[snip]

Thanks for the reply, Rob.

Okay, so we’re not only talking about cabinet appointments, we’re talking about CO appointments as well. As I already established, every single President since I joined this club has included at least one person in their cabinet that a previous President didn’t. As for CO appointments, the last time we had a President who did not appoint a first-time CO it was James Sinclair when he served in 2019, and James only had a partial term he spent as President to work with.

So, every recent President has appointed not only at least one new cabinet member, but also at least one brand new CO. Did the President in your example appoint several brand new CO’s during the term in question and also have a lengthy history of mentoring less experienced members? I believe that is likely the case. If so, wouldn’t that be evidence that the President in the example did not tend to play favorites and cater to allies?

To answer your question about the President in my example? No they did not appoint several new CO’s during their term nor did they have always mentor people to the level I felt they could have when in the roles that provided such (Academy CO/XO/DH, or being a CO/XO/DH on a ship in this case).

I’m not disputing that people without much or any club leadership experience feel like the powers that be play favorites. And I’ll believe that these feelings may lead to some kind of rift. I can appreciate how you lent a listening ear to this up-and-comer and concluded the best decision was not made. But given just how much all our Presidents (undoubtedly including the one you’re bringing up in particular) have a history of giving new people a shot, don’t you think there’s a good chance that there was some greater reason behind the choice than a case of someone playing favorites to a friend of theirs?

Adam W.

There might have been a greater reason, you are right. I will freely admit I could (and I hope) I am truly wrong but in the example I gave above I truly feel this was a mistake on that choice. Again if I am truly wrong, then I’ll be the first to own up admitting I made a mistake myself and learn from it and move on.

Rob, on the train of thought of brand new COs and the concept of “greater reasons,” how do you evaluate whether a ship is best served by an experienced CO vs. a brand new CO? What other factors could come into deciding on the correct candidate for the role and how would you communicate those factors to both the potential candidate and to the club as a whole?

Adam, I hope that you do not mind me adding on to your list of questions here, but this came to me as I was reading your post.

• Sarah M.

So hello Sarah, thanks for chiming in. To answer your question when in the past I have looked at a new CO for a ship or an experienced CO I considered several factors (whether I was President or the FComm in question recommending to the President who to approve).

1) Does the new CO know the ship well compared to the experienced CO? Meaning is the new CO well liked by the crew, been there for a while, etc. Has the new CO shown to regularly stay within the ship’s AWOLs, not had alot of LOAs recently (usually within the last 3ish months), etc.

2) What is the state of the ship and if it is needing TLC or more then that can the new CO handle it with support vs the experienced CO who likely has dealt with this before? Meaning that the new CO say on a ship which is missing some DH spots or something do they have the knowledge, skills, and such to find someone to fill those roles? Or least make concentrated efforts (not saying the experienced CO cant but often newer CO’s in my view are better connected to the newer crowd of members).

3) What are the plans that the new CO and experienced CO have for the ship? By this I look at what they overall plan to do in managing the ship, containing and solving issues, how they want to recruit or maybe change the ship if needed, etc. Basically which one makes more sense for the ship in question.

There are sometimes other factors I consider like the experienced CO’s own state of awol/loa and their history of patterns that could be concerning, not to mention if they are recently returned to the club or not. Every situation is unique but those three factors I mention above are at the minimum what I consider usually.

As for communicating such to the applicants I usually have a discussion with the FComm/AFComm in the fleet in question about the state of said ship, while I try to generally eye ball all the ships in some form or another myself this term (and my first term as president years ago) obviously its not practical for me to know it all and I need to trust my fcomms to know them better then me. But either way we discuss the state of the ship, its needs, and from there write up a general bullet list of what’s required in an applicant, if anyone has questions they should contact the FComm/AFComm and if neither of those two are fully sure on the answer then refer it to me.

Hope this also answers your question Sarah, take care

Robert Archer