Wow! What a 24 hours. Last night's welcoming dinner hosted by Vice Adm. Charles Wurster was the perfect end to an extremely busy day for all of the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum delegates. All of the delegates were huddled for hours in Working Group meetings developing new NPCGF strategies from Combined Operations in the Pacific to the templates by which NPCGF meetings are run. In my five years of the Forum, I have never seen such a focused work effort by all of the delegates. The dinner was a welcome break and really a nice evening highlighted by an exceptional performance by the Coast Guard Band Masters of Swing. The band with their superb vocalist just thrilled the delegates with a smooth blend
of jazz, swing, and a very jazzed up version of Semper Paratus; they were just awesome and would have made any Coastie proud.
Wednesday saw a rapid frenzy of joint working group meetings in the morning to hammer home many of the concepts developed during Tuesday's working group meetings. Vice Adm. Wurster, as the Experts Meeting Chairman, opened today's plenary session by welcoming all of the delegates and challenging them to continue the superb NPCGF work that he has been part of during the last two years. Capt. Charley Diaz, Acting Commandant ACO-I, served as the U.S. Head of Delegation.
Each of the Working Groups reported out the results of their discussions and plan for the coming year. The Heads of Delegation from each country provided commentary and recommendations on each Work Group report. I am extremely pleased to report that significant headway has been made by each Work Group and the Heads of Delegation clearly were pleased with efforts achieved. Some highlights include expanded combined operations for this summer’s Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported (IUU) fishing operations, where each nation committed assets and people to this mission. Additionally, the partners agreed to expanded exercises in the coming years to test All Missions, All Hazards
capabilities of our partnership. The Forum also tackled some very difficult issues related to information exchange, NPCGF meeting processes and procedures, and documents related to defining our partnerships. It was a highly productive day with all parties being able to agree on some significant initiatives that will be further discussed at the San Francisco summit in September.
As I type, the delegates are enjoying a well deserved free evening in Seattle at a variety of venues. They have all earned an enjoyable evening after a day of hard work. But, can you believe it? It just snowed here in Seattle! Now that is something the Seattle organizing committee could have never thought they would have achieved.
The Coast Guard team here continues to impress all -- from delegates to the employees at the Grand Hyatt Hotel -- all have commented on the professionalism of our Coast Guard team.
Tomorrow, it's cultural tour day! We start with showing off our local Coast Guard capabilities at Pier 36. A Polar Breaker, a 378 WHEC, Station Seattle, and our new Sector Seattle Joint Command Center will be toured followed by the Boeing manufacturing line for the new 787 Dreamliner. Another full day for our delegates.
Your Coast Guard team here in Seattle has represented you well and earned the respect of our crucial North Pacific partners. As Vice Adm. Wurster commented to me just a little while ago, "We have really done something here with the NPCGF."
Being my 6th and final year working with this group of partners, I could not agree more with him; Team Coast Guard has earned the respect and friendship of our Coast Guard-like organizations in
the Pacific.
Tomorrow will be our last report as we close out another successful chapter in the NPCGF story. Many thanks to our Public Affairs team who is working around the clock to bring you this story via the Web and other media.
Capt. Robert Day
Deputy Commander, Maintenance and Logistics Command Pacific
Planning Team Lead
9th Experts Meeting, North Pacific Coast Guard Forum
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