On this centennial year of the creation of U.S. Coast Guard chief petty officers, changes to service policies and processes threaten a legacy of advancing enlisted leaders because of technical expertise and competence in favor of panel actions and enlisted reviews that, regardless controls, undoubtedly will remain subjective. Since the inception of chiefs, first class petty officers have been “tested” before given the responsibility of wearing the anchor. Under way and around the clock, the chief is expected to be the expert in their rating, its associated qualifications, and the organization. To ensure this, they had to prove their knowledge by answering questions on a written test. As retired Senior Chief Michael Kreynus put it, “If you didn’t have it up there, you did not sew it on down there and you did not earn your cover. It was not WHO you know, it was WHAT you know.”
The standup of a Coast Guard Master Chief Advancement Panel (MCAP), changes to the Enlisted Evaluation System (EES), and the creation of an Evaluations Branch (EPM-3) within the Office of Enlisted Personnel Management (EPM) threaten a long-standing advancement system that has excelled in producing a technically competent and professional enlisted workforce. These three developments open the door to entirely subjective advancements that lack a foundation in quantitative date. Attaining the highest enlisted paygrade no longer requires a test of the candidate’s knowledge, only a panel review of their electronically imaged personal data record (PDR). The small size of the Coast Guard, which numbers only 32,000 enlisted personnel, and the even smaller candidate pool for these senior positions, ensures that many will be recognizable by the documentation in their record, which includes career history and award citations.
For example, the total strength of the active-duty boatswain’s mate rating at the start of fiscal year (FY) 19 stood at 4,700. Of these, only 129 were senior chief petty officers, and not all would meet prerequisites to fill master chief vacancies. Historically, the number of senior chiefs eligible to advance in the rating is approximately 50, a number that now represents the candidate pool being reviewed by the MCAP. Regardless the implementation of controls restricting the use of names and genders on all new evaluations and performance documentation, members on the panel undoubtedly will recognize candidates by their record. Negating subjectivity is difficult in any circumstance, but negating it with such a small pool of candidates and panel members is a near impossibility.
Further narrowing the field are changes to the Enlisted Evaluation System (EES), which will make it especially difficult for enlisted personnel without a commissioned officer in their immediate rating chain to set themselves apart due to its updated Officer Evaluation Report (OER)-style comment block. When the topic was raised with the head of the newly created EPM-3 on a podcast hosted by the boatswain’s mate rating force master chief, the master chief remarked, “Now that I’ve sat through tons of panels, let me tell you that our senior officer corps understands the writing style and what’s important to be said in those endorsements far better than we do as even senior enlisted. Having sat on a lot of these panels, the words matter and they get it, especially those O-5 and above. They have sat through so many of these things they understand what is best to be said to catch the attention of the panel, selection board, or whatever it is . . . It gives your personnel an advantage over those whose sector’s aren’t asking for endorsements to be brought over to that next higher level.” In essence, senior enlisted personnel serving in command assignments, of which there are many, are ill-positioned to aid their crews in the advancement process simple for the fact they have no experience in writing the short OER-style comments now demanded by the ESS or in reviewing packages as panel members. The number of years comments from the EES are reviewed by panels differ, but they have a legacy. Poorly worded comments even for exceptional performance by an enlisted leader on an EES now could have a significant negative impact on the member’s potential for advancement. In contrast, a commissioned officer with experience in capturing a member’s performance effectively in ESS comments sets their enlisted personnel apart and provides a strong advantage to them when reviewed by a panel.
Collectively these developments create an environment where senior officers are able to overly influence the selection of enlisted personnel from their own staffs for advancement, to the detriment of others assigned to commands headed by enlisted officers in charge (OIC). In effect, the best writer wins, without concern for measuring the candidate’s technical competence. And, make no mistake, technical competence is the value the enlisted workforce brings to the service as they provide options and solutions to decision makers based on rating experience and knowledge. A likely outcome of the MCAP is that silver badge command chiefs removed from their rating will be best positioned to advance because of their close relationships with large and flag commands, reducing rating competence at the senior enlisted levels to the detriment of entire ratings as master chiefs perform the jobs of rating performance qualification development, servicewide test writer, A and C school chief, and rating force master chief. Command chiefs certainly have value for the enlisted workforce and the service as a whole, but technical experts, not political savvy personnel advocates, are needed for leadership assignments within ratings. Testing levels the playing field, ensures technical competence across the rating, and greatly reduces the impact of any supervisor’s writing ability.
MCAP one day will be proposed as a model for advancing the lower rates, and if implemented will further reduce competence with a far wider impact. Test the enlisted workforce. Require that they maintain their rating competence and continue to provide value to the service. Allow them to succeed through individual effort to study and learn their rating—to advance because of what they know, not who they know
