Page 47: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2016)

The Cyber Threat

Over the last ? ve or six years there have been mobile offshore drilling units in the Gulf of Mexico that have driven off the drill site due to malware that was introduced into their control systems where they lost a signal to stay within a swing circle. The only thing to prevent a major oil spill is the blowout preventer. And in each of the cases, the blowout preventer worked.

So in the span of your career, can you put in per- the bottom 5 percent, and it should come as no surprise, about a paycheck as it is about that commitment, that spective for me how hard it is to ? nd (and keep) Silicon Valley is going for that very same percentile. sense of accomplishment that you can only get by serv- good people today? If they can’t ? nd it in our high schools and colleges, ing in the Coast Guard. then they’ll look to the uniformed services – folks with The talent that we are drawing to the Coast background clearances, tremendous work ethics, integ- Very good. If I remember correctly, that “moment

Guard today is nearly unprecedented. I spent a fair rity, and they’ll be more than happy to hire them out of realization” for you was the Mariel boatlift when amount of time at our Coast Guard Academy today, from under us. And the shipping industry is no differ- somebody threw you their baby. which is now at its most diverse point than it’s ever ent; in the airline industry, no different, either. So there been in the history of the Coast Guard. The last two are a number of head-hunters competing for the same That was it! That baby is probably a middle classes came in with 40 percent women, 33 percent talent, or looking for, in uniform, and perhaps giving aged adult by now.

under-represented minorities, their SAT scores, their them an “offer they can’t refuse.” So how do you retain

GPA, their athletic capabilities, and their hunger to these folks as we look into the 21st Century? How do We hope so! Switching gears again: How is the lin- serve our nation is like I’ve never seen before. you build that brand loyalty? I go back to some of my gering low price of oil and gas affecting the Coast initial foundational experiences as a junior of? cer, that Guard and its operations?

So once you have them, what’s the biggest challenge caused me to say, “I am all in. This is what I will do to keeping them? for the rest of my life or as long as they let me serve in I was over in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, at the the Coast Guard.” So how do I get that same level of end of the year, and it was a big parking lot: jack-up Well, we are going for the top 10 percent, not commitment, that sense of belonging that isn’t as much rigs, offshore support vessels, the whole ? eet laid up. www.marinelink.com 47

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