Page 10: of Marine News Magazine (May 2012)

INSIGHTSCaptain Anthony Lloyd, Commanding Officer U.S. Coast Guard National Maritime CenterCaptain Anthony Lloyd is the Commanding Officer of the National Maritime Center (NMC). He assumed that posi- tion in September of 2010 after serving three years as the Coast Guard?s Program Manager for marine environmental response. The nationally-focused Officer in Charge of Marine Inspection (OCMI) tasked with implementing the Coast Guard?s Mariner Credentialing Program, the NMC, and the 20 field units under Lloyd?s direct control, are comprised of around 370 military, civilian and contract personnel serving throughout the U.S. and its? territories. Located in Martinsburg, WV, NMC is responsible for credentialing the 210,000 U.S. mariners to ensure the safety, security and stewardship of the Maritime Transportation System (MTS). As the point man for the Coast Guard?s ongoing effort to streamline its mariner credentialing programs, Lloyd weighed in this month with MarineNews and answered some tough questions on the future of the National Maritime Center and its important missions. In the years following the consolidation of credential- ing duties of the last Regional Examination Center(REC), the National Maritime Center had an arguably rocky start in the eyes of some commercial mariners, but has since found its sea legs. Give ourreaders some perspective of where NMC is today. The successful centralization of mariner credentialing at the NMC, while in many ways largely complete, contin-ues to play out as the ?effects of centralization? impact the MTS. For example, our focus on customer service is cen- tral to developing and maintaining good relationships with individual mariners. With centralization credential processing has become faster with higher consistency but there is a need to ensure mariners understand exactly what the suite of support tools can do for individual mariners. We have field units where mariners can test, seek assis- tance with their application, and find out additional infor-mation. Our call center is open with extended hours for west coast mariners and the customer service center staff can answer most mariner questions, over 90%, without having to transfer the call. Additionally, we have two addi- tional customer service center staff available to handle medical issues. Mariners need only call and ask for the medical help desk to access this service. Our website is also an excellent source of information. We are constantly ensuring the accuracy of our website info and invite mariners to spend some time looking at the NMC?s web- site. We have a customer satisfaction survey and absolute- ly need all of our customers to fill that out to rate us onour performance. Currently, on a scale of 1 to 5 we are averaging around 4.3 but certainly are not satisfied that every thing that needs to be improved is complete. There is always room for improvement. NAVC 04-08 ? the Coast Guard?s new medical exam- ination protocol ? is a sometimes contentious policy that is affecting mariners. What percentage of mariners are actually being found to be not physically competent to be credentialed at this time? In com- parison to the old system?Our estimate of denials based upon medical issues is just below two percent of the approximately 60,000 applica- tions we see per year. It?s a rough estimate but one that we explain on the NMC?s website. We have only been able to 10MNMay 2012MN#5 (1-17):MN 2011 Layouts 5/7/2012 1:04 PM Page 10