During the ice-free season these national security cutters can operate in that environment. Connectivity, command, and control are a challenge when you get up in these high latitudes, as you look at bandwidth communications and our existing satellite coverage. It’s very limited up there, especially once you get much north of about 72 degrees. If you need to move large bandwidths of information, imagery, and the like, it’s a challenge. And it’s a national challenge; it’s not just a Coast Guard challenge. It’s another area where we need to look at the whole of government: How do we reconstitute our satellite constellation to provide that broadband communications in the high latitudes? We have the surface assets that can certainly leverage that.

Like all the services, we’ve extended our maternity leave, from six weeks to 12. And that’s been very well received. We’re also re-examining weight standards for women who have just gone to term, or near-full-term pregnancy – often we don’t give them enough time to get within weight standards. So we’re providing relief there as well.

The “Human Capital Strategy,” released in January 2016, outlines the service’s approach to attracting and keeping the next generations of Coast Guard personnel. One of the ideas mentioned in the strategy is a need for more specialized personnel – a move away from the “jack-of-all-trades” approach that the service is historically known for. Could you talk more about the strategy and what Coast Guard leadership is doing right now to implement it?

One of the principles we follow at the Coast Guard is what we call intelligence-driven operations. We use intelligence to manage risk. We can’t be all places all times, so we can at least prioritize where do we get the best bang for the buck.

So when we send a national security cutter down into the transit zone, where we’re seeing unprecedented flows of cocaine – back in my day, you were a ship that ran like a tractor plowing a field, you know, hedgerow after hedgerow hoping that in one of those passes you just might get lucky and stumble on a go-fast [boat].

But we don’t rely on luck anymore. We’re targeting the flow that’s down there. And we’re able to do that because back on the home front, we have intelligence specialists who are able to discriminate what we call white noise from a bona fide threat to maritime security, and who are able to push that information to a ship. Now, that same cutter is talking to an aircraft overhead. They’re operating in a classified environment to track these targets of interest. That same national security cutter is now launching an armed helicopter. They’re also launching two boats that can do 40 knots.

And at the same time, while we’re going after that boat, we’ll most likely have to interact with one of the 41 countries with whom we have bilateral agreements, so that we don’t have to go to that nation-state to ask permission to board. It’s a much more complex operating environment that we find ourselves in today, with intelligence driving operations and leveraging the full capability of these platforms we have. Gone is the day when we could have greenhorns who show up, do one tour of this, and then decide, ‘Well, I’ll go try and do something else in the Coast Guard.’ This isn’t a hobby. This is a profession. And we really need to professionalize every aspect of what we do.

The “Human Capital Strategy” devotes a lot of attention to the service’s Duty to People principle, as well – plans to support, educate, and retain the best candidates out there.

Absolutely. For our junior enlisted people and those that don’t have bachelor’s degrees, we’re providing tuition assistance. We now have formal leadership training for all of our enlisted people, from basic training all the way up to a master chief. And we’re doing it for mid-grade officers and our civilians as well.

Like all the services, we’ve extended our maternity leave, from six weeks to 12. And that’s been very well received. We’re also re-examining weight standards for women who have just gone to term, or near-full-term pregnancy – often we don’t give them enough time to get within weight standards. So we’re providing relief there as well.

We’re cutting back on the number of moves that you make during a Coast Guard career. I’ve made 21 in 39 years. I can’t say that all of those made sense – but they were orders, and I followed them. But today’s families often find themselves trying to manage two careers, and they may grow weary of having to move every two years.

We’re looking at specialization pay for certain ratings. Our food service specialist, for example, is one of our most critical ratings in the Coast Guard today. And we’re offering them the ability to sign on and be part of Team Coast Guard as well.

There’s a pretty lengthy list of things we’re doing. I’ve got about 35 of these. It’s great to have a “Human Capital Strategy,” but it becomes shelfware if there’s nothing behind it. So we’re really listening to what concerns our people the most, and then continually challenging some of our status quo personnel policies that have existed for more than 200 years.

You mentioned the complex operating environment in the transit zone. The Coast Guard and its partners in Joint Interagency Task Force South have made record seizures of drug shipments in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific in each of the last two years. How do you manage such success against the formidable resources of these transnational criminal organizations?

None of this would happen without our partners. First, within our DHS [Department of Homeland Security] family, CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] is flying surveillance aircraft out of foreign countries in Central America, supporting us in this effort. And ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is supporting our investigative efforts. So we’re not just going after the carriers, the mules, but we’re going after the heads of these organizations.