Casey Coane posted on January 26, 2012 12:38
Capitol Hill Reception
On Tuesday of this week we held our annual reception. We were most honored that all four of our awardees were able to attend (that never happened before): Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon of California, Chairman of the House Committee on the Armed Services; Congressman Tim Walz of Minnesota, the senior enlisted man in Congress and a member of the Committee on Veterans Affairs; Mr. Bob Simmons, Staff Director of the House Committee on the Armed Services; and Mr. Brian Kessler from Congressman Walz’s office. Admiral Mark Ferguson, VCNO was the senior Navy representative. Please look for photos of the event
at this link.
NROTC Medal
On the 6th of January CAPT Bill Overend, our Southeast Region President and I visited the annual conference of NROTC Professors of Naval Science in Pensacola. We gave each PNS a medal to be awarded to a Midshipman 2/c at the end of the school year. It has taken some time for this medal to be approved through the Navy channels but it is now done. This would not have happened if it were not for CAPTs Elain Allen and Ann Holler. Volunteers do make a difference!
NJROTC medal
We are now selecting a different ribbon for the medal set to be offered to NJROTC high school units. My intention is to purchase a number of Junior ROTC medals which you can award to high schools with whom you are associated. These medals will have to be purchased from HQ with local funds but we will stock them to take advantage of bulk purchase. The expected purchase price from HQ is $18.00 but I will let you know specifics when we have them.
Visit to Austal America
As part of our trip to Pensacola Bill and I traveled over to Mobile, AL to visit Austal America and see the yard where the LCS is being built. There is a one page story about the visit in the next magazine so be on the lookout for it. There has been much written about the two LCS variants and we tried to bring you an update on both in the FEB/MAR magazine.
Interview with VADM Debbink
President Moon interviewed Admiral Debbink for that issue as well. It was such a long interview that only half of it is in the magazine. Go to
this link on the web for the full version. It’s worth the read.
SNA Symposium
This year we had a table at the annual January SNA symposium. It was good exposure for us and we signed up about 20 new members including our first four Naval Academy Midshipmen. It was a good event and we should plan on being there again next year. In March we will be a sponsor of the Sea Services Leadership Association symposium at the Gaylord in National Harbor.
Chapter News
Our newly reestablished San Francisco chapter is now on their way to regular quarterly meetings. The Professor of Naval Science for Cal/Stanford was a guest speaker recently and had nothing but great things to say about you fellows when I met him in Pensacola.
Board Meeting
The Board of Directors will be meeting in Washington on the 27th of Jan.
Director of Legislation
We will be interviewing candidates for this position on the 26th of Jan and the 31st. I expect a decision to follow immediately thereafter.
Conference
We made a trip to Norfolk to visit the prospective conference hotels on the 23rd of Jan. We are targeting October and expect to have dates to announce to the Board at their meeting.
That’s what is
in the Fire near term.