F irst off, let me extend to all of the readers my fervent wish for your health and happiness after a very trying year. Believe me, I know it was a rough 2020, but I am extremely optimistic about this new year, and let me tell you why. Two years ago, we changed our relationship with the Coast Guard when we established the Assistant Commandant for Reserve dedicated to the success and outcomes of the Reserve Component. After transitioning from the mission support side of the Coast Guard, we reevaluated many of our systems and processes from an operational perspective. While we’re still getting on our feet, we have made enormous progress. When we stood up, we set our sights on three strategic priorities: restoring the force, getting the force right, and getting the support right. Less than seven months later, a crisis struck our nation, the likes of which none of us had ever seen. As a reserve component, we’re a force that’s used to being called in when things are going wrong, so, boy, were we glad that we got our priorities right. They set us in the right direction— and just in time, too. A year ago, we never would have thought we’d see a pandemic—with the last round of hurricanes and a busy 2020 season predicted; it wasn’t on our radar. But it’s been all-consuming since March 2020, on two fronts. First, we’ve recalled almost 800 people to both lead and support the Coast Guard’s response to COVID- 19. What is unusual about this mobilization is the heavy demand for mission support personnel over traditional Coast Guard operators. Moreover, there has been demand for Coast Guard support across the whole of government, with reservists filling key roles at the Department of Health and Human Services and assisting Federal Emergency Management Agency efforts to vaccinate the American public. Our reservists have stood ready through it all, they’ve adapted to various challenges, and, typical of our people, they have exceeded the highest expectations. Hitting the ground running, our reservists were key contributors to the Coast Guard’s Permanent Change of Station assist teams, providing steadiness and support during a chaotic time for active-duty families who relocated last summer. They’ve assisted with COVID-19 contact tracing teams, and they’ve been a critical part of shoring up the Coast Guard’s personal protective equipment warehousing and distribution system—a system that wasn’t built to handle the sheer volume of requests and output required to meet current COVID-19 demand. Others have assisted in state and local emergency centers, providing leadership and support in helping our nation’s most vulnerable populations get the vaccine quickly and safely. Still others, like the reservists of Station Yaquina Bay, backfilled units when members became sick or needed to quarantine. When the nation needs help, they call the Coast Guard, but when the Coast Guard needs help, they call the Coast Guard Reserve. I’m incredibly proud and humbled by the willingness of our people to serve during such an unpredictable and challenging time. Our reserve force has never been more necessary or more relevant. But secondly, many more of our reservists continue to train at their local units, preparing to respond within 48 hours to potential hurricane-related deployments, other contingencies, or to meet the Coast Guard’s enduring mission in support of Department of Defense requirements at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As the office responsible for the policies governing reserve training, we have sure been thrown some curveballs by COVID-19. How do our drilling reservists maintain readiness in a “telework” world? Our best readiness training occurs through the augmentation of Coast Guard daily operations. With the majority of our workforce traveling more than an hour to get to their drilling locations through a patchwork of local COVID-19 travel restrictions, we had to get creative. We never imagined reservists would train remotely, conduct meetings, or hold qualification boards via video conference, but that’s what we did to maintain as much readiness as possible. Even with these challenges, it’s heartening to know that during these trying times—especially during these trying times—the Reserve remains both essential and adaptable. Despite this global pandemic, our course has stayed true, and our priorities remain in place. As I said, one of our top priorities is restoring the force. As of this publication, we stand at just over 6,200 members, but the need to return to our fully authorized strength has never been more evident than during our country’s current crisis. For the Coast Guard, crisis time is when we report for duty, but when faced with multiple challenges, including the pandemic, the vaccination process, and the looming environmental factors that produced more than an alpha- bet’s worth of hurricanes in a single season, we need to be at our full strength. To that end, we’ve been working on several projects. In July 2019, our commandant, Adm. Karl Schultz, announced his initiative to restore the Reserve Component to its authorized strength of 7,000. The Reserve End- Strength Action Team was created to analyze options and determine the best way forward, with two major themes ultimately emerging. First, we needed to find ways to cre- ate a more geographically stable workforce, and second, we needed to make it easier to join, affiliate, or transfer to the Reserve. This team found some revolutionary ideas to help us reach our goals through close coordination and collaboration with multiple offices and commands throughout the Coast Guard. One of the team’s boldest changes was the Flexible Personnel Allowance List (FlexPAL). This system, imple- mented in October 2020, represents an enormous paradigm shift, breaking the active duty-style mold for how we manage reserve billets and assignments. Rather than assign reservists to stationary positions, we’re moving training positions to members, as long as training capacity exists at a unit closer to where they already live. This will provide much better support to the nearly 60% of our members who must travel more than 50 miles to their drill locations. Building a more geographically stable workforce that trains where it already lives reduces the burden and cost to our members and the Coast Guard while still providing trained personnel and assets to meet our contingency needs. FlexPAL is just one initiative we pursued to make reserve service more attractive, especially to active-duty members preparing to enter the civilian community. 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