ASNE Day Luncheon Speech

ADM. J. WILLIAM KIME, USCG COMMANDANT. U.S. COAST GUARD

ASNE Day Luncheon Speech

T h a n k you very much for that fine introduction.

Let me start by adding my congratulations to those already expressed and to all of the award winners here today, and also to those who took the time to make the nominations, because that’s equally important. It’s a great pleasure for me to be here with you this afternoon. I understand from talking to your president at lunch there

Adm. J. William Kime, r w c . -I--

are a great many people here from outside the Washington, D.C. area-and I extend a special welcome to them.

I’m very proud of my engineering background. I’m even more honored to speak to this very distinguished forum.

I note that your conference theme is, “The Naval Engi- neer’s Response to World Change.” And I think that’s an exceptionally appropriate theme, considering the great leaps we’re seeing in technology today: the new awareness of environmental issues, the new world order. I think we can say that the 21st century is going to be a very dynamic and de- manding setting in which to operate.

This is certainly true, I think, of the marine industry, and this afternoon when I talk about the marine industry I don’t want to just talk about the heavy part of the industry: the shipbuilding industry, the naval architects, the marine engineers. I want to talk about the people who develop the electronics, the components, the software, the design, the people who do some of the research work that has been recognized here today.

I think marine engineering systems are facing a significant challenge, both in the public and the private sector. We’re facing ever increasing demands to ship more, move more, do it faster, do it safer, more efficiently, more eco- nomically, and do it in recognition of competition: competition from other countries; competition within various aspects of the marine industry in this country; and certainly,

competition from other modes of transportation, whether it be pipelines, trucks,rail, air, etc.

To do that we not only need the traditional shipbuilding and marine engineering industry that we think of but also the support industries that I’ve talked about, and we’ve got to include a continuation of sound engineering practices. If we don’t, we’re not going to achieve the goals we have, and more importantly, we’re going to have engineering failures and certainly casualties. As naval engineers I think that we should be pro-active in leading our customers, and sometimes I include our bosses among our customers, to see the advantages in new technology. At the same time, we want to apply some sound reason and judgment in looking at a new advance, because new gadgets, or shortcuts, are not substi- tutes for solid planning and quality engineering.

Let me talk about the marine industry as I see it today. Unfortunately, I was not able to listen to the panel discus- sion, but I believe the stage was set as to what the future of the naval engineering profession, the naval engineering business might be, taken perhaps from a view that is shaded toward naval, as in U.S. Naval, practice. But certainly, there is more to it than just that. That is the area, of course, where we have seen the technological developments that we enjoy fostered through R&D and through developmental contracts and the finest ships that are afloat in the world today.

However, there are other aspects of it. The merchant marine industry is something, certainly, that’s not any more healthy than that industry I just described. My new boss, Secretary of Transportation Andy Card, in his confirmation hearing, and later on many occasions, has indicated that one of his primary goals is to do something to advance the future of the marine industry in this country.

Now he’s not the first one to go down this path and say he’s going to do this. It’s a subject that has been studied and studied and studied to death, and so far, the results of all this study have not produced a great deal of success. I once heard then Secretary John Lehman stand at this platform and say that the thing that’s wrong with the marine industry is that we can’t get people,to agree on things. Various labor unions can’t agree amongst themselves. Ship owners can’t agree with shipyards. Government, comprised of MSC, NavSea, Coast

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ASNE DAY 1992 LUNCHEON SPEECH

Guard, MarAd and others, can’t agree among themselves, and certainly, that’s part of the problem.

Secretary Card has assembled several groups of people to see if there is something, at this time, that we can do to revi- talize the industry. He thinks, and I share the view, that perhaps the window is open just a little bit to work together better to do what John Lehman said we haven’t been doing in the past, and that’s to stop sub-optimizing the problem, trying to optimize our little part of it, and recognize that we’re all in this together.

The first thing the secretary indicated was that you can’t do this just in the Department of Transportation. He’s estab- lished a cabinet level group of people to examine this problem beginning with the secretary of state and going down through all the applicable departments and also the applicable agencies to see what can be done, what has to be done, across the various departments.

In addition to that, within the Department of Transporta- tion, we are looking to see what we can do. Obviously, we are talking about issues such as tax structure, we are talking about manning laws, manning requirements, we are talking about operational standards, we are talking about design standards. I’m here to tell you that this is a sincere effort. I hope that it’s successful. It’s coming from someone who very much wants to see it work, and we in the Coast Guard are going to work hard with our counterparts in government and with the industry people such as SeaLand and APL, who have put forward the desire to try to do something at this time to try to save the U.S. merchant marine industry. I think at the same time it is going to benefit everyone in this room, whether or not you’re currently involved in this aspect of the industry.

Let me take the opportunity to talk about the Coast Guard of today. We’re facing a real confluence of events in this country that gives the Coast Guard some tremendous oppor- tunities. I think that’s manifested in our budget. We’re very pleased that for the past two years our budget has grown at about the rate of 6 percent in the president’s budget. What is before the Congress indicates the same growth for fiscal year ’93, including about a 2 percent increase in people.

We’re not being impacted by the DoD drawdown, and why not? I say we didn’t ride the elevator up; we shouldn’t ride the elevator down. During the Reagan Administration, and rightfully so, a great deal of effort and resources were put into the Department of Defense. We’ve seen these ef- forts bear fruit, as we’ve seen the disestablishment of the old Soviet Union. This reduces the strategic threat that this country faces and that’s causing a commensurate drawdown in DoD resources. At the same time it brings with it a lot of instability around the world. Our part of the military posture of this country involves more of the tactical or regional threat. So perhaps our aspect of military readiness is increasing as a result of what’s happening, not decreasing.

In addition to that, though, we’ve got some other missions that also have been driving our budget, and I’m trying to maintain a balance between the various missions areas that we have, but to do it in a very dynamic way because it’s changing very, very rapidly. Our basic missions in the Coast Guard haven’t changed. They fall into four categories and I’ll touch on them briefly. But, the expectations of the ad-

ministration, the Congress, society and ourselves are changing, and that’s what we’re trying to change with.

Law enforcement is still the area where we spend the most money. Drug interdiction, and in particular, fisheries law enforcement, to protect those resources, are of growing importance. And certainly, I don’t think you can pick up a paper and not see accounts of the Haitian Immigrant Inter- diction Operation that we’re involved in down in the Caribbean. That’s keeping us very busy.

National security-we’re very pleased with our role in Desert ShieldDesert Storm and our continuing role over there. In national security, I also talk about nation building; we’re about the same size as most of the coast guards and navies around the world. People turn to us; we’ve trained people from about half the countries in the world in the last five years. That involves countries such as Mexico, the countries in Central and South America, Turkey, Greece, Russia, Japan and the new Baltic States. It’s something that’s important to us.

Protection of the marine environment is something that has risen to the forefront again and stayed there as a result of the Exxon Valdez. I think there’s a greater awareness of that. As a result, the Congress, after a 15 year gestation peri- od, produced the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and that’s given tremendous new responsibilities to the Coast Guard. One of the results is the requirement for double hulls for new tankers and the phasing out of existing single hull tankers.

That, in itself, is going to promote a significant amount of shipbuilding around the world. We have mounted a major effort at the International Maritime Organization in London to establish international standards as to what really is a double hull. There are 535 members of the Congress and none of them are naval architects, so luckily, they left it up to us to decide what really is a double hull, and we’ve re- ceived international acceptance of our proposal. That means that if a U.S. shipyard can be competitive and can develop a design for a ship that’s going to fly the U.S. flag, that’s going to be a design that’s going to be acceptable for any customer around the world.

Maritime safety is also something that we’re very much known for, but that involves more than just dramatic rescues and the saving of life. Programs that prevent casualties are something that we’re very much involved in right now. Ves- sel traffic systems, our commercial vessel safety programs, looking at design and maintenance of ships, qualification of mariners, and investigation of casualties. Again, we’re looking to the International Maritime Organization because this is, I think, the most international of all industries.

At the same time, I’m trying to balance the operational needs of the Coast Guard with the needs of our people, an area where sometimes in the past we have fallen behind the other four military services, and certainly behind industry. We’ve just completed a worklife study and we think that it will bring about some changes that will help us in what I believe will be an increasing competition for resources in the future. One of the things we’re looking at, of course, is the impact of the design of our ships and our aircraft on our people, the impact of their performance, their fatigue, something that has perhaps not been looked at, certainly in the commercial part of the industry, for a long, long time.

Naval Engineers Journal, July 1992 31


My men and women are certainly my greatest asset. And my ships and planes are only as great as the people who sail and fly them. I’m also looking to do a better job of management. Whether it’s short term management, where I think we do an outstanding job shifting from mission to mission, or more importantly, long term management. I’ve put forward a vision statement for the Coast Guard. It’s not an end point; it’s a direction I want to sail off toward and a strategic agenda of the things I want to do on that voyage.

We’ve adopted total quality management as a means of getting there. By this fall, I will have trained about half the people in the Coast Guard in Total Quality Management. It’s not a fad. It’s being used by industry, government, and educational institutions. The Navy calls it Total Quality Leadership, and it’s no different from what we’re doing. We’re beginning to see some tangible results. I’m very pleased to say that our engineers in the Coast Guard are leading the way in total quality management. We already have recouped in recurring savings more money than we have spent in training our people in total quality management.

Another thing I’m concerned about is ethics. I don’t think you can travel around this town without hearing about ethics. It’s something that we all, unfortunately, have to be concerned about, whether we’re in the public or the private sector. We all have to make sure that our house is in order. And I’m trying to make sure that message gets out to my people loud and clear, whether it’s our dealings with the public, whether it’s our dealings with industry, whether it’s our dealings between ourselves where we’re concerned about sexual harassment and fraternization. I think the bot- tom line is that I’m going to hold my people accountable, and leadership is something that we want to nurture to ac- complish that.

Military services today are probably more competitive than they have ever been. That in itself makes some of our young people a little bit reluctant to take chances. I’m trying to instill a spirit of measured risk taking among our young people, and a spirit among our senior people of an acceptance of that so that we do have the same innovative ap- proach to things that we’ve had in the past.

Let me divert a little bit now and talk about Coast Guard hardware. In the next few years, we will probably become one of the major governmental procurers of ships. That’s not something we take great pride in, but we certainly hope that we can continue the program that we have had. A lot is happening. We’ve just finished the FRAM of our twelve 378 foot cutters. We’re very pleased with the results of that from Bath, and the last one is coming in well under cost and ahead of time. I’ve taken delivery of thirteen 270 foot medium endurance cutters and we’re doing a mid-life maintenance availability on our sixteen 210 foot medium endurance cutters at the Coast Guard Yard right now.

I think that’s going to put us in good shape for high and medium endurance cutters for the next ten to fifteen years. But I’ve tasked my people to start looking at a mission needs statement for the replacement of these vessels ten or fifteen years down the pike because certainly, with the budget considerations we have now, that’s going to be extreme- ly important.

We’ve got to take a good honest look and ask for what we need. Because, if we don’t ask for just what we need, we’re apt to get much less.

I’m very happy with our Island class patrol boats that were built down at Bollingers. Many people know I can- celled the Heritage class patrol boat, a 120 foot class that we were building a prototype of at the Coast Guard Yard. The decision to go with that line was made in about 1985. It was the right decision at that time, but things have changed now. I’ve got 49 Island class patrol boats in lieu of the twelve we had then; they are not boats that are going to last just ten years and do a single mission; they are going to last 20 to 25 years and perform a multi-mission operation. I no longer need something as expensive and sophisticated as the Her- itage class. It’s an outstanding design, the workmanship is good; and if I didn’t have the Island class, I probably would go for it. But, I don’t need replacement boats, in this budget time, that require a crew of 18 people when I can get by with something with a crew of about 10.

Our major shipbuilding effort is going to be in our fleet of buoy tenders, our ocean going buoy tenders. We hope to get a contract for the first, with an option for four more, in the second quarter of fiscal year 1993. We have a design competition going on right now between three contractors, and we’re looking forward to seeing the results of that before too long. We’re also asking for money in our ’93 budget for coastal buoy tenders with hopes of getting a contract for the lead ship in the third quarter of ’93.

We’re very pleased with the progress of replacing our motor lifeboat fleet. If you saw CNN recently, you may have seen several segments in their science and technology section showing the performance of the prototype. It’s being built by Textron, down in New Orleans right now. We’ve completed the prototype, five pre-production models will be tested, and we have a vision of going to open competition to build perhaps a hundred.

We’re also working very hard on the environmental issues surrounding naval engineering in this day and age. We’ve just been handed a different budget category by the Congress. It’s called Environmental Compliance and Restoration. What we have to do is go around to various parts of the country, our shipyards, our air stations, our units, and clean up the mess we’ve made in the environment over the last 20 years, and we’re not alone in doing that. We adhered to the same standards that other government agencies and the private sector adhered to in the past. We’re going to be spending a great amount of money to correct some of these faults, and I want to spend money now so that we don’t duplicate the faults and have to continue to spend money.

I’m also concerned about the new responsibilities we’re placing on our commanding officers and our engineering officers on our ships. Recent amendments to the Clean Air Act, and we expect amendments to the Clean Water Act very shortly, are going to make these people personally li- able for improper emissions, spills, discharged garbage, and things of that nature. There’s no longer going to be any sovereign immunity.

We’re working very hard on research and development on the many taskings we’ve been given in OPA 90. One is

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to see if there are any equivalents for double hull construc- tion. We’re looking at advances in oil spill clean up technology. Right now oil booms and oil skimmers are operating with the technology that existed twenty years ago without any significant amount of change.

One area we’re greatly excited about is differential global positioning systems. The Coast Guard has plans, and we think we have wide acceptance in the administration and in the Congress, to implement a differential global positioning navigation system along all of our coastlines by 1996. That would be for the harbors and approaches out to 200 miles, giving us an 8-20 meter accuracy.

That will support the national transportation policy of this country and give us a precise all-weather radio navigational system. We’re going to couple that with an electronic chart, display and information system that on a scope will give us an electronically presented chart of as good, if not better, quality as we are getting from the printers now. It has an ability to zoom in and give not just a magnified view, but also more detail. Superimposed on the chart will be the posi- tion of the ship from the differential global positioning system and the radar information from the collision avoidance system.

The Aegis system can probably do a lot more than that right now. But a 400 foot freighter out there that can run into an Aegis cruiser sure can’t- and we want to do it at a

cost that is going to be economical for that 400 foot freighter.

International standards are being developed; other countries are going this way. Norway is installing differential global positioning systems along their entire coastline. The International Maritime Organization is setting the standard. We’re working very closely with other federal agencies, such as NOAA, and with the electronics industry in this country so that we can have a voice in what these standards are.

In closing, I’d like to thank you very, very much for your attention here today. I have looked over the list of papers that will be presented. I’ve learned a little bit about what went on at the kickoff panel today. I think you’re looking to the future in the way you should.

You’re going to see the world is changing. Perhaps we can look back and see how it has changed before-how we can minimize the adverse impacts-and prepare for the future by being innovative in the way we look at things. It gives me a feeling of great security to know that the naval engineering business, as I described it earlier, is in the hands of people like you.

I appreciate the opportunity to come here and tell a little about the Coast Guard, and the Department of Transporta- tion-and also the opportunity, for a short time, to return to my roots. Thank you very much.

Naval Engineers Journal, July 1992 33

Documents

ASNE Day Luncheon Speech