 Thank you so much for being with us today. I know it's a privilege to have you in our booth Let's get started by we hear a lot about the operational successes of the coastsward But we don't hear a lot about mission support So can you start with telling us about some of the great mission support successes that have been accomplished in the last year? All right. I really like that question because Operational success is mission support success All right There's nothing that happens on the water in the air that it's not enabled by our mission support professionals And so every time we take down a drug runner we save a life that's mission support in action And if you think about some recent amazing operations of the Coast Guard the Healy just circumnavigated North America That took amazing amount of effort by our mission support experts to support that transit to get cycle converter cards to that ship In the remotest parts of the Arctic so that they could make the decision to go into the ice If you think about the Polar Star just pushed further south than any breaker in the history of the world Our mission support team was supporting that ship in the reaches of Antarctica when they had servers go down so every Operational success is a mission support success. You think about the cutter decisive decisive of right now down in the Caribbean Save in lives as migrants take to the water Decisive was just in the Coast Guard yard for emergency repairs That was work that only the Coast Guard yard could do on the time schedule that we needed That's mission success and that's mission support success and and I could go I could go on and on There's a ton of other things that our mission support professionals are doing every day You know, we have our medical teams on the Southwest border. We have teams assisting with our lives Welcome, those are all mission support professionals doing that and and then You know just on the personnel side just yesterday the common on announced the ready workforce 30 initiative our mission support professionals worked on that initiative for for years of modern ready learning which is Modernizing how we train Delivering training to our operators when they need it Exactly where they are and tailored to the specific missions So a lot of great mission support success, but I just cannot overstate that any operational success is a mission support success Well, thank you and of course acquisition and those operational assets play a very Large role in that mission success as well. So can you update us on what's going on in the area of acquisitions right now? Yeah, so it's an exciting time to be in the Coast Guard when it comes to acquisitions I think everyone's heard right the largest recapitalization of our fleet Since World War two and I would you know certainly in dollar values the largest in our history of our service You know we started this recapitalization with the national security cutters We just launched NSC number 10 the Calhoun just last week We'll finish up that program of record in the next couple years here, but that's brought game-changing capability particularly to you know our counter drug Missions in the East pack and West pack, but it's also brought game-changing capability to the nation and you will see the nation push those NSC's into places like the South China Sea and into In in the pay-com areas and even up in the Bering Sea where we are tangling it up right routinely With Russians and Chinese and so that that's been game-changing for our nation And then you look at the federal fast response cutters right? We just launched Number 45 or 48 out of a program of record of 65 Congress just push some more money into our budget to continue that program Those are absolutely game changer I can tell you as the 8th district commander when I got an FRC down on the maritime boundary line with Mexico We were catching those illegal fishermen at rates that we never had before And and those FRC's are being pushed further and further from shore than we've before so absolute game changing there I'm really excited in the next month or so well a couple months or so. We will see OPC number one Floating painted white and floating. I've had a chance to climb around Argus and that is one heck of a ship You know, it's about 10 feet shorter than our 378 class that we just retired But it's 11 feet more beam and it's much more displacement that ship is going to be a game changer in places like In both the Atlantic and Pacific Arctic for example, but also is going to be a global deployer So we're excited about that You know, we have an announcement coming up soon probably next two or three months on on stage two for that project And we're just really excited to keep OPCs coming at the program of record of 25 hulls We will also be announcing the WCC the watery commerce cutter contract here shortly Those will replace cutters that are older than me, which actually would be a sad day when that happens but you know, we have a critical mission on the rivers and Those cutters enable Really chillings of dollars of commerce and we're excited to see the first WCC is rolling off the production line in a few years here And a really tremendous thing about that is that for the first time we'll be able to accommodate mixed-gender crews on those vessels And I cannot wait to see our first female EPO or OIC of one of our River Tender So so that's common and I know the next common will hold me to that so a lot of exciting stuff on the aviation side as well You know, we're updating the mission packages and the avionics and move into the C 130 J's We're moving the 65s from deltas to echoes. We're mission eyes in the C 27s, you know, we're increasing the size of our H 60 fleet And we will be flying 65s for years to come But eventually we're going to be all 60s. So just a lot going on in acquisition world And also in the acquisition front Can you tell me about the new initiative that's out there to help for the smaller procurements? We're trying to modernize the Coast Guard contracting and procurement to Calling it the by better revolution. Yeah, yeah, so Really more focused on procurement than on acquisition, but it's looking at all of our contracting You know, the good news for the Coast Guard is our budgets have been good and between the 22 23 budget and the infrastructure bill Here's a billion dollars for Coast Guard shore infrastructure. A lot of that will go to build home ports for those new cutters But we're challenged in our capacity actually execute that money both in terms of Civil engineering capacity, but also contracting capacity. So we you know, we had a study done We realized that we are not contracting as efficiently as we could For example, we have the highest number of contracting actions per contracting officer of any of our peer agencies But with a lowest dollar value per action. So that's not a good place to be so we got a team looking at that We're going to increase the the efficiency of our contract. So we're doing it for a number of reasons one I need to provide better customer service to my customers within the Coast Guard to we need to be more Effective and make our money go further and three that workforce is stressed Our contracting workforce is stressed and we need to improve our processes for them So thanks for asking. That's an important initiative, and I'm really excited to see the dividends Well, you said of course that mission support is operational success So what do you see as the biggest needs coming out of the operational community in the future? How can the industry best support and always change in Coast Guard? Yeah, so what I think the biggest challenge in the future is the refresh time on All of our C5 I systems right we before Before we be given our acquisition regulations When you buy C5 I it is by definition Antiquated by the time you put it on board We need to figure out how to get inside the acquisition cycle whether that means we get a buy C5 I as a service Where the industry will just refresh it at a regular cycle and we can buy it once under contract I don't know what the answer is but the refresh cycle on C5 I is going to eat our lunch For the first time we bring our national security cutters in for their midlife Maintenance for the first time in our services history We will be spending more money and time on C5 I refresh on those ships Then we will on home, mechanical and electrical So we got to do it differently So I'm standing by for those solutions So you have anything else you want to talk about are you ready to get questions from the audience? Yeah, we'll see what they want to talk about. All right. Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for coming out here today. I am recently tired Coast Guard 06 September Aviators I don't hold that against me but I've recently been brought on board with general dynamics and One of the challenges I'm having even though I know a lot of people at Coast Guard headquarters is The engagement with industry or lack thereof. It's almost as if they're Afraid if you will to engage with industry and One of the questions I have is what what can I do differently to make that process more Transparent or seamless and then the other questions I had and I hate to bother you with this because I Can't get an appointment with requirements to ask them about the future of rescue 21's next generation The migration of iCloud and then finally rescue 21 in Alaska I was a commanding officer at the air station in Kodiak, Alaska 2015 to 2018 I could tell you rescue 21 was pretty limited sometimes I know you know that sir, but I'm just curious what the future holds for those particular programs And what can I do better to engage with the Coast Guard? Yeah, well first thanks for your service and congratulations on your retirement I'm not far behind you You know so you know it's difficult to have those engagements with industry particularly if on a one-on-one basis, right? So we look to toward industry days or reverse industry days where we bring you in and tell you what our challenges are So that you can then tell us what your solutions are rescue 21 in Alaska is a challenge with the future rescue 21 is not Rescue 21 version 2.0. It's not terrestrial based towers We know that and we do have a requirements team working on future, you know But we have to get those requirements To a certain stage through our department before we can then you know put out an RFP So it is I think intentionally opaque the Congress did that to us What for one, you know to make sure that it's fair and open competition? But we do look to have some reverse industry days so we can talk to you about what our challenges are moving forward And you can help us develop some solutions other questions raise your hand Anyone all right. This is an easy group. Okay. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you all