Date of Award

2004

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Administration (MPA)

Abstract

The United States Coast Guard is facing challenges of historic proportions. The increased emphasis on homeland security and rapid growth of its budget and workforce are stressing the agency in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Never has it been more relevant to undertake a careful assessment of the service's leaders - the officer corps - and the programs through which they are indoctrinated and trained. Virtually all Coast Guard officers come from one of four commissioning sources: The Coast Guard Academy (CGA), Officer Candidate School (OCS), Reserve Officer Candidate Indoctrination (ROCI), or one of several Direct Commission Officer (DCO) programs. These programs vary in length from three weeks (ROCI) to four years (CGA), yet when graduates of these programs "hit the streets", little regard is paid to their commissioning source - they are all expected to perform equally well. Are there any differences in the pe1formance of Coast Guard officers from different commissioning programs? The answer to this question could have a critical impact on the organizational success of the Coast Guard. But, surprisingly, no one has conclusively answered it to date. This study hopes to do just that, thereby settling this decades-old debate. In April 2004, an anonymous survey was administered to approximately 1,200 Coast Guard officers commissioned between 2002 and 2004 and currently serving in grades 0-1 (Ensign) through 0-3 (Lieutenant). Their responses, which provided data related to the respondents' commissioning source, demographics, and performance appraisals, were studied to determine what, if any, differences exist and to what degree.

Also considered was whether respondents' ethnic background, gender, age, or first-tour assignment had a measurable impact on performance. The author's findings suggest that there are no significant differences in the performance of Coast Guard officers attributable to commissioning source. There are, however, some notable discrepancies based on race and ge'nder. The researcher closes with some noteworthy conclusions and policy recommendations that should be required reading for the Coast Guard's senior leadership. This paper is laid out as follows: Section II presents a brief synopsis of the history, organization, and missions of the U.S. Coast Guard, Section III reviews the Coast Guard Officer Accession Programs used as independent variables in this study, Section IV reviews the Coast Guard's Officer Evaluation System, Section V provides a brief review of some recent academic literature deemed relevant to this study, Section VI • explains the research questions and methodologies employed in this study, Section VII presents the author's findings, Section VIII the author's conclusions and recommendations, and Section IX the author's biography. j

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS