Coast Guard commandant fears budget woes may reverse acquisition work force gains.

• Author: Ake, David
• Position: Homeland Security News

* The Coast Guard knows that building ships takes a lot of personnel and expertise. It's a lesson the service has learned thoroughly--and somewhat painfully in recent years.

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Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr., commandant of the Coast Guard, told the House subcommittee on border and maritime security that in order to keep the personnel and expertise they have gained, they must have a consistent funding stream. If the service doesn't have predictable funding, it is at risk of losing valuable human resource gains it has made since the restructuring of the Integrated Deepwater System in 2007.

"We can't afford to lose any more acquisition people," Papp said. "I'm confident we are where we need to be in terms of makeup and the structure and the number of people we have for our acquisition program right now."

Much of the hiring of acquisition professionals in recent years was prompted by the Coast Guard's need to bring in-house the management of Deepwater, which previously had been overseen by contractors. The program seeks to modernize the Coast Guard's aging aircraft, ships and small boats.

It was restructured in 2007 in the wake of major cost overruns. The service at the time did not have the personnel on hand to oversee such a complex system, federal watchdogs concluded. In a tight job market, where acquisition and contracting experts were in short supply; the service was forced to go out and hire a cadre of technocrats to take control of the program.

One of his biggest concerns is an aging fleet of cutters that has reached "block obsolescence," Papp said. The average life of a Navy ship is 14 years, whereas the average life for a Coast Guard ship is 40 years, he said. The 378-foot high endurance cutters operating now were built in the 1960s and early 1970s and are "trying to get the job done." They were designed for about 25 years of use, but some are approaching almost 50 years of service.

The eight new national security cutters, which are the service's largest ships, can't come soon enough, Papp said.

The third national security cutter, the Stratton, successfully completed its builder trials in July. It will undergo acceptance trials this summer, the second to last step before it is commissioned.

The planned fleet of eight may not be able to meet the service's long-term needs, Joe Carnevale, senior defense advisor for Shipbuilders Council of America, told National Defense.

Carnevale also emphasized the importance of keeping...