improve preparedness? It is definitely needed and needs to be addressed. I would argue that if you don?t have logistics as part of this process or include logistics up front then the sustained support that is needed in an event will always be reactionary and inefficient. Bottom line is, don?t forget logistics.
Chief Wardwell,
Thanks for your post and question. I asked my staff to take a look at the billets dedicated to ICS. You?re right that at one point we had eight billets. Now, we have four. The remaining four are still under discussion as we wrestle with how to modernize our organization at the Area level. As program managers, we remain committed to providing the necessary training and support needed at the field level to sustain operational excellence. So, part of our plan is to ensure that our modernized construct continues to provide for ICS program support. Further, our draft campaign plan recognizes the critical role of ICS in future operational success, but we have some work to do. We need to baseline our ICS training requirement, identify current capability, and then resolve those gaps.
While we deal with the programmatic challenges, your continued support at the field level is important. We need to ensure the right folks are taking on-line ICS courses and, as required, following it up with class room training. A unit?s up-to-date Watch, Quarter and Station Bill is critical to identify who needs what training. Also, unit training systems needs to reflect training executed, and unit exercises need to fully test the principles of ICS. I appreciate your concern and help as we keep ICS as one of the pillars of our operational preparedness.
Respectfully,
Captain Atkins
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