World’s Best Boat Drivers

What first inspired me to join? I was growing up fishing with my dad down in South Padre Island, Texas. It's a Coast Guard station. South Padre Island was down there. I used to watch them do a bunch of training and I just told my dad I pointed at the guy driving the boat and said I want to do that one day. So here I am 10 years later. I do remember as a non-rate first operating in heavy seas. I was a crew member breaking in and they had a heavy weather on the helm and it was something I didn't experience in the northeast. It's very cold compared to Virginia. So just feeling that snow and ice hit your face was very overwhelming and with the big seas. But I really appreciated what the Coxswain did and had good communication with us and navigated that boat awesome and I wanted I learned that day that I wanted to be like that too. So the Coast Guard operates worldwide in any number of weather conditions, sea conditions, environments. So we train to such a high level so that hopefully we don't encounter those conditions but if we do we're prepared to. In 2022 after Hurricane Ian made landfall there were a couple islands that were cut off so I deployed with the National Strike Force. We all had different experiences in the Coast Guard. People had experience boarding fishing vessels in Alaska, chasing drug runners, doing recreational boating safety, training in heavy weather surf. So we took all of those experiences and we put them together. It was that experience from those diverse backgrounds of boat operating that made our team so successful in accomplishing the mission. It's a six month to 12 month process to become Coxswain certified. It's one of those we kind of joke about it you know I've done way more studying for this qualification specifically than I ever did in college but you start at the lowest level with the communications watchstander learning the ins and outs of radios, search and rescue and you work your way up to actually getting on the boat as a boat crew member learning how to conduct man overboard drills, towing, search patterns and eventually after you've attained both those qualifications then you can start working on Coxswain. The biggest thing the public should know is that at the Coast Guard stations here in the U.S. you know we have crews 24-7 around the clock living at the station to be able to get underway to protect and serve the U.S. and the boating public. With this job it has changed my outlook. I am big towards safety. I've seen some things go wrong very fast. A way I balance helping others and keeping my crew safe, I make sure I have that good communication with my crew before going out. We do a good GAR score piece model and talk with them make sure we're on the same page. If someone feels like they need to up the level of risk versus gain then I hear them out. We have that conversation all together and then we push forward with the outcome that we come up with together. Growing up through the Coast Guard that I think a lot of people are afraid to admit is being uncomfortable is a good thing. That's one thing that I struggled with when I was younger. I like being comfortable in where I was but being uncomfortable has definitely opened up opportunities to to grow as a person. Yeah just don't be afraid of being uncomfortable. I think that's that's where we grow.