It trumps - and hides - all

I guess you can about anything and still have to play homage to the Diversity Bully. This is just funny if not sad. If the sub-title of the article is the first line of your self-reported FITREP, then maybe it is time to retire.

Retiring NavSea chief touts command’s improvements

Sullivan praises diversity programs, stronger HQ staff

Yes, I took a deep breath, sighed, and thought, "...well if you are NAVSEA and that is all you have to say, then the problems are worse than I thought ..."

Subscription only, but here is the meat.

After three years at the helm of Naval Sea Systems Command, retiring Vice Adm. Paul Sullivan takes satisfaction in reeling off a list of accomplishments.

“We delivered a bunch of ships, we’ve overhauled a lot of ships, we’ve got a lot of new technology that’s been going into the ships,” he said during an August interview.

The process hasn’t come without its share of hiccups, he said, but the command’s headquarters team is much more focused. “The chemistry between our front office and the program executive officers has improved a lot,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan also worked to improve the mix of people working at NavSea; 2 percent of U.S. engineers are NavSea employees, he said.

“If you look around our headquarters ... you know we’re still a white male province, [but] we worked hard on that,” he said. In particular, Sullivan worked to get more Hispanics into the command’s programs, beefing up command-sponsored scholarships at engineering schools.

Sir, with all due respect; your policy is racist to the core and a disgrace to any sense of equality. Period. It cannot be defended with a straight face.

Also, who is being held accountable for the below?

A major personnel issue that emerged over the past few years showed that NavSea’s post-Cold War downsizing had gone too far in some areas. Those shortcomings were brought into focus by problems experienced with the Littoral Combat Ship program.

The LCS program, Sullivan said, forced NavSea into “a self-examination. We looked and saw how short we were after 15 years of downsizing.”

The loss of engineers at the Washington Navy Yard headquarters was particularly acute.

“We downsized our headquarters engineering staff dramatically, from almost 1,300 engineers ... in 1988 down to about 250 to 260 today,” he said. Sullivan said about 200 engineers are being relocated from field work to headquarters tasks.

While I am being grumpy; who here wants to knock this soft ball out of the field?

Acknowledging the Navy’s need to keep its ships operating 30 or more years to support the 313-ship fleet, Sullivan noted that “very few ships retire early due to material condition. The ships that we’re retiring early are ships that have become combat-irrelevant because we didn’t modernize them.”

Define "few?" How exactly are DD with two 5" guns, two helo hangars (OK, 1 hangar and a workout room) and 61 MK-41 VLS cells "combat irrelevant?" You can tell us the full truth, we can take it.

And one last nit pic out the door,

... today’s sailors are “the best people I’ve ever seen. Every time I walk on a ship, I wonder why I’m only working 14 hours a day for these kids.”

They are not kids. They are adults. They are Sailors. You insult them.

14-hrs every day = 16-hrs a day minimum for your Personal Staff.

You are an inefficient worker and a retention issue - I read your and your SES NAVSEA NIPR emails all the time. Those alone are retention issues, not to mention hours and Diversity Fetish programs that makes most of your workers question their equal treatment. Hopefully, 4 of your 14 are at home - then your Personal Staff only works 12-hrs a day.

Diversity. HQ Staff. Let it be a marker.