All Hands MessagesEstablishment of Law Enforcement and Security RatingTo the Men and Women of the Coast Guard:
I am pleased to announce that on 06 June 2008, I approved the establishment of a Coast Guard enlisted rating involving law enforcement and security (LE/S) duties. This new rating will enhance our capabilities as America's Maritime Guardian and further supports the Coast Guard's modernization goal of making our force structure more responsive to mission execution across all aspects of maritime safety, security and stewardship. This is an important step forward in meeting our national requirements set forth under the Maritime Transportation Security Act, further reaffirming our commitment and support to the maritime industry.
Establishment will include an appropriate career path to Chief Warrant Officer. This decision follows a comprehensive, 14-month Coast Guard-wide analysis of mission execution requirements, human resource issues, and safety matters facing our members who perform LE/S duties. The analysis clearly supports the establishment of this new rating to:
- Improve our service to the American public, the maritime industry, and our interagency partners
- Increase training and advanced LE/S competency proficiency;
- Ensure the safety of our front line personnel, and;
- Improve career development and management opportunities for personnel interested in LE/S focused assignments.
I am also pleased to announce that the Port Security specialist (PS) rating will be integrated with the new LE/S rating. This integration will provide an active duty counterpart for the legacy reserve-only rating.
LE/S operations have always been a core mission of the Coast Guard but the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and the emerging threats in the maritime domain, required us to realign resources to meet increased LE/S demands. Immediately following the attacks, we established the Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security (PWCS) mission. This significantly expanded LE/S duties and competency requirements for our boarding teams, coxswains, and boatcrews.
Additionally, we restructured the service by creating Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSST), the Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT), Coast Guard Sectors, and the Deployable Operations Group (DOG). The restructuring necessary to meet the increased LE/S demands has itself revealed additional challenges. These challenges include recruiting, training, developing, and managing personnel in LE/S focused assignments.
Beginning in April 2007, the Law Enforcement, Tactical, and Security Group Occupation (LETSGO) team was chartered to identify and recommend solutions to these challenges. One particular charge was to study and validate the feasibility and scalability of a new LE/S rating. Our performance technology experts at Yorktown constructed and launched a tailored occupational analysis (TOA) and directed it to over 12,000 Coast Guard personnel. The TOA discovered that over 1,500 Coast Guard men and women across 32 unit types spend more than 50 percent of their time performing LE/S duties. This means a significant number of our personnel must maintain advanced proficiency in collateral duty LE/S competencies while trying to maintain the rating competencies required for their career development and advancement.
The rating will benefit the public and our industry partners through standardized performance and enhanced professionalism. Also, a new LE/S rating will benefit our personnel by allowing those who desire to focus their career on the LE/S field to do so. A rating will boost our service's return on training investment as we effectively sustain the critical, perishable skills demanded by LE/S duties.
Members of the LE/S rating will have the opportunity to serve in a broad range of operational assignments. These will include stations, sectors, cutters, Coast Guard police departments, and Deployable Specialized Forces. We also anticipate engagement possibilities with other military services and agencies.
As we proceed to establish this new LE/S rating, it is important to note that the majority of our boarding officers and boarding team members will continue to come from existing enlisted ratings. The LE/S rating will enhance our current LE/S force structure by creating a core cadre of subject matter experts in support of unit performance across six of our eleven statutory missions.
The time required to establish the new rating is approximately
24 months. To facilitate this timeline, I intend to announce the first rating force master chief before the end of the year. The next major step in the establishment of the rating will be the completion of the manpower requirements determination (MRD), an 8-12 month process identifying unit needs and billet impacts. The MRD will help scope the size and location of LE/S billets.
I suspect many of you have a list of questions. Please be patient. Answers will be forthcoming. Routine updates with timelines and status reports will be published via future ALLHANDS and ALCOAST messages.
My personal thanks to all of you who contributed to the study.
Your frank and timely input proved vital to this critical effort, and it will continue to inform the LETSGO team as it moves forward with the implementation plan. Let the work begin. Semper Paratus!
For more information, go to
http://www.uscg.mil/comdt/mcpocg/ under Current Events.
Source:
USCG Commandant's All Hands Messages
