Senior Editor Gordon Peterson interviewed Vice Adm. Henry C. Giffin
III, commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, for this issue
of Sea Power.
Sea Power:
Admiral, you have been a surface warfare officer [SWO] for more than 30
years; from this perspective, what stands out in your mind as the most
significant differences between today's surface Navy and that of a
generation or two ago?
GIFFIN: The
issues that we're facing now are very similar to the issues we faced 30
years ago, but the big differences clearly are in the capabilities of
our ships, officers, and Sailors. They are motivated, and it is a very
bright generation. Our commanding officers are very impressive. I never
cease to be amazed by the wonderful things that they are doing out there
in a constrained environment.
Some things
never change--the challenge to keep good people. We say all the time
that our Sailors are brighter, more educated, and more dedicated--and
they are! I don't take anything away from the generation that won the
Second World War, but when you look at what we ask of a Sailor today
compared to the technology on our ships years ago it is striking. I
would say that perhaps five percent of the crew on a 1960s FRAM [fleet
refit and modernization program] destroyer was in a technical rating
[occupational specialty]. Now, with the DDG [guided-missile destroyer],
it is 75 to 80 percent. With the DD 21 [land-attack destroyer] it will
be 95 percent. The Navy is the most technologically oriented of the
services as far as our people go, so that is a very significant change.
What are
your top goals in fulfilling your mission of providing combat-ready
ships and shore stations to the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and seeing to their
leadership, manning, equipping, maintenance, and training?
GIFFIN: It's
really two-pronged--people and material. On the people side we are
focusing both on retention and lowering attrition. We still lose about
one third of the young Sailors who walk up the brows of our ships before
the end of their enlistments. This is not a drastic or major increase
from traditional levels, but it is still a tremendous waste of assets.
Some might say--incorrectly, I would add--that this is the cost of doing
business, but on some ships and in some commands we seem to be doing so
much better than others. It's a function of command climate; it's
leadership.
We're
addressing this with a number of different initiatives. One is to give
command back to the commanding officers--to allow them to be able to
command and feel the responsibility and joys of command, but not to feel
hindered by bureaucratic rules. We have done many things with the
Interdeployment Training Cycle [IDTC]--reducing redundant inspections so
that COs [commanding officers] can build their own schedules as they
start the cycle to get ready for deployment again. They know what their
ship needs. I expect them to sit down with their ship's leadership and
map out a schedule that focuses on the things that they think are
important.
There are
enough checks and balances along the way that will verify that we are
meeting standards, but we don't need an "inspections are us"
mentality to check that COs are doing their jobs in the surface
Navy--what I call "checklist leadership."
This is new
ground for some of the COs. They're excited, they're having fun, and
it's great to watch them. All we ask is that they make their ships
better--improve retention, reduce attrition, and improve Sailors'
advancement. This will keep people in the Navy: if they feel challenged,
if they feel we care about them, and if they're successful.
The second
focus is on the material side of getting sufficient resources to
maintain the ships at the proper level without taking it out on the
backs of the Sailors. That is a conscription mentality--you can't throw
Sailors at the problem. You can't do 80 percent of an overhaul and the
maintenance that needs to be done on the ship and then say, "Okay,
Sailors, you do the rest during the Interdeployment Training
Cycle." They have other things to do--training and mentoring.
On the Smart
Ship [the guided-missile cruiser USS Yorktown], for instance, 16 Sailors
in the MP [main propulsion] division took the advancement exam, and 12
were advanced--a phenomenal record. Then I went through the ship and
looked at the engineering plant, and it was beautiful--absolutely
well-maintained. I asked the chief, "How did you do this; it's just
wonderful. What's the magic formula?" He said, "Admiral, this
is Smart Ship. It gives me the time." Time is what it's all
about--time to take care of my people, time to maintain my ship, time to
let my people go home and feel good about the Navy. That is a great
example of what technology--reasonably low-priced--can let you do. We
need to wake up and say, "This is what we can do. This is the
future of the Navy. This is how we are going to attract and keep the
quality people."
Last year,
the USS Ticonderoga [guided-missile cruiser] began the process of being
outfitted with new computers and COTS [commercial-off-the-shelf]
technology; how is this Smart-Ship upgrade progressing?
GIFFIN:
Ticonderoga is still finishing her upgrades. It is a unique way of doing
an upgrade on a ship. We gave a ship to the contractor and said,
"We will develop the Smart Ship program as we put it on the ship.
We will install and also test its development." That probably saved
three or four years of development work from the normal acquisition
system's checks and balances. It has taken longer than advertised,
however, and that has been a disappointment.
For various
reasons the contractor was developing and testing the software at the
same time as it was installing the hardware--both at the land-based test
site in Philadelphia as well as on the ship. The speed of the
installation is disappointing. We have had to stretch out the CG/DD
Smart Ship install schedule to roughly five years. Some of the delay is
a function of resources, but we can't just throw money at the problem.
It does take time, and we need to do it right.
As far as
manpower goes, because of the shortfall that we have had in manpower on
Navy ships--a shortfall of approximately 18,000 a year and a half ago,
and now about 10,600--the manning on the "nonsmart" cruisers
is now very close to the manning on the "smart" cruisers by
virtue of the fact that we're short of Sailors. On paper we will
"save" Sailors with Smart Ship, but in fact the manning of the
Thomas S. Gates [guided-missile cruiser] or the "unsmart"
Ticonderoga is only three or five Sailors different from the number of
Sailors on the Yorktown.
What this will
do is to drive the personnel system into doing business a different way.
When you take Sailors off the Smart Ship, as we have on Yorktown, you
don't have the redundancy or depth of knowledge that you would normally
have. Therefore, we have to fill the ship with 100 percent of the
Sailors that we need. We have a requirement; we need to fill it! We can
cover a small number of ships, but if we have half the surface Navy
requiring 100 percent manning all the time--no gapped billets--that will
force the manpower system to allocate people in a different way. I think
that's what we should do. If we gap leadership billets at the same time
that we are asking them to do the mentoring, training, and all the other
things we ask them to do, the system will fail.
I am happy we
are doing this, because the manpower system does need reform. Naval
leadership understands that. The manpower-distribution system is going
to change; we have been doing a lot of work to change it. It will be
more responsive down the road--more like the officer system--and we
won't have as many gapped billets.
Regarding
material and resources, there were budget increase this year for Navy
readiness accounts, but are you seeing them at SURFLANT?
GIFFIN: We
really have not seen them on the maintenance side--surface ships get the
last piece of pie after submarines and aircraft carriers. That hurts a
bit. This year has been one of our worst years meeting requirements as a
percentage of the requirement that is funded. We have had to stretch--we
call it "descoping"--overhauls to get them down to what we can
safely accept. What does that mean? It means that if we delay
overhauling a fire pump or a main-feed pump and it breaks, a Sailor must
do the repair. This is not what we want to do. It is going in the wrong
direction as far as taking care of Sailors and improving the
Interdeployment Training Cycle. That is a frustration.
We have had to
cancel and defer some overhauls because of this shortfall of money. We
are looking for some help this year, whether from inside the Navy or in
the form of a supplemental [congressional appropriation]. Then we need
to fix the system--the requirements process--so that we don't have to do
this every year. It's not that much money in the big picture of things
in the Navy budget, but it certainly has a big impact on the waterfront.
Sailors get frustrated when they know that something that should have
been fixed in overhaul was not and, if it breaks, they spend the Fourth
of July weekend before the ship is due to get underway to get it fixed.
That's pretty frustrating. We don't need to do that to ourselves. We
need to treat Sailors better than that.
How did last
year's high-tempo operations affect your people and ships?
GIFFIN:
Although the operational tempo was very high, the time between
deployments--the turnaround ratio--has stabilized, and it is as good now
as it has been in the last five years. We have done some organizational
things to allow that to happen. We have six battle groups in the
Atlantic Fleet, and each has a six-ship destroyer squadron assigned.
They work up and deploy as a team, so they basically are in a one-in-six
rotation. What that gives us is about a two-year interdeployment time
and six-month deployment. Some of our amphibs [amphibious-force ships],
Western Hemisphere Group ships, and logistic ships are at a one-in-five
rotation--about a 19-month interdeployment time.
The good news
is that we are in a relatively stable rotation. The Navy and the
nation's leadership have allowed us to maintain that rotation despite
the number of crises of recent years--they never stop! The operational
tempo is high when the ships deploy to the northern Arabian Gulf--some
stay underway for 84 of 90 days. That's also a concern, because Sailors
join the Navy for education and to see the world, and port visits are
important to our people. When the pace of operations is reasonable, we
need to strike the right balance.
Fleet
commanders tell me that they "love the product" that we are
sending them when our surface ships arrive--the quality of training, the
level of preparation, and the material condition of our ships are all
high. They enter the Mediterranean, and the next day they go to the
Adriatic and are shooting missiles that are on target.
Our overall
material condition in terms of CASREPS [casualty reports] is
improving--they're going down; it's a positive trend. It is credited to
a number of things. For the most part we have newer ships--our
cruiser-destroyer force is probably the most modern and best caliber
that we have had in my lifetime. For our amphibs, we have some new and
some that are older. But some of those older amphibs are our best in
terms of retention, attrition, and crew morale--I love to be on them.
Age is not always the big determinant in performance.
What aspect
of SURFLANT's performance is your greatest source of pride?
GIFFIN: We have
been at the forefront of changing the culture of the surface Navy--in
the way we lead, the way we treat our people, and the way we develop
them. We have an aggressive and wonderful staff here who led the
implementation of modern technology on the waterfront. The younger
generation likes that--they want to be part of a modern Navy.
We focused on
that attitude and culture change, because that is where I think the
largest return on our investments will be--keeping motivated folks in
the Navy. We can have the greatest weapons systems in the world, but if
we don't have the young Sailors who want to maintain them and who enjoy
being in the outfit, we're not going to have combat readiness. You can't
sustain combat readiness without taking care of your people.
Speaking of
people, last summer the surface-warfare community's top leadership
surveyed its junior officers to learn why so many were leaving the
service. Would you briefly summarize the reason for the survey and its
results?
GIFFIN: You
never do a survey unless you are willing to accept the results and do
something about them. For those of us who spend a lot of time talking to
junior officers, there weren't too many surprises. The survey reinforced
what I had been hearing and what Ed Moore [Vice Adm. Edward Moore Jr.,
commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet] and Mike Mullen
[Rear Adm. Michael G. Mullen, director of the Surface Warfare Division
on the Navy staff], and the waterfront leadership of the surface Navy
had been hearing.
It gave us a
tool that our leadership can use on the deckplates to sit down with
junior officers and say, "What do you mean by zero defects? What do
you mean by micromanagement? Give me some examples on the ship."
Going back to what I said before, we have grown an entire generation of
leaders in a different environment. Our current COs were XOs in a
downsizing Navy--a Navy that said, "If you don't like it, there's
the door."
We can't do
that anymore! We need to develop tools to enable our leadership to work
in our new and different environment, and this survey allows them to
open the door to expand their awareness of what they can do. Despite
everything you hear and read, it is basically my commanding officer, my
ship, and my experience that determines whether I am going to stay in or
get out of the Navy. There is no more important person in this equation
than your immediate superior--the CO in most cases.
That is the
number one thing that the survey shows. The survey also revealed some
improvements compared to the results of another survey done by Admiral
Jack Natter [retired Rear Adm. John T. Natter, USNR] approximately 18
months ago. We are doing better. Surface warfare junior officers are now
filling all of the seats [course openings] at department head school. A
year and a half ago when I was up there [in Newport, R.I.], the seats
were half empty--this meant that our department heads on the waterfront
were being extended in their tours. We are at the point where we have
had virtually a year's worth of full classes.
That turnaround
is a major success story--that is the future; that is the seed corn for
the surface Navy. We made technological and curriculum improvements at
the school as well. We will have officers coming out of department head
school very close to being totally trained in their jobs, and that will
take a burden off the ship as well. It breeds a really good
environment--it is heartwarming to be at the school and see the
students' excitement. In pure numbers, the retention of junior officers
also has improved--it is up three or four percent.
And
retention for your first-term and career Sailors?
GIFFIN: We have
been focusing on this, and we have made some improvements. The trend is
positive. At SURFLANT we have increased first-term retention by nearly
four percent--32 percent retention versus 28.2 percent Navy-wide. We are
nearly 20 percent higher than the Navy second-term retention [63.2
percent versus 43.8 percent Navy-wide]. For third-term personnel, our
retention is 14.5 percent above the Navy's rate of 51.7 percent. We also
have reduced attrition of our first-term personnel by four percent and
are below the Navy-wide average here as well.
The key is
keeping the right people. In some of our technical ratings the
third-term retention is lower than the second-term and, in some cases,
the first-term retention. That is very unusual, but there is a high
demand for individuals in these technical ratings in the civilian
economy. We must offer more money--better bonuses--all the way up to
third-term reenlistments in our technical ratings to keep them in the
Navy.
The SRB
[selective reenlistment bonus] generally works, and there are a host of
other things that have happened. The senior leadership in the Navy, the
Defense Department, and Congress has been very responsive to our needs
on the waterfront. Two years ago we said, "Fix retirement. Give us
some bonus money. Give us a significant pay raise." And they have
done it. I tell Sailors that our corporate leadership has done its
job--they have listened to you. Now, there is more that can be done. As
the secretary [Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig] says, you can never
pay Sailors enough to do what they do, but you clearly can pay them too
little.
The next
challenge is sea pay. There is a need for reform. Sea pay has not
changed since 1987. We need to reward our people with significant
compensation for doing the really hard and challenging job of going to
sea. I would like to see sea pay provided earlier--not at the three-year
point when officers are facing a retention decision.
Sea duty
involves hard work, but SURFLANT and SURFPAC [Naval Surface Force, U.S.
Pacific Fleet] have partnered with NAVSEA [Naval Sea Systems Command]
and private industry in a Capital Investment for Labor Initiative [CILI]
to apply new technologies to reduce the time that Sailors must spend on
routine maintenance and upkeep. How is that effort progressing?
GIFFIN: It is a
wonderful initiative. The commercial paint teams have received the most
attention. Last year, we had a shortfall of about 10 percent in our
enlisted manning--gapped billets--on our ships compared to manning three
to four years ago. That shortfall has been reduced by two to three
percent today, but we are still short of general-detail Sailors--seamen,
firemen, and airmen.
We need to do
something to cover that shortfall--the work doesn't go away. It just
means that the Sailors who are on board work all that much harder. The
CILI addresses that concern.
It also
provides long-term benefits. Ships do not have to rust if prepared and
painted properly. The paint teams use advanced techniques, equipment,
and paint that will last much longer, so we do not have to have Sailors
paint the ship repeatedly down the road. We are looking to have a paint
team on every ship within the next three years. Then we will be in
steady state and can reduce their numbers.
Sailors will
never not have to paint--there will always be a Sailor with a paint
brush--but not in the numbers that we have now. We are advancing more
technologically in the Navy, and it does not make sense to send Sailors
to expensive technical schools, tell them to maintain technically
demanding equipment on their ships, and then have them stand on deck
with a paint brush.
There are many
other things we can do. A "smart head" [compartment containing
toilet facilities], for example, can be made of stainless steel and
built so that a Sailor can clean and maintain it in one-third to
one-fourth of the time it takes now. There are smarter ways to prepare
food in more efficient galleys. We need to stop building ships with a
galley that looks like the one I had on my DD [destroyer] 30 years ago!
There are many experiments underway on the waterfront now. We are
learning from the private sector and the cruise-ship industry. NAVSEA
and NAVSUP [Naval Supply Systems Command] are in our corner and doing
all they can to help us.
Are you
excited by today's surface Navy's evolutionary and revolutionary
developments?
GIFFIN: I am
prejudiced sitting here, but I don't think there has ever been a better
time to be a surface warfare officer. As Admiral Mullen says,
"There's no business like SWO business!" We really do feel
this--not just in terms of what we contributed to the nation in the last
few years in trouble spots around the world or through our stabilizing
presence. We also look to the future with the DD 21 [land-attack
destroyer] program--if you talk to our young lieutenants who will be
that ship's commanding officers, they are really excited. It doesn't get
any better, and that positive feeling is spreading. There are many
challenges to go, but it's a good time to be a SWO!
Is there
anything else you would like to say to the readers of Sea Power and the
Navy League?
GIFFIN: The
Navy League is wonderful. I have been all around the world, and
everywhere we go we receive great support from the Navy League. That
support really helps us and helps our Sailors, and we appreciate it very
much. I would tell Navy League members who have not been on a ship or
talked to a Sailor recently to go down to one of our ships in port and
do so--they will be impressed. It will recharge their batteries for
believing that what the Navy League is doing is right. Talk to these
young American patriots who are serving their country--go visit a Sailor
and feel good about it! |
