By Josh Phillips
Public Affairs Department

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD—Achieving excellence in the workplace is easier to do when you truly love what you’re doing, especially when your job puts you behind the wheel of a 41-foot Coast Guard boat in the waters of Southern Maryland.

The St. Inigoes Coast Guard station at NAS Patuxent River's Webster Field Annex showcased its commitment to excellence recently after receiving exemplary marks during its Ready for Operations testing.

During the testing, members of St. Inigoes’ parent command in Baltimore visited the station for several days of testing which included drill evaluations, personal fitness testing and written examinations.

“The RFO team from Baltimore comes down and runs us through our paces to make sure that we’re operating within policy and procedure,” said St. Inigoes executive officer BM1 Austin Olmstead. “I think our unit performed very well. The RFO team said the boats looked awesome. The guys have been doing such a good job cleaning every crack and crevice that the boat looks like it’s been sitting in freshwater for 20 years. The unit did very well on the written examinations, too.”

Doing well is a bit of an understatement.

The unit scored well above the Coast Guard average in all three categories: coxswain, engineer and crewmember. One member of the station, BM3 Jonathan Norman, received a perfect score on his coxswain exam. Even more impressive is that Norman took the test as a coxswain-in-training. He still has to pass a rigorous evaluation to be qualified.

This isn’t the first time that St. Inigoes has been lauded for its performance. In 2002, the unit was awarded the Sumnar I. Kimball award by the Coast Guards National Standardization Team. The award recognizes achievement of high readiness for crew proficiency and boat materiel condition as essential readiness components. To receive the award, a shore-based unit must average in excess of 85-percent of the total possible score during a scheduled biennial readiness assessment.

“The Coast Guard has two types of boats, standard and nonstandard,” said Olmstead. “The standardization team deals with the standardized boats, which for us would be our 41-ft. boat. For example, if I transfer to California I should take one look at their boat and know where everything is.”

Drills including towing, de-watering for sunken boats or boats that are taking on water, engineering casualty control, and man-overboard simulations were performed by qualified crews from the St. Inigoes unit.

Despite the outstanding remarks from the RFO team, Olmstead still believes there is room for improvement for the entire St. Inigoes unit.

“Some of the drills went well, but some showed that we need to make some improvements,” he said. “It’s not disappointing though because I know how hard they have been training for this. I’ve been out there with them the last several weeks when we did the same things without any problems.”

St. Inigoes Coast Guard BMC John Brady echoed Olmstead’s comments, noting there is always room for improvement, regardless of how well the unit performed.

“I think the guys did good,” he said. “There are some things we need to work on, though. It’s good preparation for the STAN team evaluations next summer.”

-USN-