Press ReleaseDate: December 16, 2008
Contact: iCommandant
The first Master Chief
Maritime Enforcement Specialists 
WASHINGTON, DC Shipmates
History was made at Coast Guard Headquarters today, when we announced the selection of the first Master Chief Maritime Enforcement Specialists (MECM).
I approved the establishment of the rating in June of this year. 01 January 2010 is the full implementation date for the rating. This is the first milestone in the creation and implementation of the Maritime Enforcement Specialist rating.
The first members of the new rating are:
MECM Gordon Muse: Rating Force Manager
MECM Steven Lowry: Senior SWE/Non-Resident Course Writer
MECM Randy Krahn: ME A School Chief
MECM Sam Allred: PS Rating Force Manager
The new MECMs will now join the ME Implementation Team and play an instrumental role as we move to the 2010 milestone. I approved last week the addition of PSCM Sam Allred to the previous announced list. As the current PS Rating Force Manager he will continue in that capacity and following the 2010 active duty implementation will assist the ME RFMC in ensuring a smooth transition of those Port Security Specialists changing ratings to ME.
I extend my personal thanks to all who worked so hard to make this day possible including Master Chief Bowen, Master Chief Jeff Smith, Master Chief George Ingraham, and RADM Tim Riker for whom this was a true labor of love.
The New Year will usher in 2009 and will also mark the 30th Anniversary of a seminal event in Coast Guard history. In 1979, the Coast Guard in response to the implementation of the Fisheries Conservation Management Act (200 mile limit) and an increase in drug trafficking issued a directive that created a standard use of force policy and mandated that all boardings would henceforth be armed. This continued the evolution of the post World War II/Cold War law enforcement mission which began with our international and domestic fisheries enforcement efforts in the 1950s and 60s.
It has been a thirty-year journey of evolution and adaptation as we saw immediately in the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, the shift from bulk smuggling of marijuana to cocaine, the entry of DOD in the counter-drug mission in 1989 (leading the stand up of JIATF-South), mass migration responses in the mid 1990s, continual migrant interdiction operations in the Straits of Florida, and domestic and international fisheries enforcement.
During that same period we disestablished the old Boating Safety Detachments (BOSDET) that conducted recreational vessels boardings, we created Tactical Law Enforcement Teams (TACLET) and Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDET), and we implemented airborne use of force against non-compliant surface vessels.
As a Lieutenant and Group Commander at Atlantic City (the old black shoe group) I was a field commander faced with implementing a policy that not all service members supported. In fact, some members chose to leave the service rather than become involved in law enforcement. In retrospect, I cannot imagine where this Nation would be had we not adapted to a changing external environment by creating new competencies and capabilities.
I have asked both Master Chief Bowen and Master Chief Smith to add comments and additional context from where they sit.
Let us celebrate this important milestone as further organizational adaptation to our external environment. Effective organizational response to changing demands is the service wide competency we are seeking in modernization...a change centric Coast Guard.
iCommandant Release
