From: Allen, Thad Admiral Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 6:06 PMSubject: ALL HANDS - ESTABLISHMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND SECURITY RATING To the Men and Women of the Coast Guard:I am pleased to announce that on 06 Jun 2008, I approved the establishmentof a Coast Guard enlisted rating involving law enforcement and security(LE/S) duties. This new rating will enhance our capabilities as America'sMaritime
Guardian and further supports the Coast Guard's modernization goalof making our force structure more responsive to mission execution acrossall aspects of maritime safety, security and stewardship. This is animportant step forward in meeting our national requirements set forth underthe Maritime Transportation Security Act, further reaffirming our commitmentand support to the maritime industry.Establishment will include an appropriate career path to Chief WarrantOfficer. This decision follows a comprehensive, 14-month Coast Guard-wideanalysis of mission execution requirements, human resource issues, andsafety matters facing our members who perform LE/S duties. The analysisclearly supports the establishment of this new rating to:a. Improve our service to the American public, the maritime industry, and our interagency partners; b. Increase training and advanced LE/S competency proficiency; c.
Ensure the safety of our front line personnel, and; d. Improve career development and management opportunities for personnel interested in LE/S focused assignments.I am also pleased to announce that the Port Security specialist(PS) rating will be integrated with the new LE/S rating. This integrationwill provide an active duty counterpart for the legacy reserve-only rating.LE/S operations have always been a core mission of the Coast Guard but theterrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and the emerging threats in the maritimedomain, required us to realign resources to meet increased LE/S demands.Immediately following the attacks, we established the Ports, Waterways, andCoastal Security (PWCS) mission. This significantly expanded LE/S duties andcompetency requirements for our boarding teams, coxswains, and boatcrews.Additionally, we restructured the service by creating Maritime Safety andSecurity
Teams (MSST), the Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT), CoastGuard Sectors, and the Deployable Operations Group (DOG). The restructuringnecessary to meet the increased LE/S demands has itself revealed additionalchallenges. These challenges include recruiting, training, developing, andmanaging personnel in LE/S focused assignments.Beginning in April 2007, the Law Enforcement, Tactical, and Security GroupOccupation (LETSGO) team was chartered to identify and recommend solutionsto these challenges. One particular charge was to study and validate thefeasibility and scalability of a new LE/S rating. Our performancetechnology experts at Yorktown constructed and launched a tailoredoccupational analysis (TOA) and directed it to over 12,000 Coast Guardpersonnel. The TOA discovered that over 1,500 Coast Guard men and womenacross 32 unit types spend more than 50 percent of their time performingLE/S duties.
This means a significant number of our personnel must maintainadvanced proficiency in collateral duty LE/S competencies while trying tomaintain the rating competencies required for their career development andadvancement.The rating will benefit the public and our industry partners throughstandardized performance and enhanced professionalism. Also, a new LE/Srating will benefit our personnel by allowing those who desire to focustheir career on the LE/S field to do so. A rating will boost our service'sreturn on training investment as we effectively sustain the critical,perishable skills demanded by LE/S duties.Members of the LE/S rating will have the opportunity to serve in a broadrange of operational assignments. These will include stations, sectors,cutters, Coast Guard police departments, and Deployable Specialized Forces.We also anticipate engagement possibilities with other military
services andagencies.As we proceed to establish this new LE/S rating, it is important to notethat the majority of our boarding officers and boarding team members willcontinue to come from existing enlisted ratings. The LE/S rating willenhance our current LE/S force structure by creating a core cadre of subjectmatter experts in support of unit performance across six of our elevenstatutory missions.The time required to establish the new rating is approximately24 months. To facilitate this timeline, I intend to announce the firstrating force master chief before the end of the year. The next major stepin the establishment of the rating will be the completion of the manpowerrequirements determination (MRD), an 8-12 month process identifying unitneeds and billet impacts. The MRD will help scope the size and location ofLE/S billets.I suspect many of you have a list of questions.
Please be patient. Answerswill be forthcoming. Routine updates with timelines and status reports willbe published via future ALLHANDS and ALCOAST messages.My personal thanks to all of you who contributed to the study.Your frank and timely input proved vital to this critical effort, and itwill continue to inform the LETSGO team as it moves forward with theimplementation plan. Let the work begin. Semper Paratus!For more information, go to
http://www.uscg.mil/comdt/mcpocg/ under CurrentEvents.Admiral Thad AllenCommandant, U.S. Coast Guard
Its about time, I would think to lateral into it you would need a minimum of BTM certified and possibly a BO qual. I have also heard since this is an active duty rate PSU's and NCW's will become active duty units also and active duty folks can deploy so they can get their quals signed off. I think all and all its a great thing!
