Guest Post from VADM Cliff Pearson, Chief of Staff.
Shipmates:
Recently the Commandant authorized the realignment of Maintenance and Logistics Commands (MLCs) in the Atlantic and Pacific areas to the Chief of Staff, effective January 15th, 2009. While this may seem like a small internal change, it is in fact a major waypoint on our journey towards Coast Guard Modernization. For the first time in history, all of our Service's global mission support structure will be aligned into one organization under what I envision with Congressional authorization will become the Deputy Commandant for Mission Support (DCMS).
The civil and electronic engineers, financial managers, health professionals, safety inspectors and other personnel in these two MLCs play a vital role in mission execution by ensuring the operational readiness of Coast Guard vessels and shore infrastructure. I can't say often enough that the Coast Guard's reputation and success lies in the exceptional professionalism and dedication of our combined military and civilian professionals. With this in mind I want to again point out that modernization planning is being carried out with every effort to minimize impacts on our workforce.
Under DCMS, I envision centralized responsibility for all facets of workforce and life-cycle management from acquisition through decommission of assets, including personnel, ships, planes, buildings and information technology. Logistics and support services will be centrally managed through five logistics and support centers to increase efficiency. These logistics and service centers form the organizational construct to allow the Coast Guard to fully realize the benefits of the Logistics Transformation Program Commandant started in 2005.
These centers will manage mission readiness through centralized product lines executed regionally through detachments of each logistics or service center to reinforce uniform delivery of services. This bi-level approach was pioneered by the Aircraft Repair and Supply Center (ARSC), now the newly formed Aviation Logistics Center (ALC), which was the first logistics center to stand-up on October 30, 2008.
Over the next month, you will hear more detail about plans for standup of our other Logistics/Service Centers, including the Personnel Service Center, Surface Forces Logistics Center, Shore Infrastructure Logistics Center, and the C4IT Service Center.
I again encourage the entire Coast Guard to continue to review the "Modernization Section" on CG Central and look for future updates here in order to stay up to date on the positive changes underway for our Service.
