 Welcome to the 2016 CR Space Expo Sea Service Roundtable session titled Recruit, Train, Retain, Manpower in the 21st Century. I'm Master Chief Paid Officer of Coast Guard Steve Cantrell and I will moderate the discussion this afternoon. I want to thank you all for being here this afternoon first and as we discussed what I think is the most important of all of our sea services and that's our people. As you've wandered around or had the chance to wander around and see all the new technology down at the Expo on the floor, you see great new things for our nation and for our sea services. However, that technology and that capability is worthless without the world class marines, sailors and Coast Guardsmen that operate it. Today we're going to talk about how we recruit, train and retain the best workforce this country has ever seen. I have the honor to moderate and what I'd like to do is introduce the panelists first and after I give a quick introduction they will have a one to two minute opportunity to speak and after each of the panelists is gone we'll go into some questions that we've already discussed beforehand and we'll get through those. For the panel as I ask the question, you answer that and then the rest of the panelists will have an opportunity if they'd like to either add on to that discussion, that question or add on and then we'll go out to the floor for one to two questions if possible. If not we'll just move on to the next. If we don't get to your question, I promise we will at the end. We'll save a little bit of time at the end for floor Q&A and I would ask when we do that that you stand up introduce yourself and make sure you direct your question if it's at a particular member on the panel or if it's just for general use. Let me introduce the esteemed panel that we have here today. First we have Rear Admiral Jeffrey Hughes who is the commander of Navy Recruiting Command. He's a career naval aviator that has served in command at the squadron wing and flag levels. Admiral Hughes assumed the duties as 21st commander of the Navy Recruiting Command in September 2015. He leads a people first focus team responsible for the national recruitment of men and women for officer enlisted programs in the regular and reserve components of the United States Navy. Admiral Hughes is dedicated to improving the lives of our recruiting force as they aspire to be the undisputed talent acquisition leader in the DOD sector. Rear Admiral Jeffrey Hughes. Thanks, Mass Chief. Is this hot? Warm? How about now? Alright. Alright, well thanks again Mass Chief and good afternoon to all of you. I want to thank the Navy League for allowing us to speak on this incredibly important topic. And lastly I want to thank everybody here so either you're hanging out because happy hour is going to be starting pretty soon but honestly it's good to have you here because again I don't think any of us would dispute the fact that this is an incredibly important topic. To each and every one of us. So listen into the Chiefs on Monday morning as they kicked off and we talked about a lot of things, talked about some acquisition related topics, a lot of geopolitical type topics. But at the end everything kind of came back around to our people and that is the distinct competitive advantage that we enjoy today and we're going to work very hard across the manpower personnel and training and education realm in all of the sea services to make sure that we maintain and keep that competitive edge where it is and where it needs to be in the future. Quick fix on where we are with the Navy. We by any objective measurement at this point in time are bringing in the highest quality people, officers and sailors that we've ever brought in in the history of the United States Navy. We are in a great position. However I will tell you that from my perch over the last eight months I see headwinds on the horizon. From a resourcing perspective, pretty crystal clear and a constant theme that you're going to hear in this building throughout the course of this convention that the declining top line is going to really make things much more pressurized for us as we have very tough choices ahead with investment in procurement, modernization, readiness and then certainly what we want to do to modernize our weapon system which is the people that we have in our services. Requirements. So we're almost a victim of our own success in that the fleet demands the quality of sailors that we're bringing in right now. That's the expectation. And frankly in emerging areas of new growth in warfare areas that we have to really get better at as we go forward such as information dominance, information warfare, cyber, electromagnetic warfare. We need to bring in even better people and that is a growth requirement. So resources coming down, requirements growing up. The third component is what's the market going to look like? And that's pretty vexing right now. I would say that over the last 15 years we've enjoyed a very favorable recruiting market. All indications right now if you look at the unemployment rate and the youth unemployment rate is that we should start to experience some really tough times here in the near future. The economy is still a little sluggish so we're still enjoying some pretty good benefits but we've got to be prepared for when that eventuality happens and it will happen probably over the course of the next year, year and a half, two years. So what are we doing about it? Again the chief said on this one we've got to change, we've got to adapt, we've got to be ready. We have to control what we can control as we evolve and control and focus that evolution in the areas that move the needle for us in our critical area. A couple of reasons why we have to change. We can't afford the status quo. We can't afford to recruit and train and do the retention piece the way that we've done it in the past. So we've got to get smarter about our processes and make sure that we're doing things as effectively and efficiently as we possibly can. The other piece of this is that the talent market is changing. We'll talk and hopefully you'll ask some questions on our perspective on the millennials, the generation why folks. It's a different group that we're really trying to understand and uncover and frankly we're starting to merge into generation Z or whatever the what's next. So we really need to make sure that we're changing and adapting to be effective in that talent pool that we're looking at here over the course of the next 10 to 15 years. And then lastly we need to take advantage of the changes in the information flow that exists in the different means of people gaining information about what it is we do. How do we tell our story in a saturated market? How can we move the needle so that at the end of the day we can put our incredibly talented recruiters out there on the bag and make a difference and help people that are sitting on the fence make the decision to join the greatest Navy in the history of the world. Thanks. Thank you, Aber. Next we have Master Chief April Belda who is the Fleet Master Chief of Manpower Personnel Training and Education. The mission of MPT&E is distribution and administration of Naval personnel to meet quantitative and qualitative manpower requirements and execute career development training and education policies. Fleet Belda provides advice to the Chief of Naval Personnel Deputy, Chief of Naval Operations on matters and policies of interest affecting 400,000 active and reserve sailors throughout the Navy. Additionally she maintains close liaison with the Master Chief of the Navy ensuring effective communications to and from the Fleet. Ladies and gentlemen, Fleet Master Chief April Belda. Good afternoon. And again, thank you all for being here this afternoon. As Admiral Hughes talked about, we both work for Admiral Moran and one of our responsibilities is not only recruiting, but it's training, it's making sure we distribute those personnel where they need to be, when they need to be there with the right training. And then after they continue their career making sure they have what they need to either stay or if they choose to transition, help them transition. My responsibility as a senior enlisted leader for Admiral Moran is to make sure that I'm out and about in the fleet talking to those sailors and making sure that we are able to provide those particular customer service, that's what I call them, customer service areas that we need to. I'm Admiral Hughes' wingman today, so all those questions that pertain to not only recruiting, training and maintaining and then retaining will answer together. So I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. Thanks, Fleet. Next we have Admiral Bill Kelly, who is the Coast Guard's assistant commandant for human resources. He is responsible for implementing the vision for human capital management to recruit, develop and retain a diverse, proficient and effective workforce to meet the current and future needs of the service's nearly 60,000 member active duty reserve and civilian workforce. Admiral Kelly oversees the Coast Guard's human resources field activities, health, safety and work life programs, sexual assault prevention and response, victim support program and leadership and diversity initiatives. Ladies and gentlemen, we are Admiral Bill Kelly. Thank you, Mass Chief. And as Mass Chief said, we're going to take about a minute or two here today to just give you an update. But Mass Chief, I've only been in the job 29 days, so thank you for just kind of covering some of the things I didn't even know I was responsible for. I appreciate that. And my two shipmates to the left, Admiral Hughes and Mass Chief, already hit on many of the same issues that are impacting us in the United States Coast Guard. So again, thanks to my Navy shipmates for covering many things that I was preparing to cover. I want to thank the Navy League and all of our sponsors for the opportunity to be here today. I've had the opportunity to grow up both in the surface fleet and also in the HR world and the training world, the performance world and the personnel world. I just can't think of a better task to wake up day in and day out than to be caring about the men and women of our great service. Whether it's the active duty of the reserve or our civil servants who show up for work every day committed to protecting and defending our nation. It's a noble profession. It's a great job. And as Admiral Hughes just touched on briefly, I had the opportunity to sit in on a brief today with the Commandant. And we went around the room. There was only seven or eight of us in the room. And I would say 60 to 70% of the issues that the Commandant was being briefed on this morning were personnel issues, starting with transgender and working down from there. So people are an important topic. Clearly, I believe the most important topic may not be the glitziest one to talk about, but the most important one. And we'll talk more about that and look forward to your questions and the opportunity to comment and also the opportunity to learn sitting up here among so many great shipmates today. Thank you. Thanks, Admiral. Next we have Brigadier General James Bierman, who is the Commanding General of Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and the Western Recruiting Region. Over 21,000 recruits train at Recruit Depot San Diego every year and over one million have trained there since MCRD San Diego's inception. Western Recruiting Region is responsible for recruiting quality men and women west of the Mississippi River to serve as U.S. Marines to embody the Marine Corps' core values, honor, courage, and commitment. Ladies and gentlemen, Brigadier General Bierman. Thank you for the intro and great to be here with all of you. I'll start by just making, teasing out something that came out in the bio. As the Commanding General of MCRD San Diego, I'm also the Commanding General of the Western Recruiting Region. And in the Marine Corps, that's deliberate. We believe that the unity of command, of having one commander who's responsible for both the recruiting and the recruit training, that forces accountability throughout the entire system. One of our previous comments, General Barrow, when he combined recruiting and recruit training under the same general, his comment was, you know, recruiting station commanders don't send their bosses bad recruits. So I actually have responsibility for recruiting and recruit training west of the Mississippi, and then my counterpart at MCRD Parris Island has responsibility for recruiting and recruit training east of the Mississippi River. We believe in the Marine Corps that recruiting and recruit training are inextricably linked, and we believe that the entire to the entry level pipeline is inextricably linked to our success and combat and our ability to be the nation's force and readiness. I'll tell you all that recruiting and recruit training in the Marine Corps are critically important. Now some of you may be saying, okay, I got that. Anybody on the panel could say that. Frankly, so could anybody leading any high-tempo civilian organization. You know, the ability to recruit good people, to train them the right way, that's important to everybody. And I acknowledge that point, but I'll also say recruiting and recruit training are uniquely critical to the United States Marine Corps. And I'll back up that statement with two points. The first thing I will tell you all is, in the Marine Corps, we are uniquely a people organization. What has always distinguished us is the individual Marine. It's always been that way. It's always going to be that way. And I would say in today's operating environment, it's more important than it's ever been. The other point I'll make is, one of the things that distinguishes the United States Marine Corps is we are the youngest of all the services, and we have the highest turnover. A couple of data points on that. In October 1st of this year, we'll come down to 182,000 active duty United States Marines. Of that 182,075% of all those Marines are first-term Marines. 145,000 of those Marines are in the grade of sergeant and below. Every year in the Marine Corps, we turn over between 35 and 40,000 Marines. And when you think about why the American people pay our bills of four-deployed force and readiness, those are staggering numbers to reflect on the fact that 20% to 25% of the Marine Corps turns over on an annual basis. Hopefully they go on to leave the Marine Corps be better citizens, but it's a zero-sum game. They've got to be replaced with the right young men and women, the right numbers, the right quality. The Marine Corps machine is highly efficient, but it's also fragile. And it depends on those numbers coming in on time in the right quality and in the right way. We remain successful. We don't take that for granted at all. I certainly agree with Admiral Hughes' comment that there are a lot of indicators that the recruiting environment is going to continue to be, it's going to get even more challenging than it is. But I would just point out of all the things I could mention to three pillars of our success in the Marine Corps on the recruiting side. The first is the institutional commitment of our senior leadership. A lot of people are just amazed when I mentioned the fact in the Marine Corps, plus or minus about 80 general officers, about a quarter of them have served in recruiting. With 59 sergeants major on recruiting, we have more sergeants major doing recruiting than in any other command in the Marine Corps. Secondly, the quality of the Marines that we're sending to recruiting duty and to BDIs are very, very best NCOs, staff NCOs and officers. We can't afford to do it any other way. We have to send our best and expect them to recruit in their own image. And the last thing I would mention is the timelessness of our brand. We still don't promise a rose garden. We still throw a challenge out there. If you can meet our standards and our expectations, maybe you can be a Marine. And then the last thing I'll say is one of our previous commentants said, we do two things at the end of the day for the country in the United States Marine Corps. We win our nation's battles and we make Marines. Well, you just can't do the first unless you get the second right. And so that remains a point of high emphasis in our institution. Thank you. Thank you, General. Next we have Sergeant Major Ron Green, who is the 18th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, having assumed the post in February of 2015. He is the senior enlisted advisor to the command line of the Marine Corps. He's been deployed to Somalia with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit during Operation Restore Hope. He's deployed to South America in support of Operation United Americas in 2002 and with the Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, Sergeant Major Green. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. On behalf of the entire Marine Corps, the 34,000 that afford deployed, 184,000 on active duty, 38,500 reserve Marines we have, I want to thank you for showing up today and showing interest in this conversation. I don't have a lot to say to start off because what General Beerman just said is the conversation on Marine Corps. I don't need to repeat that. I represent all 85% of the Marines that wear flat black on their collar. I'm proud to be here and I look forward to answering your questions. Thanks, Sergeant Major. Finally we have Mr. John Thacker, who is the executive director of the Navy's military sea lift command. Military sea lift command is the leading provider of ocean transportation for the Navy and the rest of the Department of Defense operating approximately 115 ships daily around the world. Military sea lift command operates ships that support five mission areas, combat logistics, command and service support, special mission, prepositioning and sea lift. Mr. Thacker is responsible for providing legal and business advice on the full spectrum of issues at military sea lift command. From November 2007 to July 2008, he served as acting assistant secretary of the Navy, research development and acquisition. In February 2011, he became executive director of the military sea lift command. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. John Thacker. Master Chief, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Good afternoon, everyone. In case you were wondering, yes, I am intimidated sitting up here as the only guy with a tie on with all of these distinguished officers here with me, but I am proud to be here with all of you. So thank you for the opportunity. So you're probably wondering why this guy is up here in civilian clothes. Well, I work for military sea lift command. We are a largely civilian organization. We hire and train and recruit 5,900 civil service mariners to drive our ships every day. We are a commercial shipping company buried inside the United States Navy. So what do we have to do? We have to do the same thing that these officers have to do, except instead of going to the street or schools or anywhere else that they go, I go to U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. I go to six state academies to get our officers, or I go out to the street to get our able-bodied seamen to come aboard our ships. These ships, these officers that we recruit and train are driving everything from a 106,000 ton USNS puller, which is our brand new float forward staging base ship, all the way down to working in the engine room of one of our new expeditionary fast transport ships. We do our own recruiting inside of MSC. We don't use the Navy Millington recruiting facilities. So we have our own mini bupers, if you will, inside, and so we have to manage all of that and the training and everything that goes along with it. As I said before, we are a commercial shipping company. We use a commercial shipping model. And along with what Master Chief commented on, about the five service areas that we use, that we provide. Along with that, I will remind all of us that we have 43 separate classes of ships that we operate. And to find the right masters, the right able-bodied seamen, and the right individuals to drive those ships every day is a huge challenge for us. So we're facing a lot of the same issues that some of the folks up and down this table are every day. I look forward to your questions. Thanks again, Master Chief. Thank you, sir. Okay, we're going to get right into it with some questions for the panel. And as I asked a question for the panel in no certain order, just whoever wants to ride you up and answer it, please just do that. We'll give each panelist an opportunity to answer the question. First is a lot of emphasis is being placed on the future of our force and their readiness. What initiatives are each of your components working on to innovate the recruiting process and how have you altered your methods to attract today's youth to military service? I'll take the stab first. The first thing is, and I'm not going to dodge the question at all, but I would reiterate the fact that we have a timeless formula in the Marine Corps that works very well for us. We take the very best Marines, regardless of their MOS, their job specialty, and we send them to be DIs and we send them to be recruiters. They throw that challenge out, they recruit in their own image, and then we take some of the very best Marines who transform them, these young men and women, into Marines at boot camp. That's not ever going to change. And for the reasons I've already described, that's an institutional imperative. I would mention a couple things, though, that I think are recent innovations or changes. The first thing I would say is, more aggressively than any time in the 29 years I've been in a Marine and certainly in the last three years I've been a commander on recruiting, we are aggressively going after quality females right now in the Marine Corps. We have 14,000 female Marines in our Corps today. We could not be more proud of them, but to this point, because we have the smallest number of females of any of the other services, plus or minus five, six, seven percent as you move through the years, we've been in a little bit of a position to where we oftentimes didn't need to go after them as aggressively as we did sometimes the men. We had a little bit of an attitude of those quality females will come to us, and indeed that was often the case. However, recently we have changed our entire system and focused on going after the quality females. In terms of the advertising, in terms of the mail-outs, in terms of the components of systematic recruiting, we are doing everything in our power to have the conversation with the quality females that are out there about being United States Marines. In the fall of this year, we're going to begin shipping females to previously closed ground combat MOSs. We want to make sure we are selling those jobs effectively the right way, and we want to make sure we're sparing no effort to find young women who want to do it and can meet the very tough upfront requirements. We want to make sure that we're picking and choosing from among the very best that are out there. And then the other thing I would mention, and I suspect that we've all experienced this on the panel, while our message has not changed and our approach has not changed, we constantly have to evolve how we talk to and connect with young people. We have to keep taking a look at how they view and use social media, and it's amazing the degree to which it changes. I have five kids, two in college, three in high school, and just last week they were laughing at me like, you know, Dad still thinks it's okay to send emails. I mean, I almost can't keep up with the way they communicate, their emphasis being on the text. So we're constantly reassessing, you know, how are we communicating with and messaging the young men and women that are out there to make sure that it's in a relevant web-based way. We've got a great partner, our 70-year partnership with Jay Walter Thompson that keeps us honest. So those are two things that I would touch on. Thanks, Mayor Chief. I'm going to echo a number of the comments that General Bierman brought up. I think it's important to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We're obviously all very successful in what we're doing. Just look at who we have in service today. So there's an awful lot that we want to maintain, but I will tell you again, trying to control, I don't want those external factors and forces to drive us to an area where we're not going to be as capable of going forward. So we've got to evolve in pace, and I'll say I'll jump on the area. First and foremost, the beginning of this question was about readiness, and I would say that all of us on this panel think in terms of this is all about what it takes to win. We've got to remember that while we may be competing with the private sector, we at the end of the day really need to make sure that we're bringing in the right talent to ensure that we're going to maintain that competitive advantage against potential adversaries now and in the future. So a couple of things is the connection with that talent and how do we reach them. So certainly evolving through things like just getting in the medium where we're actually penetrating and getting out there. One of the hard parts is just how much information exists in the market today. It's overwhelming. So how do we take our great narrative, the great story, the things that attracted us, and again, putting representative folks, the very best of our services out on the bag to go out there and actively convince those to come take this journey with us, that's critical. So much like the Marine Corps, we are actually a little bit different than Marine Corps in that they've had a long-standing relationship with a marketing and advertising agency for some time that have done just phenomenal work and frankly are the benchmark for all of us to find. We just signed on for a new contract and I will tell you, it gives us an opportunity to really get after where this market is going, how it's evolving, and how we can be more effective across the board in every aspect and how we really go out and reach those folks. But I'd also say we also have a great message in that we're putting in place some of these Sailor 2025 initiatives. Things that are going to make the military look more attractive to this generation, to the millennials. Things that are going to help them, they're different than the Gen Xers, than the Boomers that are in the senior ranks and certainly us up on this table right now. So having a better story that we can actually get out there is certainly going to be helpful. I would also say it's important for us, just a year and a half, maybe two years ago, our recruiters were out in the field with flip phones. So we're out there trying to show that this very tech-savvy client base that we're out there, here we are, the Ford class nuclear aircraft carrier, the F-35B and C Joint Strike Fighter DDG-1000 and we're still on the flip phone. We lose a lot of credibility right there. So you know what, we're on the iPhone 5 and frankly we're enabling our recruiters to do something that's even more important in my humble opinion, which is in this favorable market that we've had over the last 15 years, I think we've gotten a little too passive. So we're getting active, we're getting mobile. We're taking this mobile technology that will resonate better with the folks that we're trying to attract to come into the service and we're connecting with them to the point where why shouldn't we be able to do a completely paperless application much like you would to apply a common app for a college admissions process or to get a home loan or a mortgage? I mean we need to have that same level of customer service. They expect that and frankly we need to get there and we're getting there and that's going to really help us turn the corner. Lastly, I'd say we're starting to dabble a little bit more now with virtual recruiting in general. When you start talking about this pressurization in the top line and us having to be smarter with the resources that we have, we're putting the resources where the market bears out where the talent is because again it's not just about volume, it's about high quality. We need high quality to be successful in that fight of the future. So we're putting the ground game where it moves the needle the most. However, it's giving us an opportunity to look at how we can best employ our virtual recruiting to get after some of those areas that maybe we vacated but also to kind of help get into that medium where we might be able to complete the majority of that transaction from prospecting through the actual convincing someone to come over the line and hire them as well as to help with the onboarding process to make sure that they're as successful as they show up at the front door of Retreat Training Command or up at OCS, ODS and Newport to make that happen. So kind of a lot of different things out there at the end of the day. We're trying to make sure that we're making it such that we understand the medium they're operating in and we're attracting them based on how we're operating that medium and that we're changing the process where we need to to be more effective and efficient in the tough times that are ahead. Mass Chief, I mentioned that General Bierman, how much similarity across all the services. I like to say that we're about in order of magnitude one or two zeroes below what the Navy Marine Corps or our brothers and sisters in the Army of the Air Force when we talk about recruiting. A couple years ago we made the decision to reduce our recruiting workforce by about 25%. We're hurting because of that right now. We're in a stern chase with regards to recruiting the workforce of the future. So with that, the Coast Guard is hiring. Gocoastgard.com for any of you out there who are anyone who might have be propensed to serve in the United States military. I believe our brand is phenomenal and we're looking to hire some good young men and women. So we're in a stern chase. We're down to 55 recruiting offices across the country and as Admiral Hughes just talked about, we need to figure out how to be relevant across the country. We're basically, we recruit along the coasts, which would make sense for the United States Coast Guard, but we recognize we're missing out on a large cohort of men and women and a diverse cohort of men and women across the heartland of this country who have the attributes to serve in the United States military. So we have to figure out how to be mobile, how to reach out to them, and I really appreciate your comments on paperless. We're working to get there because we were right where you were at. You know, the flip phones two and three years ago and if you can't go out with an iPad and show a young man or woman what you're going to be able to do and what they're going to be able to do in the United States Coast Guard, they're moving on to the next booth and not going to be spending the time with us. We have a great brand. So in places like Boston, places like Chesapeake, Virginia, places like LA, places like San Francisco, we have no problems recruiting. That's a place where the Coast Guard has strong brand recognition and quite frankly, other than Chesapeake, we're probably, you know, pretty front and center from a military perspective and those little cows. You can't really, other than old iron sight up in Boston, there's not much going on from, you know, from a Navy perspective. So the Coast Guard's the big player in that arena and we do great up there. We got to figure out how to take that brand recognition and be able to translate that elsewhere throughout the country to be able to attract those young men and women because our recruiting mission has doubled in the past three years and we're in the hurt locker right now. We're in a clear stern chase. So, you know, we're looking to learn, I'm looking to learn up here, but also to learn and to engage with the folks who are in the audience about what we can do to potentially, you know, find those forced multipliers so that we can recruit the future of the United States Coast Guard. Thanks, Mr. Chief. Mr. Chief, just a short comment. We're in a civilian recruiting mode, slightly different but about the same and what we find is that we create a list, flexible work schedules, more leave without pay opportunities, tuition assistance, intermittent or mixed work life schedule, use of mobile devices, financial incentives for licensed officers, tuition assistance, tuition reimbursement, opportunities to go to graduate school to Naval War College. That brings us to the starting line because that's what all the corporate guys are giving them because when our mariners graduate from one of the six state maritime academies, if we don't offer them that, some commercial shipping company will or some oil driller in the Gulf of Mexico will offer them that. So that's where we set the bar and then we have to move forward from there. So it's a similar but slightly different challenge that we're facing. Sergeant Major, please. General, do you okay? Get out everything for Navy. Sergeant Major. Okay, I'd like to open up for a couple of questions from the floor if there are any. Good afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Sanchez from the Dutch Marines. I've got a question for Sergeant Major Green and probably also for Fleet Master Chief Bello. We're talking about recruiting, training, but retaining. Changes are hard, especially culture changes are even harder. We're talking about a big majority of older and listed and officers of course also who are actually feeling comfortable in the comfort zone. Talking about changing, I think this is the part we really need to convince and really need to support change if we're talking about changing an organization. How does the Navy, especially for me the Marines, how do we work on that and do we have plans to actually drag those persons in and let them help with making changes? Is my question clear or? It's pretty clear. I'm trying to figure out who you're talking about dragging in. That's the question. I've seen with the Dutch Marines, we just changed in 2013, we actually changed our complete organization if you're talking about the companies, the sections and things like that. What we actually show is that the older NCOs are hard to convince of changing. Those are the guys we really need to force and help us out with changing. My question actually is, do you see the same problems with all the big changes which are coming up, especially talking about technology, our Whiskits which are coming in right now are used to it, we are not, I'm not. Do you have plans for how do we implement this and how do we actually take them with us on the path of change? I understand, I understand. Change for the older generation has been the same all the time. For any older generation, change is hard. This is not something new that we're doing. Of course it's hard. The biggest difference today from when I came in 33 years ago and the Sorry Major to Marine Corps is technology. It's trying to keep up with the youth globally. When General Beerman talked about all the texting and the email and all of that, that's what we seem to suffer as an older generation. No other generation, I don't think any other generation has faced this type of global change at such a rapid pace. Between the computer and the eye and you know everything else out there, I mean information travels instantaneously around the world. That means the enemy has the same capability on the iPhone that the United States Department of Defense has. And we need to understand that. It's not just the youth here in America, it's the youth movement has happened around the world. You look at Egypt, you look at Tunisia, all those were youth movements. That's revolutionary. It has been going on probably since human beings have been on the earth. That's just the way it is. Eventually the old will go out, the new will become old, and the clock starts again. But as far as the Marine Corps is concerned, it's where we start. We start selling the same product every day. We don't change the product we're looking for. An opportunity to be something better than self, to be a part of a team that goes out every day and tries, or not tried, but makes sure that we assure this nation freedom and security. That's what the United States Marine Corps does. In 1952, the 87th Congress told the Marine Corps, you ought to be a force in readiness. You ought to be most ready when the nation is least ready. We wake up with that mission every day. 24 infantry battalions, 24. Those are the individuals that everything else in the Marine Corps supports. Everything they do, everything they carry to combat is on their back. It's on their back. That hasn't changed. That won't change tomorrow until we can get something like Ripley and Alien, or, you know, what's the other movie? What's the one? Avatar. Until we can invent something, you know, some exoskeletons that's going to carry what we call in the book, the soldiers load or the Marines load, it's going to be on their back. Those are the people we have to recruit, male or female. If you can carry it, if you can do what the Marine Corps standards say are required of you, you can do the job. We just opened up the last six MOSes that have always been restricted to female Marines. They're wide open. They're wide open. No one's beating down the door. The Marines are not beating down the door to carry 100-some pounds on their backs. But for the ones that can do it, they're absolutely invited to come and join the team, the infantry team. Everything else supports that Marine Air Ground Task Force. So when you say change, understand the people we recruit, they either, you know, they go out and they change mines or they change zip codes. That's what we do. I don't care how much technology. I don't care how much, you know, you talk about people recruiting people this. Yeah, we have MOSes for that. But the basis of what we do is locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire maneuver or repeal the enemy's assault by fire and close combat. That's the United States Marine Corps. That's the mission we were given by Congress and the 114th Congress reminding us of that a few years ago. I get to go up and testify on the quality of life, not just the ones who wear the flat black, but the entire Marine Corps. I get the change. I got it. Somebody's got to kick the door down and find out whether they're enemy or they're freeing. Somebody's got to be when they come home, when they need prosthetics, the millions of veterans out there. A lot of people talk about technology. I get paid to meet with human and technology. That crossroad, that's what I care about. That's what I care about. I care more about the people than I care about the technology. I get it. We got to pace. We got to stand pace. We got to outpace our enemy. I got it. I got it. But the individual we recruit is most important to me. We will make the change, such as integration. We will make that change in all for those MOSs as we have to everyone, to everyone. And if they fit, if they can pass the standard, whoever they are, we invite them to be on the team. I hope that answers your question. I just want to say if that answer didn't make you want to run 10 miles and punch something, you need to check your pulse. Time for one more? One more question? Hi. Yes, ma'am. So I'm hearing the Navy and the Marine Corps express interest in recruiting better educated recruits, more technical skills, and notwithstanding the Sergeant Major's comments. I was just curious to hear from both sides what the benchmarks of success will be there and what the goals are. And then I know the Marine Corps has expressed some interest in noncognitive testing to get at that retaining element of recruitment. I wanted to hear how that's going, if there are any findings, and if the Navy is considering anything similar. If I could talk to the, I think you talked about the benchmarks with regards to recruiting women. Is that what your point was? Or technical ratings? Well, what I will share with as far as the Navy in recruiting and Amber Hughes to help me out on this one. I don't think we have a benchmark per se. Our goal is to make sure that we as an organization are reaching out and we are able to tap into the talent in those technical ratings as much as we possibly can. So there's no more than or no less than. Again, we're just, in our mind, when we go out to recruit those young men and women, we want the best of the best along with our other services, I do believe. You know, whoever comes through the door, if they meet the standard as far as Sergeant Major Green talked about, we're going to ask them to be a part of our team. Now, we're always looking for certain areas and specialties, as all of us do, but there's no benchmark that I can think of, sir. I don't recall us having a benchmark. I just say that we have a demand signal from the fleet. So the fleet tells us exactly what it is they need to operate and to be effective in employing these combat necessary weapons systems, both as operators as well as technicians to make sure that we can maintain them so that they're up and ready when we need them. So we then, on the recruiting side, we see what is that demand signal on the people chain management front, and then we go out there and we find those people. So we have a very precise fit that plugs into the front end, and if you get that right, then you're more likely to get the rest of it right. So we're going to get the right trained, the right equipped people to that platform to integrate into whatever that combat package may be, a carrier strike group, an expeditionary strike group, what have you, so they can go out there and do the mission. So we do obviously look to see what the quality metrics are to support that precise fit. And again, as I mentioned in the intro, by all objective standards and measures, academic aptitude, a number of high school diploma graduates, things along those lines, we've never had higher numbers of statistics that we have in the past. If I can just make one comment now. You said something about more educated and more talented individuals. We just fought for 14 years, 14 years of fighting. Education talent looked pretty freaking good on the battlefield. I'm just asking, I mean, I don't understand the caliber. This is America. We represent the people of America at all educational level, up and down the chain. We've got nuclear, you know, submarines, F-35 joint strike fighters, but we have infantrymen, we have cooks, you know, we have supply, we've got artillery. The mix is, we represent the finest in America. The less than 1% that are put on the uniform and defend this nation. We have talent and we have education. We educate from your, the homes you live in. That's what we were given. That's what we educate. I mean, that's what we recruit from. Yeah, and I'll dovetail a little bit on that great point by the Sergeant Major. We are, we're getting an extraordinary product right now. The ASVAB scores, the rate of high school completion, the amount of time they spend in the delayed entry program, it's higher than it's ever been. I'm always very, very hesitant, though, about saying things like better than it's ever been in the history of the Marine Corps. I mean, who are you comparing the kids nowadays to? To the Marines who landed on Iwo Jima who marched out of the chosen reservoir. So I would firmly say, I would firmly say as good. At the same time, you know, we need to make sure, and we talk about this a lot in the Marine Corps, we can't get mesmerized by the glittering educational statistics, the ASVAB scores. And we've got to make sure we stay focused on the whole person concept. One thing we're doing right now in the Marine Corps is we're having a very good and useful dialogue, particularly with some of the federal services, to increase our ability to do mental health screening up front. We've introduced some new tests that they're called the Omaha Five and Tapest to make sure that, you know, in addition to the great education, the great intelligence scores, we're getting young men and women who are mentally healthy. The other thing I would mention, too, is, you know, we need to make sure we keep the main thing the main thing. And that's coming back to what I said about the whole person concept. We not only need kids who are smart, who are high school graduates, we need young men and women who are mentally, morally and physically tough, who can take a punch. You know, I was just talking, I was giving the precept to one of our boards where we were selecting officer candidates, and I said to the board, look, you know, if I got a kid with a, and really some of the stats are this good now, if I got a kid with a three-five president of his fraternity, eagle scout, lettered in a sport, but he's been on the sweet side of the curve his entire life, and the first time, you know, his platoon sergeant at OCS tells him he did something wrong, he kind of folds like a cheap suit because nobody's ever talked to him that way. Is that the one I want, or do I maybe want the kid with a few tenths of a point, less GPA, who put himself through college, who's had some adversity in his life, who's overcome some obstacles, and is mentally and physically tough? Because that's what he's going to be required to endure in combat, and as he becomes a mentor and a leader to young Marines, you know, he's going to need to talk them through their problems. Now, ideally, I'm like every other senior leader in the military, I want it all. I want both things. But, you know, as much as we pat ourselves on the back for the great statistics, you know, we got to also remind ourselves in the Marine Corps, we're not necessarily looking for a kid who has home play and chess on Saturday night. We're looking for a smart, dedicated kid who has got some physicality and can overcome adversity and pushes her way through tough situations. I want to call a quick audible, just instead of just going to get through the questions for the panel and then we'll save the last bit of time for Q&A from the floor. The first question I have is for everyone. Are you planning to innovate and update the professional or technical training of recruits at basic training and of sailors throughout their naval careers? So, in the essence of time, I won't drone on too much here. I will tell you one of the, we just rolled out a design for maintaining maritime superiority, and one of the key lines of effort for us is to achieve high velocity learning at every level. So, one of the things that we're trying to do is to better deliver the right training to people at the right time. So, we call it ready, relevant learning. And what I'll do, instead of telling you what it is, I'll give you an example. So, right now, we may bring in one of these physically, morally, mentally fantastic future sailors through our depth into recruit training command, get them up to the baseline of our expectation, then we'll send them on to their in-rate training. A lot of times we bring them through that training in the technical rating area, and a lot of times it can take a pretty large amount of time. That's time that they're not getting out to the fleet. We also have a tendency to give them too much training up front. They may go through what we call the A-School, which is the initial, and then get into a more graduate level C-School. So, by the time they get out to the fleet, they've taken all this education, but they really haven't had a whole lot of practical experience. We think that it's better for them to learn faster by shortening those learning cycles. Let's get them through RTC, get them what they need so they can be effective sailors, then build on that, get them into that rate training. What do they need to do in the fleet as an operator or as a technician, and give them just enough that they can be effective then when they get their hands on that equipment, and then they're working with those that have the experience out in the fleet, and then we'll continually revisit that periodically. It's a continuum of learning that's going to last throughout their entire career so that we continue to give that to them all along. It's very akin to what I've grown up with in naval aviation and that early on, they teach you how to fly the aircraft and how to fight the weapon system, but you get kind of an undergraduate level and then you'll learn through your first squadron tour and you continue to progress with your qualifications. You get more tactically capable, but then you start getting into more and more of you're learning how to not only lead your particular, be effective as the aircraft commander, your particular aircraft, how am I going to do it with a section, how am I going to do it with a division of aircraft, how do I continue to expand and you bring that up over the course of time. So you're kind of merging some of those other considerations into that individual learning. We believe that that's going to be more effective on a number of fronts and so we're going to roll that out and we're pretty excited about what's going to bear out. Thanks, sir. Next question for Admiral Kelly. Admiral, the Command on the Coast Guard recently signed the Human Capital Strategy. Can you briefly explain how the Coast Guard plans to use this strategy to recruit, train, and retain an effective workforce in the future? Sure can, Mass Chief. Thank you. So on January 7th, the Command on it signed a Human Capital Strategy. It was the first time in our service's history where our senior leader put down in paper the strategy for moving forward with regards to our people. And the strategy is a 10-year strategy so it's not the next 720 days of his administration in the next two years that he serves his Command on. But it's designed to put a mark down in the sand and last us for the next decade. And he did this because we focused a lot over the past couple of years on recapitalizing our fleet and we're currently recapitalizing our IT infrastructure and many other of our systems. But he recognized, and I think we recognize, that people are at the foundation of that. So by putting the Human Capital Strategy in place, it puts a marker down. And I'd like to go back to an old Mass Chief who told me what the boss finds interesting, others will find fascinating. And by the fact that the Command on finds this interesting, it's proven that others find it fascinating. So with that comes attention, with that comes resources, with that comes focus on the appropriate resource our people. So the desire to really break it down is to recruit, to train and retain the best men and women that we can to serve the nation, both on the active, the reserve and the civil servant side of the house. And our goal and our desire is to put the right people in the right place at the right time with the right tools to accomplish Coast Guard missions for our nation. And so the Human Capital Strategy doesn't get very tactical but provides us the guidance and the oversight and really the framework to move forward with that. So that's really where the Human Capital Strategy is coming out. We're, what, four months into it, five months into it gaining some great traction. And again, it's really, I think it was the right stroke by our boss to say, hey, you know what, people are important. We're going to stop saying it and we're going to put a marker down in the sand and hold people accountable to it. So it's a great tool for us working forward and especially in the human resources world. It's a great tool to have at your disposal to lay out the framework and the guidelines and the track lines going forward. Thanks, sir. Next question is for Fleet Beldo. Mass Chief, it looks like the Navy has experienced an environment of extremely high retention. When it changes, and we all know that it will, what plan is the Navy working on right now to mitigate any alarming decrease in your retention levels? Well, I think Admiral Hughes, we talked about the recruiting piece of it in with regards to some of the initiatives that we have to be more efficient and more effective. And then again, to be more innovative as we go out and talk to our young perspective, young men and women that want to join the Navy. But I think also with that comes along this program, we have a Navy called Sailor 2025. And what we're doing is we are looking down the road and because we know that we cannot continue to recruit, train and retain our young men and women the way we do today. So there are some initiatives for us to have a better information technology backbone. For instance, again, here we go, talk about technology. Right now our sailors can't talk like they're used to talking at home. You know, they have their iPads, they have their iPhone, they do a lot of texting like General already talked about. But then they come to boot camp and then we give them a 550 page training guide and a pencil. So what we do is we have this initiative right now called eSailor that we're piloting in boot camp and we're distributing each of our recruits a tablet. And we're putting on the information that they need to use for over the next nine weeks to become a sailor on that tablet. And they don't have to be in a classroom, it's not all brick and mortar. After they finish in the classroom throughout the day, they can go back during night study and they can do repetitions of anything that they've learned during that day, whether that was boat and stowing, which has to do with attention to detail, whether that was live fire range or any type of identification of aircraft or submarines or ships, just something that they can use with applications, vice, again, this handbook and pen. So I think we're appealing, if I could say that, to the generation. However, at the end of that we make sure, and I think that's what Sergeant Major Green was getting at, at the end of the day when it's all said and done, one of the things we want to instill with our Navy Corps values of honor, courage, commitment is the initiative, integrity, accountability and toughness. And I think that's one of the things that we talked about is toughness. At the end of the day, you came, you joined because you wanted to do something, be a part of something bigger than yourself and serve your country. So we're trying to put that all into moving forward as an organization. And I think the sailor of 2025 will get that. So we're trying to get at that. Thanks, Lee. Great stuff. Next question is for our General Beerman. Sir, the Marine Corps is the only armed service that conducts gender segregated by gender integrated recruit training. I want to ask, why does the Marine Corps continue to think this is the right way to make a Marine just as the overall Corps becomes increasingly gender integrated? Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. The first thing I'll say up front is the Marine Corps is the only service that does same-sex recruit training. The other services are all integrated and we respect the way they do business. They turn out terrific soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guardmen, merchant mariners. But I am very glad because some of you may be aware that our decision to continue with same-sex recruit training has come under fire. I am glad to say some words about it and frankly to defend the way that we conduct entry-level training at boot camp. A couple points up front. While our males and our females do train in separate platoon series companies, battalions, I'll tell you that the men and women go to boot camp for exactly the same amount of time and they go through the exact same program of instruction. No differences whatsoever. Throughout the course of boot camp, the male and female recruits, they actually about 65% of the time, they come together, same location, same activity and they train side by side even though they're training in intact platoons. The other thing I would mention is in the Marine Corps, we have full gender integration in our follow-on combat training and in our MOS schools. We're the only service that after boot camp, before the Marines report into their MOS schools, we have a separate stand-alone period of combat training, which we view as part of our entry-level training. So we would say that we integrate near the end of the entry-level training pipeline prior to MOS school in combat training. But it's certainly I can understand why at a time where we've all got our marching orders and we've opened up previously closed units and MOSs, we're more fully integrating the military with regard to gender. I can see why somebody would look at the way we look at recruit training and say it's not keeping up with the times. I would say that we not only think the way we do same-sex recruit training is not counter to the end state of a gender integrated Marine Corps, we think for us it is absolutely the best training and a couple conversational points here. At the heart of what occurs in Marine Corps boot camp, the heart of what occurs at Marine Corps boot camp is the recruits within the platoon living, working, training with each other under tremendous stress in an open squad bay under the watchful eyes of a DI for 12 and a half weeks. That pressure is never off them and there's never a time where they can walk away from that need to come together as a team. There's two critical relationships that are being developed, the relationship between the recruits and the DI's and the relationship between the recruits themselves. We are inculcating them with our core values of honor, courage and commitment and we are transitioning their mindset from I to we, which is a key factor in winning on the battlefield, putting the mission and the unit above the selfish personal thoughts. And to that end, our experience and our assessment is that this transformation occurs best when we minimize distractions. I don't think anybody would disagree with me when I say young men and women that age can become tremendously distracted. And it's our belief that that transformation, which occurs during a very limited period of 12 weeks, that that's done best when the recruits are focused and they're bringing on board these important lessons. The other thing I'll say is we believe that there's got to be an environment where these recruits are being exposed to strong same sex, male and female role models that they can relate to and immediately strive to emulate. You know, we talked about the great stats, the great young men and women that are coming into Marine Corps and all the other services. I'll also tell you and it's sobering and I'm very big and inspired and bullish on the young men and women enjoying the military nowadays. But so many of them come from broken families where they either had no male or female role model or they would have been better off without the one they had. So we believe it's critically important. In a lot of cases, frankly, DIs are not teaching them, transferring them into Marines. They're teaching them first how to be, you know, principled young men and women before we even step off on the making of Marines part. We believe that our approach to recruit training acknowledges the difference between men and women. We want to maximize physical fitness while reducing injuries. Again, we bring those men and women together in combat training when we've brought both of them up to a certain level of physical fitness which increases confidence and increases the respect that they have for each other. We believe that our same sex recruit training model reduces discipline problems and we think it's also very conducive to an environment where recruits will step forward and talk about pre-existing sexual assaults or harassment that may have occurred in their life. Interesting, over the last 15 years there have been half a dozen congressional DOD private studies of all the services boot camps. In some cases they were not predisposed to appreciate or like the way we do business and they have universally come back with a very positive report card on how we make Marines. So I'll tell you, you know, the decision's been made to integrate the Marine Corps and the entire military. We support that with a happy and willing heart in the Marine Corps, but we don't think it's too much to ask. You know, as these young men and women go on to serve from anywhere from 40 to 40 years to have a small period of 12 weeks where the transformation occurs where they can focus on absorbing the right lessons amongst their fellow men or women in an undistracted environment. And so we remain very, very committed to that same sex recruit training. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Thakura, the Marriott's Military to Mariner's program connects veterans with careers of float in the U.S. Merchant Marine. How does this program help transitioning service members enter the Marriott Marine or work at Military Sealift Command? Thanks, Master Chief. The program that was kicked off by the Maritime Administration and has been supported by Military Sealift Command is a great initiative because sooner or later our enlisted or officer corps members of all of our services eventually decide to transition out. And what we're trying to do is set them up from the day they leave boot camp on a program that can allow them to accumulate sea time to get credit for the training that they're getting in the eyes of the Coast Guard. So, Master Chief, to your point, just this last week I got a draft copy and I have one here in front of me of a document that's called the Blueprint to Mariner. And it's got the Coast Guard symbols on it and members of our Navy recruitment commands that are working on this document that would allow a sailor coming out of Great Lakes to have the opportunity to get credit for all of that activity that they've got and be in a position to be handed a credential very quickly after leaving the service. We have a requirement over the next 10 years for 74,000 mariners in the United States and we have got to come up with innovative ways to attract these individuals to this service because without them we're not going to war because we need all of our military sea lift command vessels and our commercial U.S. flag fleet to be able to go to sea and take our nation to war. Thanks, Master Chief. Thank you, sir. And the last question I want to open up for... Master Chief, this is... I'm Master Chief Skip Bowen. I was a retired Master Chief of the Coast Guard. I wanted to comment on what the Marine General was saying about Marine boot camp. You know, during my time in 2007, I visited every single service recruit training because we were looking at revamping our own recruit training. And I'm going to tell you, he is absolutely right. Those that are criticizing the Marine for this, they need to go down to Parris Island and check this out. Let me tell you, it's needed, it is a good process and if I could have figured out a way to do it for the Coast Guard, I would have brought it to the Coast Guard. That's just a fact. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thanks, Master Chief. The last question then we'll go to have some floor questions. As for Sergeant Major Green, I just want to say, what are the biggest differences that you see today of the makeup of personnel in today's sea services compared to when you first joined so many, many, many years ago? I think the biggest difference I see today versus when I joined a few days ago, the amount of balls, you know, crystal balls, the youth of our service have to juggle. You know, when I came in the Marine Corps, there's some older personnel in the stage than I am. So I don't know why you're all picking on me. I'm probably the youngest one up here, minus you ma'am, I know, you don't age, I got it. I don't go there because I got a wife and a daughter. Then I'm off, you know, so. But seriously, you know, you think back, I think back to 33 years. I didn't have a car. I didn't have a checkbook. I didn't even have a bank account. I wouldn't even remember Navy Federal Credit when I first came in. I don't have to worry about any of that. I got a hard check. If I wanted to go out in town, I got on a bus. I didn't have a cell phone. I didn't have a Wi-Fi. I mean, everything was just, the beer garden was there. The beer machine was there. I didn't have to go get it. I mean, it's just, everything was so freaking simple. I mean, the youth of the military, I don't call them kids because first off, we don't recruit kids and put weapons in their hands to go out and possibly kill people. So I'd appreciate it if we stopped calling them kids. They are not kids when they raise their right hand instead of going to defend this nation. They're young Americans. They're the youth of our military. But I'll tell you, they have a lot more on their plate than I had on mine. I'd sit down in the evening after work, especially on my boots. We don't have any special boots anymore. I press my camis. We don't press camis anymore. In the effort to give them back time, to give back time so they have more time to themselves. I don't know if that was necessarily the right thing to do. I don't know. Because when I look back at my time, I mean, I could just focus. We talk about iPads and all that. You know, some sergeants, we bring sergeants in to the Executive Force Preservation Board. We do that twice a year. From the sergeants course. We just have a gunny go out and pick them. She's a part of the safety team. She bring them back and they tell us, hey, a couple of them. Hey, it's our major. Assistant Colonel on the Marine Corps. I wish y'all would stop putting everything on marine net on the computer and then complaining about us wanting to take our cell phone to the field. You put everything on the computer. I may want to do, you know, some professional military education when I'm not doing anything in the field, but you tell me to put my cell phone up. You didn't give me a book. Think about that. You didn't give me a book. You gave me everything electronically. You understand, you say I give off an electronic signature when we're in the field so the enemy might, you know, sneak up on us. But you can't have it both ways. Leadership of the Marine Corps. Decide which one you want. So they want, they want the same thing I want. They want kneecap to kneecap. Leadership, coaching, mentoring, training, teaching, and when all this fails, counseling. But counseling is the last resort. There are only about five reasons, five reasons that Marines come in the Corps to be something better than self because they've had family members that have served maybe not in the Marine Corps but in a branch of service and they're carrying on the legacy because they have failed at something such as myself when I have my scholarship taken away in college because I didn't do what the band director said. I tell Marines that because I want them to know. I am not perfect. I've walked in the same shoes you walk in. I'm proud to say that I've failed at something but I wasn't measured by how far I've failed. I'm measured by how far I get back up. Too often we won't tell the youth that we have failed at things. Believe me, they know that we're not perfect. Share the stories with them. They also come in because they've been hurt by someone. Well, they've hurt someone by patriotism. That's about it. That's it. I asked this question every time I go out and talk to Marines. I was out in Norfolk yesterday. I asked the same question. No one else can raise their hand. Two Marines, they made a bet while drunk. Flip the coin. Landed on heads. Heads was a Marine Corps. And they came in. But I took them right back to the same question. Were you doing anything with your life? So obviously you want it to be a part of something better. You want it to be an A branch of service. It just happened to land on heads. I say, well, that's what you get by playing with a two-headed quarter. So the difference, the biggest difference is everything we desire from them versus everything that was required of us. It's a huge difference. We talk about all this technology. We're going to put it on their backs. They're going to be the ones that are running. And they can, and they are running. They can absolutely do it. I was reading Scientific American magazine a couple of months ago and it struck me that it's not them understanding us. That's the problem. It's us understanding them. It was fascinating to article in the magazine. It talked about the brain and the different parts of the brain that grow at the same rate. It's not the parts of the brain that's the problem. It's not that the youth don't get it. Don't get what we got at the same age. It's the connectors. It's the connectors where information traveled from one part to another. That's a lot thinner in their brain. That's the part scientists have to figure out. Why are those connectors so much thinner than our generation? Could it be because we've introduced them to so much technology? So much technology. Until it's changing. It's changing the way the brain really grows and processes information. We think they have a problem. I don't think they have a problem. I think it's just a difference. Like I said earlier, this technological boom that we're in now is something we've never experienced before in the world. Nothing. Anyone that wants to know how to make something can find it on the internet. Either above ground or underground. Because there is an underground internet that most of us we don't even go there. But some some actually go there. And they can find it. It's the model glass ball of their judgment. Thanks. I think we're a little bit over, but I do want to open up for a couple of questions on the floor before we close out. Happy hours after this, I don't want to stand in between that. Take a couple of questions on the floor before we close out. Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon. I am the parent of a future marine. And I was wondering, looking on message boards and things like that, I find that there are a lot of helicopter parents out there. How does that play into your perspective, especially with all of the technology that is out there so that everybody can see what's going on? Do you communicate with them? Or is that one of those things that you guys have a very tough time dealing with, especially with new recruits? No, hey, what a great point. One of the things that I do on Thursday morning, the star major and I, before graduations at 5.30, we'll meet with the marines who are about to graduate who were assessed by their senior drill instructors as having been the most improved marines in their respective platoons. It's an awesome conversation, very, very inspiring. One of the questions I'll always ask them is, what did you find to be the most challenging aspect of boot camp? A lot of this is to some of the great points the star major has made. And one answer after having this conversation for three straight years that I've really come to appreciate is some of them will say, you know, sir, this is the first time in my life I haven't had a cell phone in my hand. And some of them will even say, I actually wrote a letter and I got a letter, you know, in the mail. He's like, it's pretty cool, you can save it. But, you know, to kind of think about that, you know, young men and women who are 18 or 19, and like I said, I've got five kids and I've watched this unfold in my own family. They've never been without, you know, that cell phone. And a lot of times, you know, with my kids, more so with my wife and me, but it's a constant conversation. They may go out for the evening, but my wife, they'll be checking in, you know, every hour, hour and a half. It's really what they've gotten used to. And while I would say we've got some work to do in making sure as Marines that we keep up with that and we communicate with them in the fashion we're used to, I would turn that a little bit around and say, you know, that method of communicating, in my mind, it makes it that much more important that we're having the kneecap to kneecap discussion, sitting down with them, having a conversation, not trying to lead them through the media devices. You know, we can send an email sometimes and feel good about ourselves, but, you know, to actually walk down to where a Marine walks or lives and to look them in the eye, find out what they're concerned about, you know, what their hopes are, you know, what are the what are the latest rumors? We continue to believe that's the essence of leadership. You know, the Platoon Commander's Notebook where I've written down all the pertinent details about every Marine in my unit and I don't have to run back and, you know, break out the computer and get out a spreadsheet. I just know it because I'm having that constant conversation with them. Not just patting them on the back and asking about the game and walking away and we communicated, but really having a meaningful discussion with them, you know, really frequently. There were a lot of General Mattis' name came up on the last panel, but when I was up at the Naval Workhouse, he came up and talked to everybody and at the end he just said, get out from behind your computers, get off the phone, walk around your workspace and look people in the eye and talk to them on target. So I acknowledge everything you're saying. I've seen that in my own family in my own life, but we got to be a little bit better than that in the military in getting to know those great young men and women and then talking to them in the old-fashioned way. Let me just add onto that as a parent of a son who's in the Coast Guard. I was also in General Beerman's job at Training Center K-May where our recruit training happens. We had a lot of the helicopter moms and dads, but we also tried to look at that as an opportunity. It's a force multiplier. This is the first opportunity to introduce many of those moms and dads to the United States Coast Guard. That was an opportunity every Friday at graduation to welcome them in and make them part of our team because some point down the road that young men and women is going to have a challenge in their life. We hope the chief is there, we hope the CO is there, but that may be there also. Their mom and dad need to know that this is a family, this is a team and we're all in this together. It was an opportunity for us to introduce them to the United States Coast Guard, introduce them to the United States military. We tried to capitalize on them. We were perfect all the time, no, but it was a challenge, yes. I also learned not to do the same thing, many of those same things with my two sons. Thank you. Good afternoon. We're the American Association of Geographers. We're a non-profit research and academic education association. Yesterday morning during the chief's panel, General Neller indicated that only about 30% of today's high school graduates in the United States are authorized or able to go directly into the military because of their qualifications. When I was down in the exhibit hall I picked up this from the ONR booth. It's the new Naval STEM strategy. It just came out. I wanted to ask what type of work the American's K-12 system or higher ed system to try to really promote the message that we need STEM graduates and folks like this. I hope you guys are doing something because we don't have money to do much of that. That's a great question. I think a lot of times in the recruiting horizon we have a tendency just to kind of think about high school juniors, seniors, maybe just out of high school, coming out of college, things along those lines, but really we need to start planting those seeds very early on to make sure that they understand what's available and to get people interested in the STEM career fields. I'd say one of the best selling points for all of us is that we don't just talk about learning about STEM or getting on a whiteboard and drawing about STEM. We're going to put that gear in your hands and you're going to actually go out and use it and you're going to use it doing something very noble. So if we through pretty aggressive outreach through career fairs, air shows any means that we can get out to the public and tell our story about what it is we do how we do it, but why we do it as well for the bigger cause and we've talked about this kind of stuff what is it that's really important about what it is we provide to the nation and our nation's defense but what is that value proposition for that individual that we're trying to influence and why do they want to come on to our team and do something that's bigger than themselves and a contribution to something that frankly will be the foundation for the rest of their lives. This is an avenue for us to get kind of into that STEM environment but it's also an opportunity for us to really talk about what and who we are and why we're important and why we think that they may be a good candidate to be on our team if they so choose. Yes, sir. So by dam and engineer but nights and weekends I'm a U.S. Naval SEACADET core instructor. What are you doing SEACADETs to leverage a group of young men and women who have a keen interest in the military and by the way we have one of our cadets in the Merchant Marine Academy and another is swearing into the Marine Corps next month. I'll take a stab at that one. As far as the high school programs go I'm assuming they're in high school correct or middle school somewhere in that pipeline we have programs in the high school that reach down and do mentoring along with Marines where we pair up with schools all across America to reach out to those programs and talk to those students. Not on a recruiting level more so on a mentoring, teaching, coaching level we have a general T.C. program a junior RTC program my son actually participated during his high school time he's a senior this year and it's all this dream that I think he come in the Marine Corps as a matter of fact I never talked to him about it I just ask him to be successful protect the name on your left breast pocket U.S. Marines protect the one you were born on on your right breast pocket green go out and do something successful he chose the Naval Academy that's where he'll push off to June 30 and start his little plead summer on his own because he's seen a program in the school that was successful and I even asked when he joined in the 10th grade because he was coming from Germany when there was no program what made you join the ROTC he said dad because I've been at the school about two or three months and the kids there my classmates they're pretty tight they do things together they do community service he said sort of like the Marine Corps and the military I think through you know community programs outreach doing things outside of the uniform giving back I think that's the greatest thing we could do to encourage youth to do positive things not as a recruiting tool but just to do positive things and if we do that because of the lack of that outside of the game that will automatically attract to the military a lot of them we don't have to go out and find some of them find us a few of them don't know we exist once they figure it out they like the product they love the product that we produce I know but they're students I'm not just talking about ROTC programs when we go out to work with schools these are schools that have such as in the area around here they have no military affiliation when we talk about mentoring programs there's one at Henderson Hall right there in Arlington right beside the Pentagon they go around in three different schools that have nothing to do with military nothing just mentoring kids helping them with math helping them with reading physical fitness just being involved we require Marines to give back to do more than just go across the water to defend the nation and that has nothing to do with recruiting just being a good example I hope that answers your question Sir long lines long lines of C cadets specifically for the Coast Guard's involvement we see it as a great grassroots low cost high return on investment opportunity we encourage our members to get involved as Sergeant Major was talking about getting involved that's part of our DNA we end up K-May on many occasions to bring C cadets in for the summer training in fact a couple of years ago I would call it jamboree you probably have a more technical term for a more appropriate term for where C cadets from across the nation came in to K-May and we were able to put them up unfortunately we're not able to do that now because we're up in our throughput through K-May but we see the C cadets sponsored by the Navy League to get the word out to young men and women who have the propensity to serve or be part of something larger themselves that hey the Coast Guard's out there that's a good place to go also if you're thinking about joining the military you got the Navy, you got the Marine Corps but don't forget the Coast Guard so we love it and in fact many of our folks are here locally or involved and across the nation are involved also and I think I can say speak the same with regards to the Navy had the opportunity to speak at a C cadet graduation when they did a workshop at Great Lakes Illinois so where there's affiliation I think all the services are stepping out and we usually find out that there's some type of retiree a little bit associated with that so they have a little in but I think we're all inspired by those young men and women that want to be part of something bigger than themselves and I think we all give back to them young men and women we make them do more push-ups than anybody else though because they are young I think we've got time for two more Yes sir Thank you very much I appreciate the time that you took today to come out and speak with us my name is Nigel Thies Naval Surface Warfare Center and my question today is actually for our MSC we know that our Navy needs a strong robust merchant marine and a robust sea lift capacity to support continuous operations around the globe being a former State Academy graduate my question is what is MSC doing to better recruit individuals from the State Academies and King's Point to work at MSC I support the Department of the Navy as a federal civilian many of my classmates are port engineers valuable skills that the Navy does need but they also need qualified merchant mariners to support MSC and it's a challenging goal military to mariner will help but it's not a true replacement for four dedicated years at school training to sale merchant ships Thanks for your question it's a great question and we are struggling with that but that said there's a lot of interdependencies that go along with that one of them is the price of oil just to put it out there the other is the overall state of the economy right now with where we are with the price of oil being somewhat depressed there's been massive close downs of drilling wells and so forth down in the Gulf of Mexico what's happened to all those certified degreed chief engineers engineers and so forth well they've all come back off of those rigs and they've lined up outside our door so right snapshot in time today we're doing okay with most of our officer ratings for those that we need to fill but all I need is a blip in the economy or a blip in oil price and next thing we know you know there's massive recruiting going on by the oil companies and guys and gals will leave us to go take those jobs so this is a significant problem what I'm more worried about I look at those as short-term blips what I'm more worried about is the long-term cycle we are struggling as a transportation industry when I go to large transportation organizational meetings where you talk about men and women that go to sea men and women that ride the rails men and women that drive trucks men and women that fly airplanes millennials don't want to do this and it scares me what do we do about it put incentives out there the biggest ones we can we're trying to bring these young men and women into this and get them excited about it but quite frankly it is a struggle to get a millennial interested in rolling up their sleeves and going in the bilge of a ship after a four year engineering degree and doing this work so your question is spot on what kind of planet that we possibly have I appreciate it, thank you tell that secret to look up MSC when you graduate Hi Megan Hi, so this question is for the Marines actually about having gender segregated boot camp how do you guarantee when they're spending this time learning how to be Marines learning what the Marine Corps is about how do you guarantee that once they're out of that training they're going to be able to reintegrate and the men will be able to look up to women when they've never been told to look up to women before how about everyone is a Marine again instead of a female Marine and a male Marine well the integration in combat training occurs when they have 12 weeks in the Corps but our position is better that that integration occur once you have men and women who have developed a level of confidence who have developed some armor and some thick skin for the type of things that they're going to deal with better to better to level the playing field I mean the real question is do you want that integration occurring plus or minus three months in the military when they have had all their best characteristics brought out by a drill instructor when they've had some same sex role models that they've spent in very close quarters with that they can look up to and emulate do you want that integration occurring at that level a young woman who a young man who was days in the military trying to figure it all out at that point again I have nothing but respect for the different methods that the different services use I can tell you out of my five kids three or daughters a couple talk about joining the military I would much rather if they well I wish regardless of what branch service they talk about going into and the marine corps not on the top of the list for at least one of them I'd rather that they went through that basic training without the distraction of the whole boy girl piece learning from a strong principled woman how do I step up and be a woman in that integrated world before they actually have to put it to the test I understand the thrust of your comment it's a great question but again our belief is let's teach them to be men and women before we integrate them at a very early point at the three month point in their career going forward for many years if I can elaborate on that just a little bit having traveled in January having traveled to every services recruit training to see exactly what the beginning product is and the end product the marine corps concept of recruit training is that every marine is a rifle that's where we start no other service has that start point no other service is trying to make everyone one rifleman when I talk about locating and closing with that's where we start from day one on the yellow footprints when they get off the bus you have to recognize the physiological differences in our recruit training because it's so physical day one on the pull up bar average female coming off the bus not this is I'm talking about recruit training not the officer candidate school in recruit training zero to one pull up for the female 12 to 15 for the male so some want us to put both side by side for three months and how is that going to encourage the female starting from ground zero what encouragement does that give when they go on hikes starting with about 45 pounds on their back every Saturday and it's going to increase and the mileage is going to increase until they go until the end of the three months how is that encouraging from day one but you know Beerman is saying we use a progressive system and the fourth phase of recruit training when you look at everybody else's boot camp everyone else does all that training in one place the Marine Corps is the one service that takes the combat training in some place else because it involves 50 caliber machine guns we need large amounts of space nobody else need that kind of space to army but they have that space because their bases are huge where they do recruit training just so happen in the Marine Corps we have Parasaila and San Diego beside the airport you're not shooting any rounds beside the airport so the Marines get on buses and they go to Marine combat training at Camp Pendleton they do third phase of boot camp at Camp Pendleton all that field training on the east coast it's done at Parasaila but when they go to Marine combat training they go to Camp Lejeune because you have those large amounts of space it would be different if east coast recruit training was at Camp Lejeune and west coast boot camp was at Camp Pendleton we wouldn't be having some of this conversation because the fourth phase of that part of training in between basic school MOS training and recruit training would be a part of what you see and you would further understand that they get the same integration process it just happens a little bit slower because our target audience and the end product is a lot different Sergeant Major he mentioned the perceptions and the incremental growth of the females I completely agree but I would also bring it back to the view of the males there's a myth for those who haven't seen our boot camp that the separate training decreases the respect of the sexes for the other one I completely disagree the real question is do I want those male Marines first meeting that female again when she's doing that one pull up or no pull ups that first day on the pull up bar or do I want them meeting her when she's tough a little bit sassy doing four or five pull ups at the conclusion of boot camp bringing them all together in our combat training and what we believe is a more level playing field let's give them the time to work with and to be mentored and developed by some of the very best male and female drill instructors respectively that we can find before we put them into that integrated environment some of the young men and women have had nothing in their lives because of that role model that wasn't there or the one they would have been better off without they've had nothing that prepares them to deal and be effective in an integrated environment a lot of times they've been abused a lot of times their confidence has been chipped away so let's build those things up before we put them together and they have to deal with all that other stuff we are as dedicated as any of the other services to an integrated marine corps to an integrated military and we're going about that with a happy heart but we are going to armor our males and females in the most effective way possible before we bring everybody together and by the way ma'am we have females that can do 20 pull ups that can run just as fast as males