James Parker, District Captain North My Vision for 2023

As the newly elected District Captain North, I’d first like to thank everyone who had faith and confidence in my ascending to this role. I have some big shoes to fill as our 2023 District Commodore John Holmes, and Martin Goodwin, our District Chief of Staff, sat in this seat before me. In this brief article, I’d like to describe my vision for where we should strive to be by the end of 2023.

First: The Coast Guard and Auxiliary leadership have issued guidelines that manage the pandemic risk yet allow our members and units to resume meetings, training, Public Affairs, Vessel Exams, Program Visits, and Public Education missions in face-to-face settings. There might be some members with chronic health issues, or for whatever reason, might still want to avoid a group setting. We should respect their decision and encourage them to continue activities remotely wherever possible. But, for everyone else, it’s time to re-engage and start to meet in person again.

Second: For the first time since most of us have joined the Auxiliary, the membership in D7 is below 4,000 members. So, our second initiative is recruiting. We need to find new members from new ethnicities and skill sets. The Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Fagan, in her comments at her Change of Command stated, “Tomorrow looks different. So will we.”

Her words hold for the Auxiliary as well. New mission areas, such as cyber, space launch support, construction, chaplains, and health services, give new opportunities to recruit from our communities. Expanding roles in some of our existing mission areas, such as marine safety and environmental protection, telecommunications, culinary services, recreational boating safety, and emergency management, will also play into enhancing our members’ ability to find their passion and be true force multipliers to our active duty and work sideby-side with them at the stations and in the field.

Every member needs to be a recruiter and assist in identifying quality, motivated recruits to join us and help maintain the Auxiliary’s sustainability and capability. We also need to assist the active-duty Coast Guard in recruiting. The Auxiliary University Program and the Academy Admissions Program and assisting the local recruiters in contacting

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(Continued from page 30) potential recruits are other areas we need to get more involved.

Third: Re-emphasis on our “Job One – Recreational Boating Safety.” All the expanding mission sets and capabilities described above are essential and increase our usefulness and assistance to active duty. But our real reason for existence and primary responsibility are the areas of Public Education, Vessel Exams, and Program Visits. The boating public we meet in these activities is also a resource for membership recruiting. This public interaction has had a material impact on the safety of recreational boaters. That is proved by looking at the safety statistics of the last three years when we were significantly curtailed from performing these tasks. Boat sales and boating were up almost 50% in that period, but so were the accidents, casualties, and property loss. We need to reinvigorate our efforts to return to presenting our education and safety programs to the public.

Of course, we can’t do any of this without training, qualification, and member certification. This is our next priority in advancing our mission effectiveness. The Auxiliary will do this through member training. Our training and qualification must begin to reflect the same knowledge and level if we are to be truly a force multiplier. The units must implement and continue coaching and mentoring their members. The route through the Auxiliary “career path” is not necessarily straightforward. New members especially need some help and guidance on navigating the various mandatory courses. In addition, we should pursue the participation of the senior members to attend leadership training and get familiar with the expectations and requirements of higher levels of office at C-Schools, the District 7 Leadership Academy, and annual workshops. As members gain experience, they should also seek the Operational Auxiliarist (AUXOP) and boat forces qualifications.

A major tenet of membership has been fellowship and social. We should work hard to meet our duty and challenges, but it should also be fun for the members. Meals before or after missions, field trips to various venues such as museums, theatres, and skills competitions must be put back into the process to develop camaraderie and relationships critical to an all-volunteer organization like ours. Inviting our active-duty counterparts to these events would also be of benefit to help build the “One-Team” concept and for the active duty to get to know our members outside of the regular duty hours.

Finally, leaders should make every effort to recognize our members with awards and recognition for their actions and accomplishments. Awards are the only “pay” our members receive, and our members should be rewarded as often as possible. There are templates and job aids to help write the awards and an entire committee to assist with the process. Unit leaders should ensure that this is accomplished.

That concludes my summary of the vision we need to emphasize in 2023. We are back, and we need to get back to work. We also need to ensure the relevancy and sustainability of the Auxiliary as our missions and membership evolve. Anyone with ideas on how we can do things better and more efficiently or a new initiative we can pursue should bring it up the Chain of Leadership and Management. Ω