Our partners: agencies, organizations, and commercial watermen

We educate and operate in a very complex maritime environment. The safety and security of the boating public, commercial vessel traffic and shore side facilities -- the entire maritime domain -- requires a complex web of partnerships among federal, state and local public agencies, businesses, organizations and commercial watermen.  We significantly increase our effectiveness by building these relationships and understanding what our partners are doing, what we can do to help, and what resources they have that can enhance our mission performance.

To that end, Todd Mains, of 73, is the Auxiliary Liaison to the Mult Co Sheriff’s Marine Patrol (MCSO). Todd submitted this report after a meeting last Friday’s (13th):

• Sgt. Lautenbach said the sheriff’s office was going to start walking marinas looking for unregistered boats.
• Bill Rydblom from OSMB talked about putting through a requirement for non-motorized boats to be registered. Presently there is no way to reach non-motorized boats with educational mailings. Also these boats often require emergency service that they don not support financially. This has been tried before and failed. There are at least a half-million non-motorized boats in Oregon.
• Jim Butler from CRYA talked about trying to get the covered facility at the new Sandy Beach dock named for Jim Switter.
• Ted Carr from Vessel Assist talked about how busy he is now that he is the only commercial provider on the water.
• Jess Heitman from Christmas Ships announced that he was re-elected president at their annual meeting (14th year in a row). He thanked the sheriff and the CG for help last year and hopes for better weather this year.
• I (Todd) spoke about our participation in the Boat and Sportsman’s shows. Also mentioned our renewed effort on RBS, PV, CAN, & VSC. I told them about the upcoming AUX patrol with IMD personnel for “mystery barrels.” I answered some questions from the group on Rescue 21 and the Sector move to Astoria.
  

What can other members do:

• Participate in other maritime organizations and bring what you learn back to the Auxiliary
• Consider serving as an official Auxiliary Liaison to such organizations (designated by the Division Commander in consultation with the ASC and Sector Command)
• Make sure to say hello when you see our partners in the field
• Remember our core values of honor, respect and devotion to duty when interacting with our partners and the public
• Look sharp and act professionally - we are the US Coast Guard