My Mentors

I originally wrote this post about a year and a half ago, just when I took over MAUI in Bahrain and started blogging. It was probably my second post ever, but I think it's good enough to repost, especially since I've been talking about doing it for a while. Maybe it's solely an opportunity to brag about myself and my successes, but these five women, whether they know it or not, had a huge hand in my current situation.

The first and most influential is my very first boss ever. I was 14 when I started working at Larriland Farm for Lynn Moore. I was very impressionable. She was my boss on and off for seven years, as I finished high school and entered college. I didn't know much about myself, what I wanted to do, or where I was going with my life. She exuded confidence as she ran the family farm with her two brothers. She took care of the marketing, selling the fruits and vegetables produced on the farm at the on-site barn market, in the pick-your-own fields, at a satellite market, and at about half a dozen farmers' markets in the local region. Looking back on it now, I'm impressed all over again at how many moving parts she kept track of...I mean, for goodness sake, Lynn kept a crew of nearly 20 teenagers motivated during the sticky humid heat of East Coast summers to actually care about making sure all the strawberries/tomatoes/blueberries/peaches were completely picked from each row before moving on the next one.

But on to some of the lessons I learned from her, with their translations that I've figured out over the last (good gawd!!) twenty plus years:

1. Always put tools back where you found them. Translation: Be responsible about equipment. Even a stapler. Someone else depends on being able to find it when they need to use it. CG translation = configuration management

2. If someone asks you a question, and you don't know the answer, politely say, "I don't know, but let me find out for you." And follow through with an answer. Translation: Customer service is important in nearly every job anywhere. As a supervisor, my subordinates are my customers and I need to make sure they have what they need to get their jobs done. And following through ensures that something is done correctly.

3. Before you start an engine, check the oil. Translation: Take care of your stuff; don't abuse it. It'll last longer that way. CG translation = Preventative Maintenance Systems (yes, the acronym for that is PMS, which I've always thought was a little unfortunate)

4. Be knowledgeable about the details. Translation: Know your stuff. Bluster will only get you so far if you don't have any credibility.

5. From her brothers (who are both over 6 feet tall), push the seat all the way back when you get out of the truck. Translation: Be considerate of other people, embrace the diversity of perspectives working with others provides.

6. Product quality is singularly important. Translation: Uh, duh. But even with the simple stuff, make sure there're no typos, commas are in the right place, and use spell check. There's so much more credibility in appearing literate.

7. Presentation, presentation, presentation. Translation: People pay more attention when something is attractively presented. Use colors and be creative.

8. Always wear sunscreen (I wasn't ever so good at that one), a hat and sunglasses when you go out for field work, and take a jug of water.

Those are all basic job skills. One of the leadership skills I learned from Lynn was the importance of giving people the opportunity to learn and develop skills on their own. I remember being sent out to the blackberry field to prune the canes. It's not a particularly hard job, but in order to maximize production and make picking easier, there's a certain amount of skill required. Lynn took a group of about six of us out to the field, talked through what the goals of the project were, explained why each was important, then gave us a demonstration on a handfull of sections. And then she left us alone! She came back in about an hour to check on our progress, gave us a couple of pointers and then left again. It was brilliant.

I learned later, from LAMS (Leadership and Management School), that tactic works well with motivated, but unknowledgable subordinates. There's a whole matrix: unknowledgeable/unmotivated, unknowledgeable/motivated, knowledgeable/unmotivated, knowledgeable/motivated. Lynn's practice gave me a concrete example of the benefits of knowing and understanding your subordinates.

And somehow, despite 80+ hour work weeks around greasy tractors and farm equipment, dirt roads and rotten produce, she managed to have the most beautiful hands.

My next mentor was Dr. Carolyn Orr, the Agriculture Department Head at Berea College where I got my Bachelor's degree. She was the youngest of five professors, and the only woman in a heavily male-dominated field. All the others were old white men, very firmly entrenched in the agricultural practices developed during the Green Revolution in the 1970s.

Carolyn taught me the importance of presence. You knew when Carolyn walked into the room. Sometimes it was because she was loud and yelled at people to get her point across, but more than that I think it was her own self-confidence that did not allow her to be ignored. And god bless her patience with my best friend and me as we cracked jokes and snickered our way through the summer job program at the College Farms.

Dr. Nancy Creamer was my graduate advisor at North Carolina State University and taught me the necessity of being passionate about my job. From what I remember about working with Nancy, she truly believes in the importance of the work that she does. It's practical and easily applied to real-world situations that can almost immediately benefit her target audience. While she puts in long hours, travels extensively away from her family, and constantly fights the inanity of an institutional bureaucracy, her work has meaning and the goal of making the world a better place.

While I agree with the Coast Guard's goals, unfortunately, I can't say I have a deep, underlying commitment to our methods. I will support them to the best of my ability, because that's what I do. My command philosophy states that [a job worth doing is worth doing to the best of my ability, so that I can look back and be able to honestly tell myself that I've faced every task and challenge to the best of my ability. This is the only way the sacrifices I've made will have been worthwhile.] But that's selfishly for my own benefit.

I joke sometimes that I sold my soul by being a cutterman, instead of a duck-scrubber, which was my original interest on coming into the Coast Guard over ten years ago. I know I made the right choice for my personal sanity. But, the cutter's belching diesel exhaust, lack of thorough recycling program and practice of discharging sewage outside of three nautical miles from land still go against my own personal beliefs of environmental stewardship and simple living. I guess the lesson I have to take from Nancy is to enjoy at least something of what I do. And I do absolutely. I love driving the ship, working with the people, and seeing all the fantastical sights there are to see. I think part of what I like about it is that I'm pretty good at it.

I took a professional break after graduate school and worked as a receptionist at a massage therapy school. The director, Kathleen Grey, was a very kind woman, dedicated to making people feel better and ease their pain. My job at the school was by no means challenging, but Kathleen taught me a lesson that I think a large number of professional, driven women forget...Take care of yourself. She made her students take Tai Chi and yoga to strengthen themselves personally before she allowed them to practice bodywork on other people.

I'm still working on the fitness attitude for this one...I do my best to get three workouts in a week, when we're inport. Underway is a *whole* 'nother story, especially with this port and starboard nonsense we've got going on right now. But regular yoga, occasional massages and nightly face cream are all vestiges of working with Kathleen that I really enjoy.

CAPT Beverly Kelley (ret) is the last of this group of mentors. She joined the military the year I was born. She fought some historic gender battles to earn her commands, and was the first woman in command of many of the units at which she served. I could not have asked for a better introduction to being a female officer than to have worked for her. I remember getting frustrated with her frequently for her seemingly embittered stance when it came to women in the military. I knew she had had to fight to get where she was, but why was she still fighting those battles, when things were so normalized for women in the military now? Well, nine years and five units later, I think I understand better. It is far, far easier for women, but it's still not a totally comfortable environment for, well, at least me. I should know better by now than to make generalizations that put word into other people's mouths. But CAPT Kelley, thanks for all you did along your way to make my path that much smoother.

So those are my mentors. One last note on this topic of mentors, though. I experienced a complete perspective shift when I was OPS on a WHEC, where I was the senior female onboard a ship of 160 people, about 20 of whom were women. By default, I became a mentor for them. I still keep in touch with some of them, and it's amazing to hear about their successes and triumphs, and watch them struggle through the difficulties. I never set out to influence them, but through my position and experience I was able to offer them some perspective on how to persevere through and be happy with themselves along the way...or at least I hope that's what I did.

I wanted to honor and thank those women that influenced me professionally. So, ladies, thanks! I wish the best for you all and am so grateful for the opportunities that I've had because of what I've learned from each of you.

Plate of Spaghetti

I'm a food-nerd...self-ascribed and-admitted. So it's totally in character for me to use food metaphors. Here's my food metaphor for my job...it's a double helping of oil-slicked angel hair pasta ('cause that's my fave), slopped onto a tea saucer. Some days I fool myself into thinking that I can keep every strand of pasta perfectly balanced on the plate. But most days I'm more realistic and realize that there is no way humanly possible that I can keep every single carb from falling off. My responsibility is to not let the important stuff slide off, and to decide what is less important that can be slurped up later.

I think that most operational units are like this. I really don't know about shore /support jobs...I haven't had enough of those to really make a call on that. But with operational units, you've got personnel, operations, engineering, guns, awards, classified material, training, medical, schedules, message traffic, SORTS, community relations, port calls and morale, readiness standards, AOPS/TMT, surging lines that need adjusting, meetings, inspections, human relations, assist visits, CASREPS, parts, budgets, and that's just the stuff from the top of my head in about two minutes.

I do my best to prioritize what I keep on the saucer. My XO says that my metaphor lends itself to just constantly putting out fires, which is definitely a possibility. But if I can define what is important to me, as the ship's leader, I can help build little birds' nest pastas that keep critical stuff as a basic building block of the whole heap.

I afford my personnel a very high level of importance. If I take care of my crew, they'll take care of me. Or said another way, I can't do their jobs, but I can make sure they have the tools, training, time and environment with which to do their jobs. Operations are also important to me...that's what this gig is all about, why it's fun. I'm also finding that material condition, readiness and sustainability are important to me. If the equipment doesn't work, we can't do the mission, and we're wasting time, money and effort until it gets fixed, and fixed the right way.

Jeez, I just realized I'm parroting an ALCOAST from a while back where the Commandant talked about People, Mission and Stewardship. But it's really true, those are the basics of what makes this organization work and last.

Those three things cover a lot of what's on the plate, but of course it's more complicated than that. All junior officers learn from a very young CG age that there are some things that you just don't mess around with because they are career enders. This list includes money, guns/bullets and security issues. So those *must* stay on the plate. However, because they're so important, there are myriad ways for them to be messed up. Two small pieces of guns and security slipped from my plate today. Whooooop, just slithered away. I see the durn buggers on my lap making gross grease stains on my trousers, but they're slippy and small and round, and really, really hard to get back on the plate once they've fallen off. I can make sure no more of that particular flavor of pasta fall off the plate, but I can't go back into the past, and return to the plate the ones I let slip off.

And I've got to get over the fact that they're gone. Learn from my mistakes so I don't make the same ones over again, and then...move on. It's harder than it sounds.

Just for the record, I'm not eating pasta tonight...I just had a bowl of some awesome homemade beef and barley stew.

"He's Going To Be OK, But..."

We got back from an almost week-long patrol this morning. It was a good trip, with lots of diverse operations. XO and I are port and starboard, so we stood six-on-six off for the week. That means I stood watch from 0600 to 1200, he stood watch from 1200 to 1800, then I stood watch again from 1800 to 2400 and then he had watch again from 0000 to 0600. It means neither one of us got much sleep. But it was easy to keep going, especially being surrounded by the perseverance and enthusiasm of the crew as we went from port, waterways and coastal security, to law enforcement, to maintenance, to law enforcement, to search and rescue. I think I'm the one that whined the most about standing soooo much watch, because I certainly didn't hear it from any of the crew!

When we left at the beginning of the week, we left behind one crew member. This is a usual practice for us, because we're overbilleted, which means we have more crew than we have racks to sleep them all. And I won't let people hot-rack, or share racks. Life underway is hectic enough without having your own personal space, even if it is only 6 ft by 3 ft by 3 ft.

The person that stays behind is usually busy enough anyway, getting mail, answering phones, running errands and doing stuff that needs to be done at the office. And handling lines for us when we get underway or pull in. So I was a little annoyed this morning when we pulled in and there was no one waiting on the pier for us to handle lines. It meant I had to maneuver close enough to the pier for long enough for one of the other crewmembers to jump over, and then continue my maneuvering the rest of the way into position. Weather conditions were good, so it wasn't overly difficult, but I was still peeved that we had to do it anyway.

Not being there as required was out of character for the young man that stayed behind this week, but everyone has slept through an alarm or something similarly irresponsible before. So a couple guys went to his apartment to roust him, but didn't find him or his car there. At this point, I started to worry. Before I had been thinking he had blown us off, but now...now I'm worried. XO went off to call the police and hospitals (after having been up since 10:30 pm last night, standing watch). It didn't take XO long to find him...there's only one hospital in Hilo.

So, he's going to be ok, but he's pretty smashed up after being in a car crash this morning. I don't really know any more details than that since the nurse on his floor hadn't talked to the police and he doesn't remember anything beyond sitting at a stoplight in the dark, and then waking up in the hospital with people sticking a bunch of needles in him. We'll follow up with the police on Monday to find out the whole story and get the accident details. But thank goodness he's going to be ok. A couple of broken bones and cuts. He won't be on the boat for a while, maybe at all again, since he had orders to his initial rate training (A school) starting in January...but he's going to be ok.

This was my first experience calling parents. I offered to call his Dad and let him know what happened. I started out with, "Your son is going to be ok, but he was in a car crash this morning." His Dad was calm and asked all the right questions. It sounds like he may come out here to see his son and help with recovery. I really, really, really hope I don't have to make any more calls like that one. And I'm so grateful that his Dad accepted the news so graciously. And that he's going to be ok.

Checklists

I'm coming to appreciate the importance of checklists...I mean truly appreciate them. We got recalled on Friday morning, and were underway in just over 2 hours. We gotta work on that time and get it a little faster, but even as the person initiating the recall, I didn't have all my stuff together. I forgot my watch, my knife and my cell phone chargers, all three pretty aggravating things not to have with me.

And never mind all the crap I forgot to do at the house. At least I fortuitously remembered to take out the trash. But, did I shut the windows? I hope so, 'cause the Big Island got some heavy storms since we've been gone. And all the stuff I forgot in the fridge? Don't know how those starfruit are going to look after sitting around for another 10 days.

I'm thinking I should have a recall checklist for myself to make sure I get done everything I need to before heading out for an undetermined amount of time. Then I think that might be going a little too far, even for me.

The cutters I've been on have had checklists for everything...entering port, leaving port, emergency scenarios, routine situations, oddball occurrences. The Command Center had Quick Response Cards, a fancy name for checklists. We live and breath checklists.

The benefit of using a checklist was hammered home on Monday morning when we tried to get underway. We were diligently using our "Getting Underway" Checklist...time tick, away all trash, removing chafing gear, testing the capstan, manning all stations, and all. We were getting down to the end of the list, having taken the slack out of all lines, and were set up for conducting shaft tests.

I learned a helpful little habit when I was temporarily on AQUIDNECK this past spring. When conducting shaft tests, the Conning Officer would have his thumb on the stop button for the engine, so that just in case something went wrong, he could quickly punch out the main (main = main diesel engine = MDE). Don't know exactly why I thought that was so cool, but I adopted the habit.

Anyway, I was driving out that morning, and was ready to do shaft tests. The Bridge had piped, "Stand clear of all mooring lines while the OOD rocks the shafts." Everybody, including the line handlers on the pier, had cleared away from the lines. So I clutched ahead on port, counted one-one thousand, two-one thousand after the neutral light went out, and got a small shot ahead on the port MDE. Port ahead sat. Port astern, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, declutch, small shot...that didn't stop. I kept going in reverse. Uuuhh, crap. Holy crap!

But my thumb was on the stop button and I punched out the main quickly enough to not do any permanent damage to our lines, deck fittings, or fittings on the pier, though the lines creaked pretty ominously. MKC did tell me he thought it was operator error initially...that I was just going a little heavy on the shots. He figured it out after the second time.

It was a pretty exciting couple of minutes. We tried restarting the engine again, and as soon as it was energized, it clutched in astern. When 110s clutch in, it's no joke either. They clutch in with enough power to go 9 knots.

Well, the engineers (or my new name for them...Ninjaneers -- Anne, that one's for you) troubleshot, and found some loose wires in the throttle system. They fixed it all up, we conducted shaft test a little nervously but fully satisfactorily, and safely got underway.

And I got a good reminder of why we follow checklists and do all the important little safety things that we do.

The Unexpected

I got an unexpected phone call today. LCDR Camilla Bosanquet called me. She was CO of KISKA back in 2003-2004. She had sent me an email a while ago, after having seen our press release on our return to homeport post drydock, congratulating me on command and sharing some of her memories of being onboard. I don't think she remembered that we had met when we were both stationed out here. I finally responded to her by email yesterday, and she called me this evening.

She was LT Messing when she was on KISKA, and she was definitely someone I looked up to. She was always positive, cheerful, gracious, more than competent and her crew loved her. I knew I had monstrous shoes to fill, coming to KISKA as the next female CO after Camilla. Thinking of Camilla reminds me of an old post on mentors from last year...I'll probably repost it shortly. She had some good advice for me and some wonderful words of kindness.

The advice was to enjoy and savor every moment of my time onboard. The ship is a good ship, the crew is outstanding, the area of responsibility beautifully daunting, and the community welcoming and supportive. It really doesn't get any better than being a CO of a 110 in Hawaii. She said, she didn't remember many of the details of her own drydock on KISKA, she mostly remembered the people. I think I've been doing ok with this one. I know my time onboard is short; I'm only here for about 14 months, due to my own choice. Camilla didn't have the luxury of an easy choice, unfortunately. Her knees went bad on her, and if there's one body part that takes a true beating on a 110, it's the knees. It's a rough ride. So she had to leave early. I know she's right, though, and it does go fast.

The words of kindness were that I've done good things, and that I'm an amazing person for my accomplishments...I'm paraphrasing, because I'm horrible at remembering conversations, so this is what I took away from the exchange. I don't know about all that, really. It's everyday, common-place to me. It's just what I do. I forget that it is an exclusive group to which I belong, that most people view commanding a ship through the lens of news stories, tales of adventures, and movies. I think Camilla was also expressing some regret for her own loss, having to give up command, in a no-win situation. It got me thinking a little about what I would do if I couldn't do this anymore. I bitch about some of the more aggravating aspects of the job (middle of the night phone calls, holding members accountable for their actions, rough weather), but I love what I do. The camaraderie with such a professional and capable crew, the power and versatility of the platform, the wondrous blue ocean, the sense of destiny standing on the open bridge staring out at the horizon...I will sorely miss all of it when my tour is over.

Camilla, thanks for getting me thinking about and attempting to articulate what I get out of this.

Another unexpected thing: we rocked our ready for operations (RFO) inspection. The crew put a lot of hard work into getting ready for it, so it's not entirely unexpected. But the RFO team was very complimentary, saying the effort really showed.

And the other unexpected thing is the weather right now. I knew there was a storm on the way, but I guess I've been gone from Hawaii for long enough to have forgotten that winter storms here are no joke. There's a crazy northeast swell right now that has pretty much shut down the cut into Radio Bay. Translation: it's really dangerous to transit out of the harbor right now. There's white water breaking over the breakwall about every 30 seconds to a minute. I meant to get some pictures, but ran out of daylight. I'm hoping the swell shifts around to the east a little like it's supposed to by tomorrow. With all the rain associated with the storm, we may have snow on Mauna Kea tonight. I'll definitely get pictures of that.

Hilo Veteran's Day Parade

I have *no idea* why the text is underlined today.

KISKA participated in Hilo's Veteran's Day Parade yesterday. We didn't have a float really, just the small boat with two guys dressed in rescue swimmer gear and two in cox'n/boat crew gear. Many thanks to SN Brian "Monty" Montero for taking all the great pictures.

This first picture is, from left to right, EM1 Jamie Peltier, BM3 Brian Goracke, SN Mike McKinstry (in orange wet suit), ET2 Chris Konyha, MK2 Moises "Rev" Arevalo, GM2 JR Stenzel, FN Ryan O'Connor, and SN Ryan Andres (also in orange wet suit). We got to the staging area pretty early, and then had to hang around for a while as the parade got going. We were maybe about 2/3 of the way through.

Close up of SN McKinstry and SN Andres, dressed as rescue swimmers. They were a great hit with the crowds.
MK3 Allen Edwards (in the truck), and XO, LTJG Frank Reed threw shakas and smiles all morning long.
The crowds were friendly, waving and clapping.
FN O'Connor and MKC Greg Tarker stroll along on the starboard side.
EM1 Peltier and MK2 Arevalo enjoyed the ride in the small boat. While neither of them are cox'ns, they played pretty convincing roles during the parade.
The Kea'au Middle School group was right behind us. They chanted and whooped and hollered nice and loud for the whole two miles.
My cheeks hurt from smiling so big for the entire parade.

I like this shot of FN O'Connor with the big huge flag in the background. The City had big cherry-picker trucks on either side of the road, with a line strung between them, and the flag suspended over the parade route.
SN McKinstry, wishing he was surfing.


I think this was the VFW Float. They had lots and lots of American flags flying.More flags.

The parade was a lot of fun. It was nice to get out in town and see all the support we, the military in general, and veterans have from the community.

Grandpa's Ties

One of my personal goals, especially now that I have all my stuff in one place, is to restore my loom to functionality and start weaving again. I learned to weave when I was at Berea College, and was assigned to the college Weaving Studio as my first student job there. Bill Roberts was a great teacher, and I was soon given the privilege of weaving rag rugs. When I graduated from Berea, my Aunt Linda gave me a simple two pedal loom that she didn't use much to keep up my skills. I had it set up in my mobile home while I was in grad school and made about a dozen rugs before I graduated, and the loom went in to storage in my mother's basement.

That was, jeez, twelve years ago.

So it's long past time for me to get the loom going again. My cute little house in Hilo has a great underneath-space for the loom and I spent some of last night putting bits and pieces together. It's almost all set up...I've just got those one or two pieces that I can't quite figure out exactly where they go. Looking at the pictures I've got from when the loom was still set up, I'm realizing that the last piece should have been put in before it was all framed up and tightened down. Gotta tear it back down almost to the starting point to get the last piece in. Grrr.

Anyway, while I was organizing all the supplies, I came across my bags of goodies that I had planned to use in rugs. There's a tangle of wool strips that might make one or two rugs, that I still want to use up. And there was a box full of my Grandpa's ties.

Grandpa (my Dad's dad) passed away while I was in grad school at North Carolina State University in (and I'm gonna feel bad when I get the year wrong) 1996 or 1997. My sister flew in from Nebraska and rode with me to Virginia for his funeral. I had missed my Grandma's funeral a year or two before because I was in Guatemala for the month with a school trip, and I didn't want to make that drive by myself. I was so glad my sister was there. I remember thinking at the memorial service that the plots were in a beautiful spot, with a soul-restoring view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

My Dad and Aunt Nancy spent the next few days cleaning out 50+ years of accumulated goods from their parents' house. I asked for Grandpa's ties, thinking that I could weave something from them. My sister asked for the linens (really high quality, and amazingly soft after so many years of use and washing) and some of Grandma's mixing bowls. She also got Grandpa's marbles, which she gave to me for Christmas a few years back. She told me now I never have an excuse to lose my marbles.

Last night, I went through the ties. There must be about 50 or 60 of them. All kinds and colors. I remember Grandpa as being fairly dapper, but the breadth of his tie collection is really quite astounding. There's even about a dozen bow ties. The ties are from a variety of stores, including a who's who of good quality clothiers in Southwestern Virginia. Here are some of my favorites:

I'm not sure where this blue and brown paisley one came from, but it's hand stitched on the back, and looks from the wear on it that it was one of Grandpa's go-to ties.

This blue and yellow and white striped one is one of the bow-ties. I remember Grandpa wearing them on occasion, especially when he was being whimsical.

The green-striped and orange flowered tie is amazing...almost five inches wide at the widest point, it's lined on the inside with purple cloth. Love it!

I don't know which of his granddaughters (he had four) gave him this bit of pastel luminosity...I can't quite imagine him buying it for himself. But I am sure he wore it, full of pride and love.

The yellow, white and brown striped tie is 100% silk, or "All Silk" as the label says, from Pride of England. It too, is monstrously wide. It was "Made Expressly for Norman Stockton, Winston Salem, N.C."

And my favorite of all, are these two, dark plaid and striped. The labels on them say, "Hand Made by Nancy Buzby." She was quite the seamstress, that Nancy...first the pin cushion when she was four, then these beautiful hand-stitched ties.

I teared up a little last night as I was going through these ties. So many memories of good people who helped make me who I am today.