Just wondering what my fellow reservists do to maintain their certifications on small boats. 40 hours is a lot of time when you really break down IDT time.

I'm not saying I don't keep up but I've seen others' quals lapse because of this. Up here in D9 we're even more strapped due to weather in the winter months.


BT
NNNN

quote:

Just wondering what my fellow reservists do to maintain their certifications on small boats. 40 hours is a lot of time when you really break down IDT time.

I'm not saying I don't keep up but I've seen others' quals lapse because of this. Up here in D9 we're even more strapped due to weather in the winter months

I've been told Summerstock is a good venue to get alot of quals signed off. CPO Kalbach

Out of about 50 certified guys I'd say only 5 have a hard time maintaining their certs. Granted, we are at a PSU and get 60 drills.

By the way, none of our guys are contingency crew/coxn.

Its extremely hard. I'm on AD now at a land unit but when I was at my drilling station, myself and another PO got rbs crew qualified, but could not maintain the qual because of u/w hours. The AD guys just don't give us enough u/w time. They're either bagged from a SAR or have a patrol where the crew needs to be BTM. This is one of the reasons I'm considering moving on from the CGR. I joined to do SAR but it doesn't seem like the CG wants to let reservists help out. I agree PSUs are the best places to get and maintain boat quals.

quote:

Originally posted by BM_SARDog:
Its extremely hard. I'm on AD now at a land unit but when I was at my drilling station, myself and another PO got rbs crew qualified, but could not maintain the qual because of u/w hours. The AD guys just don't give us enough u/w time. They're either bagged from a SAR or have a patrol where the crew needs to be BTM. This is one of the reasons I'm considering moving on from the CGR. I joined to do SAR but it doesn't seem like the CG wants to let reservists help out. I agree PSUs are the best places to get and maintain boat quals.

BOO HOO! The AD guys just wont make my schedule easy and convenient for me! BOO HOO!

I have never met a CGR or seen a situation where a CGR who wanted to stay qual'd wasn;t able to do so and more! The PSUs may actually be one of the hardest places to do so as their do have limits placed on their schedules/drills. Your #1 job as a CGR right now is to maintain your contingency quals, not to 'do SAR.' If you don't want to do that, than maybe it is time to move on. If you do want to do that and keep the benifits and perks of being a CGR, then talk to the Training Petty Officer or XPO and set up a schedule to keep you quals.

While you are on AD, what are you doing to ensure the CGRs for your unit are keeping up with their duties and that they are supported from the AD side?

Master Chief,
Where in JerseyBMs post did he say that he wanted to do SAR?
The guy just made a statement to see if other reservists are having a hard time keeping there cert.
It is very difficult but not impossible to keep your qual
Lets break it down alittle.
You have 12 days of drill and 6 days making a total of 18 days per semi-annual period.
Take a day out for range. Range is 100 miles from home.
Take a day out for first aid.
Take a day out for TQM, sexual harassment, phishing training, ICS and everything else the Guard wants to tack on this month.
Throw in a weather day or two
Now we are down to 13 days.
So the reserve side of the house has to complete the same underway hours in 13 days that the active duty has to complete in 180.
90 if you are two on two off.
Yes, I have a cox qual and will continue to keep that qual but JerseyBM may be just looking to see what other units are doing.
Maybe he is looking out for others at his unit to insure that he is in fact ready for deployment.
V/r
BM1

Boats;
The answer to your first question is in his second to last sentence.

Sure, it is difficult. Not impossible.

With replies like that, it's easy to see why reservists are departing in such number. It's sure good that the CG doesn't count on the CGR in times of trouble..

Just got a call from one of the Reservist I put in. He loves his unit, just realizes that he will have to put in EXTRA time to stay up on all the qualifications. He said he's willing to go in on his own time to get things done. Adapt and overcome. CPO Kalbach

I agree it is hard to maintain quals but if you want to drive/ride on boats or do LE it's the nature of the beast. I'm lucky that I have extra time to go in and get underway (nice thing about being a fireman) but plenty of other guys at my unit do it to, managing work, family, school, etc.. PSU's are a great place to get U/W, or at least mine is. We are also lucky to get 60 drills instead of 48 to keep everything up, but people still end up drilling w/o pay after they're done with them. We have crews U/W for almost every drill weekend from 0800 on Saturday until 1200 on Sunday.

If you want to be treated as equals then no offense, shut up or put up. I'd rather put in the extra time to be useful than come in and drill by sitting on my a$$ not doing anything.

There are trade off everywhere. To use BM1s numbers, I could say that he could obtain enough "experience" as a BM1 in 72 days to be "qualified' by TIG to be a Chief where the AD BM1 needs 730, tens times as much. A vast majority of CGRs fully understand that a 'multiple drill' is a MINIMUM of 8 hours of productive work. A very few think it is a max of 8 hours on base. (Not accusing anyone in this conversation of being there). Now if you look at the numbers just straight up. A 4 hour drill for a CGR amount to the base pay a CGAD gets for 24 hours. That is why a vast majority of CGRs have no problems with getting a little extra above the minimum in to get the Contingency Quals taken care of. Most of the CGRs I have directly supervised were TCs and QMs drilling in OPCENS and COMMCENS. I never meant one of those that expected an "8 hour shift". All of them expected to be assigned a 'normal AD duty day' for their multiple drill which meant at least 12 and more often 24 hours straight, for their 2 drills. A few I had to deal with on the support side had issues with even putting in a decent 8 hours.

MC,
I have always instilled in my people the need to leave it better than you found it and to do more rather than less.
With that being said we are running into times when reservists can't get enough time on the boats for various reasons already stated above.
They may have 32-35 hours underway and what is happening is that they throw their hands up in the air and say that I just have to recert in the next period.
It is kind of depressing for guys who have 15 years running small boat to have to go thru a check ride and board every six months.
Just for the record I have held a cert for all 9 years in the Reserve and will continue to do so.
All of my guys will hold their cert too.
If I comming in on my own time they are too.

Just to clear things up a bit...

I didn't say I wanted to "Just do SAR". That was someone else.

I guess I should clarify my situation a bit. My quals include MLB coxn, RB-s coxn, BO, and station POOD.

Why is it that I can maintain these quals (with some effort) and other members can't even obtain them? My unit is currently in pretty good shape as far a quals go. I often hear of other units where no members are qualified.

I have spent considerable time and effort to make my CGR career what I want it to be. I was really just putting the question out there to see what other crews are doing with regard to currency.

What are people's drill weekends like? How do you go about getting underway enough? What about ADT? What can we do as reservists to make the best of our time?

-Jersey

Excellent points by the two of you! I am proud to call you shipmates!
Jersey - sorry for the misplaced quote. I should have attributed that to sardog.

It takes ownership by both the AD and CGR assigned to the unit.

Can't speak what it's like now, but IMHO, the accountablity for assigned reservists should be part of the regulars' inspections/evals. If they're not getting qualified like the AD crew, what's the issue?

You hit the nail on the head. At one point in time as a Group Command Chief, I was standing duty in the OPCEN and observed a reserve from a support rating literally sitting in the galley drinking coffee and reading the newspaper all day on a Saturday, wearing boat shoes and the granny sweater (before it was authorized) in trop. She came to me at about 1515 with her drill card for signature. I let her know I would sign it AFTER she got in a CG uniform and then performed 8 hours of work. She hit the roof and eventually contacted the D11 R-CMC, who of course backed me up and tire her up. As I investigated the problem, I found out that none of the AD POs were taking ownership of her. For about 6-8 months, there was an AD PO in there with her and the rest of the CGRs in the office providing them with training and supervision to be able to perform the duty of their specific paygrade. The leading AD PO then would leave a good 8 hours of work for them to do and they were required to work long enough to complete the work. Several of the CGRs had jobs that actually made it better for them to drill during the week. They thought they could only dril on weekends and the AD didn't know they would be willing to dril in the week. So, as Nekron said, when both sides took ownership, it worked better for everyone.

One thing that can help is to schedule your AT for the last week in June and the first week of July (6 and 6, respectively). That way you have 6 days in each re-cert cycle. It also is a great solution to the weather issue in the Northeast and would probably work well for folks in the Lakes region.

We have been doing this at my Station for the past 4 years and have not had a problem with hours.

Another helpful thing would probably be for the reservists and the ADs to actually KNOW what the quals are! ie - time spent on a platform that is not the contingency platform is time not too well spent! In a vast majority of cases, the contingency platform is the RBS. Time spent on another platform, based on augmentation needs or desires does not fulfill the 'needs of the service' or the purpose of the CGR program, which is primarily contingency, not augmentation.

quote:

Originally posted by jpdeal870:
One thing that can help is to schedule your AT for the last week in June and the first week of July (6 and 6, respectively). That way you have 6 days in each re-cert cycle. It also is a great solution to the weather issue in the Northeast and would probably work well for folks in the Lakes region.

We have been doing this at my Station for the past 4 years and have not had a problem with hours.

JP Deal: OUTSTANDING suggestion! I'm going to pass that on to my unit's CEA as a suggestion for keeping our reservists qualified.

I am hearing two very clear themes in this thread; first, that quals are do-able if the reservist is willing to go the extra distance; and second, the system does not neccessarily lend itself to accomplishing that goal. I am the first to agree that we, as reservists, are responsible for our own careers and advancement/promotion. But if the expectation is that the reservist needs certain quals to do their assigned job, or for their contingency billet, then we ought to have a process in place to make sure they possess those quals and are able to keep them current. This kind of gap only hurts the reservist(s) and the USCGR.
I know that as a TC/IT assigned to NCW, I had to take extra time each year to go to CAMSLANT or Group to get my EPQs signed-off. The Navy equipment and duties did not translate into USCG tasks. I wasn't given a choice of schools or TDY for my AT-ADT unless they directly supported the unit (read Navy) mission. This is still a problem today but individuals overcome it by going above and beyond their allowed drills each year. But this is not the sort of systemic solution we need. Maybe all SELRES need 60 IDT and 18-21 days of AT each year to give them the extra time.
I can recall how my old Army Reserve unit (301 MP Company in Bayamon, PR) was mobilized for Desert Shield/Storm. Only a fraction of the unit members had all their quals, including MOS 95B awarded, up to date. With a stroke of the pen the entire unit was "combat ready" and shipped out to Saudi Arabia. Now imagine if the Coast Guard needed to "spin up" 60% (or more) of the SELRES overnight for a contingency operation. Would the personnel be 'qualified' to fill their CPRL billets?
I bet the answer is something less than a resounding YES!
IMHO