Where the Coast Guard’s TechRev Fell Short—and a Path to a New One
Summary
The Coast Guard is shifting to a paradigm in which deployed cutters and units have the ubiquitous information access that previously was available only to land-based command centers and staff offices. The Coast Guard has been slow to adopt and scale important technologies such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities and unmanned systems, especially when compared with other Department of Defense and Homeland Security components. The CTO is not considered part of the Coast Guard’s “C-Suite,” unlike many of its corporate peers, and its focus on policy limits its ability to make operational impacts. Once field units and local commanders were satisfied with the results, mature requirements would be migrated from the CTO organization to other Coast Guard directorates for formal procurement and sustainment. Recently, the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10), the Coast Guard’s heavy icebreaker, relied on newly installed internet equipment to help medically evacuate a crew member from Antarctica—a complex operation requiring interagency coordination.