Station New Haven Reservists Have the Watch Story and photos by Senior Chief Petty Officer Nicholas Bernice “Good morning, everyone, and thank you for standing the watch today,” said Chief Warrant Officer Ethan Elam to the seven reservists in the training room at Station New Haven. It was 9:30 a.m., and Elam’s change of command ceremony was just 30 minutes away. The warrant said goodbye to his reserve crew and thanked them for their hard work over his tenure as the commanding officer of Station New Haven. The change of command ceremony is a tradition in the Coast Guard, and it’s very important to the crew of the unit. However, the work never stops, and the Coast Guard needs to maintain ready status as these significant ceremonies take place. At Station New Haven, the reserve crew scheduled their drills purposely to relieve the active duty crew, so they could take part in the ceremony and celebration afterwards. The crew was able to relax knowing the reserve crew was ready to respond in case the SAR alarm sounded. With their fully-qualified 45-foot RBM boat crew, Station New Haven reservists are able to stand the watch. Their senior enlisted reserve advisor, Chief Petty Officer April Rex, said that New Haven achieved this high level of readiness because the 45 is the primary training platform for all reservists. With emphasis on one platform, this contingent of reservists has produced three engineers, a coxswain, a crew member and two boarding officers. Petty Officer 1st Class Shane Carpenter, the active duty training petty officer, credited the success of the training program to “keeping people motivated, and the fact that active duty members and reservists work so well together. There is a special rapport and willingness to work on weekends, so everyone can accomplish tasks as a team and make sure they get qualified and stay current.” This same spirit was conveyed over and over again by many of the crew members. “We are successful here because we love to work, and we love to be here,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Firmin, a RBM coxswain, works with Petty Officer 2nd Class Fawn Moro, a break-in coxswain. Michael Firmin, a 45 coxswain and 12-year member of the station. “We help them and they help us.” Firmin also echoed the SERA’s comments on keeping the 45- foot RBM as the training platform. “The RBM makes sense for us, because we can train more people at once,” said Firmin. “It eliminates some of the weather challenges we see during the winter.” Petty Officer 2nd Class Fawn Moro is a certified crew member and break-in coxswain on the RBM. She performed every function of the role while underway that afternoon, including holding the pre-mission brief with the entire crew and leading the risk assessment discussion. When Moro was on active duty, she was certified as a coxswain on the 49-foot stern-loading buoy boat; after joining the Reserve, she was assigned to Station New Haven as a reservist. She was nearly complete with her coxswain training on the RBM, and was given 10 days of additional training periods to finish it. Petty Officer 2nd Class Quinn Gagstetter is both a certified RBM engineer and boarding officer. He detailed how the reserve crew “routinely takes patrols for the active duty and has already run four SAR cases so far this year.” This is no small feat when a reserve crew is confined to one weekend a month. Station New Haven’s reservists had a successful summer of Petty Officer 2nd Class Nicholas Dowling 16 RESERVIST � Issue 2 • 2019 active duty, drills and ATPs, embodying their unit’s command philosophy: “The people of Station New Haven are our greatest asset. Without them, we cannot accomplish the mission.”
