Looking for the Exclamation Point

When I departed the sailing life in 2019, I did not feel complete. Life felt like a question mark: was there more to be accomplished on the oceans? Yes, I would say; there was within my organization much unfinished business, that eventually pulled me back to sea recently as a First Assistant Engineer. I knew that one of the major challenges onboard would be in regenerating the workforce that dissipated during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Filipino expatriates, with US Citizenship, had made up a significant portion of the Military Sealift Command’s West Coast Fleet, and a stable core of experience for individual vessels. COVID-19 quarantine restrictions made this travel from ship to San Diego, and San Diego to the Philippines, nearly impossible. They faced the choice: Live to work, or work to live. Naturally, many chose to retire, or pursue entrepreneurship opportunities. To meet military logistics requirements, naval supply and other support ships of the Military Sealift Command are christened in a stateside shipyard, then sent to spend the next decades travelling between ports and shipyards in the Far East. It would be the crewmembers flying out to join the ship for four-month tours. This is the model employed by commercial navigation companies, and of the contractors that operate some Military Sealift Command vessels. Under this model, highly skilled and adaptable mariners mesh upon arrival with daily duties and maintenance management plans. To ensure continuity of operations and preservation of institutional knowledge, the Captain and Chief Engineer usually complete multiple tours onboard the vessel. Group performance is based on a model of “Form, Storm, Norm, Perform”. When working with travelling teams of experts, the goal is to have the “form and storm” out of the way so that the team can get together onboard to get the job done. Creating shared, or at least compatible attitudes, is the intent of Maritime Administration organizational guidance that covers nautical instruction at the State Maritime Academies, and the International Maritime Organization’s Minimum Competencies at each rate. Among company and organizational leadership, there is no interest in removing drug testing as a job requirement in the offshore and deep-sea environments. In a previous era, the attraction of a “sea daddy” lifestyle, a carousel of drugs and nightclubs in foreign ports, caused personnel issues that had be dealt with a firm hand. Naturally, these “sea daddies” often showed little interest in developing their professional skills. While drug testing remains, we have by necessity returned to the era where anyone can come off the street and get an entry-level job on the ship. Having been hired on-the-spot, many newcomers have their perception of the Military Sealift Command formed by cruise ship advertisements. So, how do you instill professional attitudes required to succeed in the workplace; in addition to the on-the-job training required to make them skilled tradesmen? As I have written before, maritime academies and Navy skilled ratings schools had satisfied these needs for decades, absolving the Military Sealift Command of a major civil service concept: that someone could be increase their knowledge, skills, and abilities within their employment. While major restructurings of asset management within the Military Sealift Command have occurred as the organization assumed greater operational responsibilities, personnel management has not changed in forty years, despite generational differences: it is still considered a human resources function run by specialists in that field, in contrast to big-picture workforce development inspired by the experience of senior officers of the line. This is where I see the exclamation point, where I felt that unfinished business could be addressed. Two areas where younger, college-educated officers had pushed for were paternity leave: millennial men like to be around for childbirth, and obtaining resignations from AWOL employees who had taken jobs elsewhere. Narrow-visioned application of prevailing Marine Wage Practices had created some unintended effects: without locality pay, entry-level hires in San Diego, CA would earn less than state minimum wage; as such, all new hires are made in lower-cost Norfolk, VA. There were no time-in-grade pay increases (or “steps”), until a retention incentive was applied recently. There is a culture among mariners of avoiding, rather than engaging, decisionmakers on these issues. It was thought to be the purview of labor officials and workmens’ attorneys. Rightly or wrongly, I call this the “enlisted attitude”, where people want to do their job and get their pay, without input from higher-ups. Understanding is the impetus of change, and it must be fostered from within. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!

Why I Recommend College Degrees for Mariners: the COVID-19 Pivot

From March 2020, and continuing for the next two years, mariners around the world have found their time ashore to be severely curtailed due to COVID-19 prevention policies. That these restrictions on lower-risk shipboard arrivals continue (small crews, sufficient quarantine time between ports at sea), even as higher-risk air tourism has opened up (despite large aircraft and no quarantine time) is a topic for another post. I was working in the Military Sealift Command headquarters during this time, and have only made aware of the full extent of shipboard restrictions fairly recently. Cancellation of shore leave posed an acute problem on the East Coast, where mariners expected to be in their “home port” at least two days per week. Being a homeported mariner for the Military Sealift Command meant a civil servant’s work for a civil servant’s pay. What constituted restriction of movement varied by Navy command. In accordance with Health Protection Condition (HPCON) Level C, active-duty servicemembers were limited to on-base shopping and personal appointments, but could also provide care for their children and sleep at home. Which combatant ships maintained a “Gangway Up” order for mission-readiness likely remains classified. Military Sealift Command’s Admiral believed that civilian mariners should be ready to “deploy” to a ship for 120 days, without requiring time ashore. Indeed, the blanket order against shore leave was loosened after 120 days. But for the civilian mariners, 30 days at sea, or restricted to the ship, was a long stretch already. The Admiral came up through Naval Aviation, and would be familiar with expeditionary contractors who support high-tech equipment onboard aircraft carriers and at remote air bases. Some contractors even flew cargo helicopters from the decks of Military Sealift Command’s vessels. Those contractors were handsomely compensated for their work; and expected to deploy no more than half the year. Civil service mariners expect a steady pace of work, to sustain the long haul of their careers. Hiring freezes at most companies slowed the inevitable “suitcase parade” of departing crewmembers. Restrictions on commercial ship mariners were even more onerous than those at the Military Sealift Command. Nevertheless, those who could took their retirements; and those mariners with side-businesses took the opportunity to make that their full-time job. Real estate was booming; at least a dozen with those skills or social capital made the leap into work as real estate agents or home rehabbers. Because in-person work is required in maritime shore-based support roles, there were enough openings to accommodate college-educated mariners who wanted to work ashore.

Train Our Own Mariners

Government shipping agencies; which include the Military Sealift Command, NOAA, and the US Army Corps of Engineers; have long benefitted from the skilled experience of military veterans and retirees. It is essentially a Service Life Extension, allowing these mariners to serve a second career at sea. In exchange for the US Navy's terms of enlistment (typically 4-6 years today), young adults finishing high school are offered a vocational training program with an in-service apprenticeship. Based on reports of those who attended both military and civilian training, these Navy "A" and "C" schools exceed the rigor of comparable private maritime training programs, whose students are often the paying customer. The US Navy is set up to be a training institution: even on highly-automated ships built from the 1990's onwards, crewing scales allow for extensive on-the-job training, or time served "under instruction". Chief Petty Officers are responisble for evaluating new recruits under Personal Qualification Standards (the PQS), and commissioned Training Officers ensure that these qualifications are completed in a timely fashion. Do we have anything comparable in the civilian world? The Military Sealift Command is giving it a try with civil service mariners. When I was first hired as an engineer in 2015, the youngest entry-level hire was 23 years of age; at the time, they could expect people to bring career skills- in warehousing, foodservice, or equipment maintenance- to the ship. In a different kind of employment market, the agency has been recruiting high school seniors with on-the-spot job offers for family-wage jobs. At least 300 offers have gone to young adults from the Hampton Roads region of Virginia in the past year as Steward Utilitymen, Wipers, and Ordinary Seamen. On paper, this is the right thing to do, in order to alleviate the skilled trades gap with homegrown talent. In reality, this new on-the-job training mission adds additional duties for those expected to provide the training: the officers and skilled ratings, who are often covering for a vacant billet themselves. To earn Merchant Mariner Credentialling as a skilled rating, new entrants must complete sea time, onboard skills assessments, and classroom training. The Wiper Advacement Program and Ordinary Seaman Advacement Program are now contractual commitments on the part of Military Sealift Command, to provider personnal training and two career promotions. Compared to intermittent training efforts made in previous years, the Military Sealift Command has assigned significant and continuing financial resources for vocational training at the private Mid Atlantic Maritime Academy. In my short time as a First Assistant Engineer, I have overseen three onboard promotions through this initiative. If there is a limitation, it is that the Military Sealift Command cannot guarantee prospective mariners a constant annual hiring quota. These on-the-job career advancement programs are a necessary solution for skills gap between young people and workforce demands. Once such a program is institutionalized and fully appreciated by an organization, it's unlikely to stop.

Book Review: The Greatest Beer Run Ever

I have read plenty of merchant mariners’ novels that collect dust on bookshelves at ship’s libraries and maritime museums. But there is one I read recently that has reached broad acclaim: The Greatest Beer Run Ever, written by John “Chick” Donohue. In the mid-1960’s, hundreds of American merchant ships were employed in the Vietnam war effort, to bring food, fuel, and ammunition from the United States to the front lines of conflict. Many of these ships were small-tonnage relics of the Second World War, and needed a large number of American mariners to crew them. In contrast, our war materiel buildup in the 2003 liberation of Iraq required a few dozen merchant vessels of large, modern tonnage. In the former era, carefree young men accepted the dangers of North Vietnamese enemy attack- which did happen too frequently, in exchange for twice the usual rate of pay. While Chickie’s true-blue membership in the National Maritime Union (NMU) facilitated this adventure to wartime Vietnam, the book is very approachable for landlubbers. We could say that our protagonist, Chickie, came from a different time when, in a transient and essential workforce, you could actually work a voyage onboard a freighter, without career consequences. Using the more-lenient rules of the pre-connectivity era, and his diplomatic tongue, he pulled a legendary shore leave feat to bring beer and morale to his fellow hometown soldiers in and around Saigon. While you’d likely be tossed by the union today for flagrantly violating shore leave policy, most mariners know a colleague who’s willing to venture beyond the pier, and official liberty restrictions, in Djibouti or Okinawa. Chickie’s spirit lives on.

Geographic Dispersal

Union Halls, Mariner Clinics, Regional Exam Centers, and Merchant Marine Academies: you either live by one, or you don’t. Decades ago, deep-sea mariners were geographically concentrated in port towns. It made sense: you got a job at the union hall, and then took a subway or taxi ride to the ship. Today, maritime unions guarantee airline travel from any location in the US, to a ship assignment, and back. States without the income tax, such as Florida, New Hampshire, Texas, and Nevada, are popular residences for mariners; even if they are far inland. As for the physical institutions of the maritime industry, there is stickiness to old maritime ports, even if the reasons for their presence are no longer needed locally. There are likely more deep-sea mariners living in arid Las Vegas, Nevada than in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet, for the tradition of having maritime institutions near the water, I doubt that the US Coast Guard will relocate its Regional Exam Center, or the Marine Engineer Beneficial Association its medical clinic, to where the mariners live today. Baltimore, some 12 hours inland of Norfolk, has not been a primary port-of-call since Bethlehem Steel shut down decades ago. Yet the city retains its maritime union halls, a US Coast Guard testing center, and two maritime conference and training centers in the region. Norfolk has a small union hall shared by two of the three officers’ unions, but no Regional Exam Center: the closest one is a 5-hour northbound drive in Baltimore; or an 8-hour drive south to Charleston, SC. Prior to COVID-19, I inquired to the Mid Atlantic Maritime Academy, a private trade school, about bringing the USCG’s travelling exam team to Norfolk several times a years, as they do for Maine Maritime Academy in rural Castine; and on Massachusetts Maritime Academy on Cape Cod. The idea may be worth another go-around.

What Happens at the end of Work from Home?

If you’ve noticed the paucity of communication coming from me, it’s because I am cruising through the northern part of the Pacific Ocean with no satellite service. Providers train their satellites towards near-shore areas, where the bulk of their clientele work and play on drill rigs and yachts. Outside the primary deep-sea trade routes, the satellite providers cut their losses. If you’re wondering, the Search and Rescue satellite system (GMDSS) does ping six times per day as they pass through their respective orbits. This summer brought a number of large-scale return-to-office experiences, from Wall Street, to Main Street Richmond, Virginia. In this case, telework-capable state government employees were given two-months’ notice to return to the office four days per week, or to request additional WFH days from their agency leadership. Records show that 58% of employees accepted four or five days per week; and 93% of employees accepted at least three days per week. The State Highway Department did lose 10 or so engineers over this ask (and a few more who took retirement over this decision), but in the whole, attrition over the issue was less than 1%. Most requests were to preserve the enhanced telework arrangements certain white-collar employees had prior to the Pandemic. As a right-to-work state, government employment in Virginia is more similar to private employment than in other state governments. Thus, private employers can allay fears of workplace exodus, when they chose to return to an in-office schedule. The one caveat is that Richmond, Virginia is home to more traditional industries like medicine, tobacco, and public utilities, where in-person work is a given expectation.

Monkeypox?

The spread of Monkeypox has not reached epidemic proportions, and hopefully never will. But what came to my attention was how it spread: close quarters and skin-to-skin contact. Monkeypox has spread around hot-to-trot nightclubs in urban centers, but has stayed out of locker rooms and mainstream environments...so far. In college, I worked on the waterfront with the offshore sailing team. They would come back from overnight trips, where they slept arm to arm and had the same bilge-water sloshing around their feet. Close proximity, without intimateness. I trust that nautical leaders will implement recommendations for awareness and prevention, so we can nip this virus in the bud.