The Coast Guard’s Technology Revolution (TechRev)—an initiative to modernize its IT infrastructure—was conceived to pull the service out of a technology crisis. Its email servers routinely failed, cutters deployed without internet, and teams across the organization could not easily collaborate. In the four years since its creation, the initiative has helped transform the Coast Guard in many ways, including:
• Improved cutter connectivity. Cutters that were once limited to low-bandwidth message traffic now have such improved connectivity that they can video conference while underway. 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.
• Transitioned to DoD365. The Coast Guard deployed DoD365—a suite of productivity and collaboration tools, integrated voice and video, and chat platforms. Microsoft Teams is changing the way members collaborate, and OneDrive is making it easier to access personnel files from any unit.
• Established the Office of Data and Analytics (ODA). Since its founding in 2021, ODA has quickly advanced the Coast Guard’s data science workforce and is pursuing the development of more advanced data analytics, including artificial intelligence.
• Began to use automation. The Robotic Process Automation Cell, a team dedicated to streamlining repetitive tasks, is gaining momentum. It already has saved the Coast Guard approximately 85,000 man-hours per year by automating menial tasks the workforce used to do manually.
For all the progress made under TechRev, it has failed to address some of the service’s most pressing technology challenges. The Coast Guard workforce wrestles with antiquated software systems such as Marine Information for Safety and Life Enforcement (MISLE), Direct Access, and Coast Guard Business Intelligence (CGBI), among dozens of others. These software systems have aged like today’s 210-foot medium-endurance cutters: The service has run them ragged, and they desperately need to be replaced. 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. As the service projects into new corners of the world, these emergent technologies can help tailor future operations.
Today calls for a new TechRev with a new approach. It demands establishing a dedicated Coast Guard software factory, making deliberate investments in a software engineering workforce, reinvigorating the Chief Technology Officer organization, and scaling the Office of Data and Analytics.
The Coast Guard ‘Software Yard’
Across the Coast Guard, sentinels encounter antiquated, difficult-to-use software every day. Systems such as Direct Access, CGBI, and MISLE are more than a decade old, and there are no replacements on the horizon.1 Problems with these systems have enormous effects on operations. Operational data disappears into MISLE, making it hard to correlate incidents and identify trends, and human resources data is often inaccurate and difficult to access. Software modernization was not a priority of TechRev, and Coast Guard operators continue to feel the pain every day.
In recent years, multiple military branches have stood up dedicated in-house software factories that can develop, build, test, and release software applications using agile practices. In 2017, the Air Force’s Kessel Run helped pioneer this concept. Kessel Run’s first success helped streamline the Air Force’s process for coordinating aerial refueling around the globe. Bringing together civilians with technology-sector experience, active-duty enlisted personnel, officers, and contractors, Kessel Run demonstrated that agile software development could reduce both operational timelines and overall costs.2 The Army launched its own software factory in 2021 to deliver modern software solutions developed by soldiers for soldiers. Within two years, the Army Software Factory (ASWF) had developed solutions and applications that help National Guard members search and apply for service jobs, help logisticians find the safest places to store explosives in a supply depot, and coordinate training for units in the Indo-Pacific region.3
The Coast Guard does not need a software factory tomorrow. It needs one today. Establishing the Coast Guard’s “Software Yard” will require deliberate technological and workforce investments, and it will require the nation’s oldest seagoing service to think differently about how it matches software solutions to service needs.
Perhaps most important, the Coast Guard should consider founding the Software Yard near one of its bases with large operational communities, such as Alameda, Boston, Charleston, or Miami. Kessel Run and ASWF can trace much of their success to being firmly rooted in solving operational and personnel support problems that airmen and soldiers experience every day. Situating the Coast Guard’s software factory near operational forces would allow software engineers to partner directly with their customers—small-boat stations, cutters, air stations, and sector commands—and carefully select which use cases and problems to prioritize. This could revolve around mission planning for fast response cutters, digitizing boarding and inspection forms, or improving how health care is delivered to the workforce.
Software Engineering Education and Career Opportunities
Active-duty software engineers do not exist in today’s Coast Guard, so the Software Yard would require a new engineering talent pool. The service stands to greatly benefit by opening pathways for officers and enlisted service members to serve as software engineers. Lacking these pathways, the Coast Guard already lags other branches. The Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force currently send select enlisted members to accelerated coding and software engineering boot camps.4 On graduation, these members are assigned to demanding roles in which they deliver modern software solutions.5 By partnering with a sister service, the Coast Guard could begin building its own internal software engineering talent pool through other services’ established training pipelines, which would save time and money.
Software talent is equally important in the officer corps. The Coast Guard already sends officers to graduate education in mechanical engineering, naval architecture, electrical engineering, and civil engineering, among other disciplines.6 While naval architects and mechanical engineers might not spend their days designing tomorrow’s ships, their education and training equip them to lead the teams designing and building them. The same is true for software engineers. Even if they are not writing code, they need to understand the engineering processes, best practices, and technical fundamentals. These same leaders would be equipped to lead the Software Yard and would have the operational and technical expertise to design user-friendly software that supports the service’s 11 statutory missions.
Empower the Chief Technology Officer
For years, the Coast Guard has struggled to field emerging technologies such as unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and ISR capabilities. The original TechRev focused on improving cutter connectivity, cyber readiness, C5I infrastructure, mobility solutions, and cloud computing—not fielding cutting-edge hardware systems or artificial intelligence.7 The service is still missing the mark when it comes to fielding and using unmanned systems, space-based assets, and advanced ISR capabilities.
Autonomous platforms are just one area in which the service has been slow to deploy and scale new capabilities. While the Coast Guard has deployed contracted ScanEagle unmanned aerial systems on board its national security cutters for maritime domain awareness, the service has fallen short in realizing the full potential of advances in autonomy, endurance, and operational augmentation.8 Realizing this potential would require a combination of new workforce skills, policy reforms, consistent funding, and agile acquisition. Even with a new Unmanned Systems Strategic Plan, the Coast Guard has yet to address the root problems that keep it from realizing its vision for “uniting people, assets, systems, and data in new ways to create a more agile force.”9
A possible solution could be to reinvent the Coast Guard’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) organization. Today’s CTO reports to the Chief Information Officer (CG-6) and historically been focused on managing policy. 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. To compound the challenges with fielding emerging technologies, the Coast Guard’s Acquisition Directorate (CG-9) is stretched thin by major cutter and aviation acquisition programs.
A reinvented CTO organization would bring together in-house acquisition authorities and new technology deployment teams. Under one roof, the CTO organization could purchase, test, and field new capabilities before transitioning mature requirements into the existing acquisitions framework. As a newly established program executive office (PEO), the CTO organization would bring to bear significant acquisition authorities generally limited to the Acquisition Directorate. Acquisitions professionals could easily work alongside the teams responsible for deploying these technologies.
Acquisition authorities alone are not enough, however. The CTO will also need a direct line to customers and must integrate closely with engineering teams. This shift would allow the CTO to better project those capabilities the service needs. An overhauled CTO organization would benefit from three new teams in its workforce:
• Active-duty technology integration officers. Integration officers would be responsible for fielding new capabilities, traveling to operational units, and coordinating with contracted personnel.
• Active-duty and civilian acquisition officers. A combination of civilian and uniformed contracting officers would focus on prototyping acquisition authorities to implement other transaction authority, small business innovation research, and small business technology transfer contracts. It is critical these officers report to the CTO to ensure they develop the expertise needed for these unique acquisitions.
• Reservist team of technical advisors. Using the FlexPAL system, reservists with technical backgrounds (both officers and enlisted members) could be technical advisors. Reservists with private-sector technology positions could lend valuable perspective to both the integration and acquisition officers. Each of these teams would help solve challenges faced when deploying and scaling new technologies.
These two changes would give the CTO organization the institutional power to test and scale new capabilities. For example, if the Coast Guard sought to deploy autonomous surface vessels to patrol key regions such as the California coastal region or the Windward Passage off Haiti, the CTO acquisitions officers would coordinate the acquisition of the vessels and their deployment. Technology integration officers would travel to local command centers to integrate systems into daily operations and take lessons back to headquarters to develop more mature requirements and servicewide policies. 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.
Addressing the root challenges that have slowed the Coast Guard’s adoption of new capabilities will take time. The service’s small budget is not the only cause for delay. Organizational structure and workforce skills have equally contributed. A new TechRev featuring an overhauled CTO organization could help overcome some of the challenges with fielding new capabilities.
Continued Investment in the Office of Data and Analytics
Under Commandant Admiral Linda fa*gan’s leadership, the Office of Data and Analytics (ODA) is taking important first steps toward building the service’s data science and artificial intelligence communities. At its best, ODA has the potential to transform every aspect of Coast Guard operations and support. Already, this new organization is breaking ground on important problems and is creating specialized data teams. In recent months, it launched Data Team One, a small cell dedicated to solving the Coast Guard’s hardest workforce analytics problems.10 This team-centric data approach has the potential to shift how data analytics and artificial intelligence are delivered to Coast Guard personnel who need them most.
Forming a new office or launching a new initiative is only the beginning of a long journey toward realizing this future. TechRev was launched nearly five years ago, and the Coast Guard has only recently begun to feel its effects. The same will be true for investments it is making in today’s Office of Data and Analytics. ODA is not a distracting shiny object. Problems of data governance and architecture are stubborn but promise to reap massive rewards if solved. As the service focuses on being brilliant at the basics, such as ensuring the cutter fleet has adequate maintenance resourcing, or recruiting a full workforce, these investments will help ensure the future remains brilliant.
The Coast Guard’s New TechRev
Several recent TechRev successes are remarkable. 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. These technology advances are improving everyday missions, helping the organization save lives, and propelling the service into new types of operations.
Hard-to-reach technology challenges still persist. Coast Guard sentinels struggle with antiquated software applications, and there is no clear strategy to modernize these systems. In addition, the service is only beginning to integrate emergent technologies and capabilities such as generative AI and autonomous systems.
The Coast Guard has an opportunity to integrate new lines of effort into TechRev, including building a software engineering workforce and software factory, reinvigorating the CTO organization, and continuing to invest in its powerful Office of Data and Analytics. Tomorrow looks different. So should TechRev.
