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more focus toward better preparing our seagoing leadership to lead today’s sea- farer,” he says.

Buzby believes an investment in pro- fessional development will pay big div- idends. “We want to provide leadership training and support to our masters and our chief engineers—the people who are leading at sea—as well as to some of the junior officers who are coming along. We want to give our leadership at sea the tools they need to lead in today’s world. They’re fantastic seamen and fantastic engineers—but merchant marine training, per se, doesn’t emphasize how to lead. So we’ll spend some time and energy to equip those peo- ple so they can lead even better.

New ships like the Lewis and Clark class of replenishment ships continue to join the fleet, and Buzby is particularly excited about the Joint High Speed

Vessel (JHSV), which will be operated by both the Army and the Navy. “The keel has been laid for the first Army vessel at Austal USA in Mobile, Ala. It looks like five were contracted to be built for the Navy and about five for the Army. Military Sealift Command is going to crew the Navy ships—the first two with our civil service mariners, and the next three with contract mariners under competitive bid. We’ll compare the crewing head-to-head to see how the costs and efficiencies work out. The mis- sions for these ships are still evolving, and we want to leave our options open so we can make a good crewing decision that will ultimately play out amongst the rest of those ships. So we’re excited about JHSV. It’s a whole new concept for

MSC.”

September 2010 www.marinelink.com 27

Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, com- mander, Military Sealift Command, with fellow graduates of the U.S. Mer- chant Marine Academy assigned aboard MSC fleet replenishment oiler

USNS Flint May 19, 2010. (Source: U.S. Navy photo by Sarah Burford, Sealift Logistics Com- mand Pacific public affairs)