NAV EX 1st QTR 2018 NavEx 1st Qtr 2018 - Draft 7a | Page 33

Coast Guard protocol, each watchstander must
demonstrate complete knowledge of Station
Chatham’s complicated area of shoreline and off-
shore responsibility – a wide array of complex and
potentially perilous waters stretching from Nauset
through Nantucket Sound.
However, the officer in charge of Station Chatham,
Senior Chief Petty Officer Corbin J. Ross, insists that
the civilian volunteers bring additional benefits to the
local Coast Guard unit as personal and professional
mentors to the resident crew. “We bring people into
the Coast Guard who literally left Mom and Dad’s
house two months before,” explains Ross. “We send
them to Boot Camp and then they come here. When
they arrive at the station, we tell them, ‘OK, now you
have to start life as an adult, and, by the way, I have
all of these things that you need to do. They are all
challenging, they are all going to take a lot of your
time and they all have a deadline.’”
Ross says that the Auxiliary volunteers free up time
for new station crewmembers to prepare for their own
future communications and boat crew assignments.
“They are the ones who would be standing the
watches if our Auxiliarists were not there,” he says.
All four of the volunteers say that the benefits of
working with the Coast Guard far outweigh the long
hours. “For me, it’s a sense of belonging and being
a part of the team,” says Quincy, a former business
executive who has been an Auxiliary watchstander
since 2002. “It’s doing something that is meaningful
and just hanging around young people who are
dedicated to their job.”
Foss, a former president of Chase Securities, Inc.,
has been an Auxiliary volunteer for 16 years. He
estimates that he has helped train more than 100
young Coast Guardsmen for their own watchstander
qualification. “My job is to help them become first-
rate watchstanders so they can get on to the reason
that they joined the Coast Guard – search and rescue,
maritime law enforcement and boating safety. When
the Auxiliary takes the watch, the station crew is
freed up for operations and training.”
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Hays notes that earning a watchstanding qualification
has been a long-time goal. “I wanted to be a
watchstander almost from the moment I learned
that it was an option for Auxiliarists,” says the retired
insurance actuary, who launched his watchstanding
career in 2010. “I thought – correctly – that it would
be an excellent way to understand the issues faced
by the active duty Coast Guard members and to get
a better understanding of how they are organized
and how they perform their mission. I knew that
every hour that I would spend on watch would be
appreciated – even if there were no distress calls –
because it would free up an active duty person to
perform other tasks.”
A retired former high school teacher and attorney,
Brady says that he has wanted to “be involved in Coast
Guard operations. Successful cases are the result of a
team effort and the watchstander can have a part in
each one.” He has been a station watchstander since
2014.
Ross says that the rich life experiences of the
Auxiliarists are an additional – and important – benefit
for all of Station Chatham’s crew. “My appreciation is
not just because of the junior members,” he adds.
“The Auxiliarists probably touch the senior folks here
– like me and the Executive Petty Officer [Chief Petty
Officer Travis T. Roloff] – even more than the younger
guys. These gentlemen have ‘lived’ life. We lean on
those four more than most people would realize,”
Ross says.
“Countless times I have talked to them about all kinds
of issues and problems, and the value of these four
goes way beyond the watchstanding; way beyond
the ability of the younger members to start living
their new lives now; it touches the senior folks in a
way we really need,” Ross insists. “There have been
countless times when I have gone in to talk with them
about something.
“It has nothing to do with answering a phone call,
talking on the radio or any one of the tasks that they
had to complete to become qualified watchstanders.
Nowhere did it say, ‘Make sure you mentor the Senior
Chief at the Station.’”
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