Page 12: of Marine News Magazine (June 2015)

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INSIGHTS

Captain Novotny completed duties ? rst as Chief of the Pre- vention Department and then Deputy Sector Commander of

USCG Sector Hampton Roads in Portsmouth, VA. Novotny holds a high pro? le position, one that the nation’s professional mariners depend upon, every day. Listen in this month as he

Captain sets the record straight on the current and future conditions at the National Maritime Center.

Jeffrey Novotny

The new medical rules (known ? rst through NVIC 04- 08) had some bumps as they were implemented. De-

Commanding Of? cer, scribe the status of that program today.

NVIC 04-08 was issued in an effort to bring standard-

U.S. Coast Guard ization to the handling of various medical conditions re-

National Maritime Center ported by mariners on their 719K physical examination forms and in response to several major marine casual- ties tied to mariner medical conditions. The regulations

Captain Jeffrey P. Novotny is Commanding Of? cer of the published in December 2013 made no major changes to

U.S. Coast Guard’s National Maritime Center in Martins- those standards but did introduce the Mariner Medical burg, WV. He is responsible for all activities related to profes-

Certi? cate. Since January 2014, the NMC has been is- sional credentialing, training and assessments of the nation’s suing medical certi? cates to each quali? ed mariner when 215,000 merchant mariners. He graduated from the U.S. processing an application that requires a medical evalua-

Coast Guard Academy with a degree in Mathematics and tion. The NMC has issued approximately 26,839 medical

Computer Science. Prior to commanding the NMC, he was certi? cates as of January 2015 along with 22 medical cer- the Deputy Commander at the Coast Guard’s Deployable ti? cation denials. Conditions that are determined to pose

Operations Group. His duties included the oversight and re- an inordinate risk for sudden incapacitation or debilitating sponsibility for all personnel, operational readiness and deploy- complication may lead to denial of medical certi? cation. ment of the USCG’s Deployable Specialized Forces support- ing Operational and Combatant Commanders world-wide.

The frequency of medical exams has ramped up for

He also served as the Interagency Strategic Planning Chief on some credential holders from 5 to 2 year intervals. the National Incident Commander’s staff for the Deepwater

Last year, NMC processed as many as 125,000 cer-

Horizon response. Eventually, he transitioned into the Marine ti? cates. What’s the average time for this process and can you keep up with future demand?

Safety ? eld and was assigned to Marine Safety Of? ce New Or- leans, LA. There he held numerous positions including Chief Currently, the overall and net processing times for medical of the Marine Environmental Response, Chief of Facility and certi? cates are approximately 16 and 8 days respectively. This

Container Inspection, Supervisor of the Operations Com- overall processing time (OPT) includes our internal NMC mand Center and later, Assistant Chief of Port Operations. net processing time and periods which we are awaiting addi-

Following that, he was assigned as Chief, Port Operations of tional information from the mariner or their medical provid-

Marine Safety Of? ce Wilmington, NC. Later, at Coast Guard er. Since last May (2014), the OPT has remained less than 30

Headquarters in the Of? ce of Personnel, Workforce Forecast- days. While the processing times have declined since the onset ing and Analysis, he supervised the Enlisted Workforce Team, of issuing medical certi? cates, it has somewhat normalized to which tracked and monitored the 32,000+ personnel within approximately 15-20 days over the last six months. At this the Coast Guard’s enlisted workforce. From 2006 to 2009, point, we believe we’ll be able to keep up with the demand.

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