Admiral Thad W. Allen, Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, Delivers his First State of the

Admiral Thad Allen, the Commandant of the US Coast Guard, gave his first State of the Coast Guard address on Tuesday. Allen is the highest ranking member of the US Coast Guard and its only four-star Admiral. Appointed last year for a four year term by the President of the United States and confirmed by the US Senate, Allen reports to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the President. The Coast Guard was moved from the Department of Transportation, culminating organizational changes which came in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Allen’s speech began by acknowledging the obvious: the Coast Guard is strong but has difficult challenges before it. Although the Coast Guard has never had a more high profile position than it does today, the bright spotlight has not always been kind to the nation’s fifth uniformed military branch. Much of Allen’s remarks therefore revolved around needed changes and positioning the service for the future. In the not-too-distant past, a previously neglected and under funded Coast Guard provided superb service by “doing more with less.” But today’s Coast Guard can no longer claim to have been given less than it needs and the expensive Deepwater retooling of the Coast Guard’s assets are ample testimony to that fact. What they’ve done with that increased funding has been the subject of intense criticism. Allen acknowledged some of the Coast Guard’s failings in his address. “Since 9/11 we have added 4,000 people to the Service and our annual budget has nearly doubled to $8 billion dollars. The Coast Guard needs to evolve to keep pace.” Allen went on to say “We have been running some parts of the Coast Guard like a small business, when we are a Fortune 500 Company.” As the one individual responsible for Deepwater, he vowed to get it right. Specific changes to the Coast Guard command structure are coming, according to Allen. The Pacific and Atlantic fleets will now report to just one commander and the new deputy commandant for mission support will oversee the design, acquisition and construction of new ships and aircraft and the maintenance of the fleet once they are built, functions that are now managed separately. It is hoped that the move will eliminate the need to give out too much authority for design and construction decisions to Deepwater contractors. As Allen outlined his visions for a better, more efficient Coast Guard, he said, “Folks, this is a radically changed mission environment. My father is in the room and this is not my father’s Coast Guard.” The statement rang true in many ways, not just in terms of the ever-changing and broadening scope of Coast Guard missions. Some observers say that the Coast Guard needs fixing and that yesterday’s Coast Guard was arguably a more efficient and responsive organization. Today, the guy who was brought in to clean up the mess in Louisiana after Katrina has been tasked with something equally difficult. It remains to be seen if he can do it again. Read the Commandant’s speech at: http://www.uscg.mil/comdt/speeches/docs/transcript.pdf