VADM Lautenbacher Comments at the NOAA Corps Dining Out ROA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. May 17, 2003 Thank you for the invitation to be here tonight at the Dining Out! It is an honor and a delight for my wife Susan and me to be able to join you. I’d like to give my thanks to CAPT Roger Parsons, President of the Washington, D.C., Section of the NOAA Association of Commissioned Officers. I very much enjoyed the Dining-In, and am glad to be able to participate in this event as well, but I’ll miss the Grog Bowl! My thanks to RADM Evelyn Fields - I’ll say a few words about her in a moment. I am very pleased to meet RADM Harley Nygren, the first Director of the NOAA Corps. In addition to one of our first leaders, we have one of our future leaders, Ensign Jeffrey Shoup from the NOAA Ship RONALD H BROWN. I’m very glad to see Mary Glackin our new AA of Program, Planning & Integration. I know that Mary will be tapping into the NOAA Corps talent pool as she builds our new line office’s programs. Jim Walpole our General Counsel, you don’t hear compliments about lawyers often, but you won’t meet a nicer lawyer then Jim! John Oliver from NOAA Fisheries who assures me that nothing on our menu is overfished. CAPT Walt Steiner USNR (Ret.), representing the Reserve Officers Association. I’d also like to take a moment to thank the many family members who are with us tonight. We ask a lot of your loved ones, and I want to extend my appreciation for all of the support you provide. We are paying tribute to you tonight as well. A Dining-Out
is a lighthearted affair; as such my remarks will be short and sweet,
but since I don’t often speak to a predominantly NOAA Corps
audience, I do want to take this opportunity to discuss my vision
for your new leadership and for all the officers in the Corps. I’m looking for continued strong leadership from the new admiral recommendations— we need to build upon the progress that Admirals Fields and Prahl have made. Think what has happened during their tenure: the Corps is recruiting and growing, 10-year plans are nearly in place for ship and aircraft recapitalization, NOAA this year alone will add four ships — reducing the average age of the fleet from 33.6 years to 28.2 years. The OSCAR DYSON is under construction in Mississippi, funding for a second Fishery Survey Vessel was in the FY03 appropriation, and NMAO is in the process of acquiring a third Twin Otter aircraft. That’s progress, and this is a remarkable legacy that Admirals Fields and Prahl will leave behind. I’m here to thank them for this progress and acknowledge them for these accomplishments. We’re implementing a new vision for NOAA. As a natural extension of that process, I’m asking the NOAA Corps’ new leaders to develop a vision for your future that capitalizes on the unique talents that make you an essential part of NOAA. This vision needs to provide increased growth and security for all officers. This includes new training opportunities and new leadership-building experiences. Your new leaders will need to develop requirements for the existing and future NOAA Corps missions and provide me with the justifications I need to fight to secure the officer and infrastructure resources to meet those requirements. This will be a challenge. There are more demands for your talents by Line Offices than there are officers. You should all take great pride in that fact and work with your leadership to capitalize on that demand to help you expand the breadth and depth of your experiences. A similar challenge NOAA is facing is the implementation of matrix management. However, I expect it will provide opportunities for NOAA Corps officers to use the skills and experiences they have developed across line offices during the course of their careers. I think you are all perfectly poised to help lead your NOAA colleagues through this transition period. My bosses would hate for me to miss an opportunity to plug the importance of safety. It will continue to be of paramount interest to me and the new NOAA Corps leadership! Now that you’ve heard my charge for NOAA Corps leadership, I want to close with a few comments about the future of the NOAA Corps. My hat is off to you for the assignments you do and are uniquely qualified to undertake because of your blend of operations expertise, educational credentials, and management experience. I understand and appreciate your attitude of service, and how tough this line of work can be. I’m sensitive to habitability and connectivity conditions on the ships and aircraft. Believe me, I’ve been there. The 10-year ship and aircraft plans are a blueprint for a future that I will fight to secure for you. You’ve got a remarkable legacy to be proud of. I ask you to build on NOAA’s successes; don’t be satisfied with the status quo — I’m not. Look for opportunities to increase your personal strengths, NOAA’s strengths, and the NOAA Corps’ strengths. I challenge each of you to think about where you want to be in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, and help me, and the rest of your leadership, build a NOAA Corps that meets this vision. Together we build a stronger NOAA—a NOAA that is more than the sum of its parts! If I weren’t completely confident that the officers of the NOAA Corps can do this, I wouldn’t ask! It is my great honor to work with all of you during this transition, and to share with you my vision for your future leaders and the future of the Corps. You do great work for NOAA and the Nation! Thank you very much! Let’s enjoy the evening!
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