Guardians,
I visited the Coast Guard Academy this week to deliver my annual leadership remarks to the Corps of Cadets, Academy faculty and staff, as well as Prospective COs and XOs and Boat Forces Command Cadre currently at the Leadership Development Center. A new Officer Candidate School class was also in attendance on their first day onboard the Academy. It was a great time to visit as the Academy is celebrating its 100th year in New London.
My remarks focused on the need to develop change centric leaders for a change centric Coast Guard. As I have said in a number of venues over the last three years, we need to be more agile and adaptable to changes in our external environment especially as it relates to demand for our services.
As I have in previous leadership talks, I started my remarks with a rap video by Mr. Lin Manuel Miranda who was the writer and composer of the Tony Award winning musical “In the Heights”. Mr. Miranda performed this "rap" at a White House event and chose Alexander Hamilton as an example of a historical figure who represented the hip-hop culture. In Mr. Miranda's opinion, hip-hop reflects the power of the spoken and written word to influence events and he thought nobody did that any better than the father of the Coast Guard, Alexander Hamilton.
While I was in New London, I also visited with the Coast Guard Foundation in Stonington, the Academy Alumni Association staff, and had lunch with some of my Class of 1971 classmates. All in all, it was a great Coast Guard day.
ADM A
