13 Comments

  1. I hope the date for release of additional information was not selected by the government. Bad news usually comes on a Friday before a weekend to minimize bad press and the 23rd is before a long weekend.

  2. This is great news. Good news for the Midshipmen, the institute, and the Alumni. But no one can forget that the Academy leadership that will take the credit for “saving the Academy accreditation” was the same Academy leadership under whose watch the “Warning” was issued.

    THis is the new political game, take a crisis that occurred under their watch, celebrate the crisis and tell everyone about the crisis, and then work to save it so they can be applauded as the hero.

    Well, the same leadership that let the Warning occur under their watch is the one that fixed it now. It should have never happened to begin with!!!
    Good Job! Thank goodness for Sec Chao and Admiral Buzby coming into office and their sheer name and sheer presence motivated people to due what they should have been doing all along, manning the helm!!!

  3. There were many Academy staff members who led teams, and led sub-teams, to make it happen, and all the team, sub-team, and Academy team members, deserve recognition.

  4. After almost a year and a half of grief, I’m just happy for my mid and all the other midshipmen at the school. Let’s celebrate and be happy for now. After that, I’m putting my faith in Buzby to keep up the momentum and to do what he thinks might be necessary going forward. No need at this point to cast dispersions on anybody until given further reason to do so.

  5. I hate to be a wet blanket on everyone’s enthusiasm, but most of the people that drove the Academy into this situation are, and will continue to be, part of KP, Marad and DoT. None of the underlying issues of the academy’s underlying administrative status (midshipmen still have to be sent home during a budget impasse while the other federal academies stay open), governance (despite all of the various “boards” only the Maritime Administrator has the authority to hire / fire personnel and agree to contracts) and leadership (why is a retired Army Colonel is in charge of KP) have been solved. Further, while Mark Buzby is an outstanding guy, he will not and cannot be the Maritime Administrator forever. In fact, given the average tenure of Maritime Administrators it is unlikely that he will be the Maritime Administrator four years from now — at which point KP may be once again controlled by someone like former Maritime Administrator Chip Jaenichen or more likely for a lengthy period of time, another of the alumni and academy’s friends — Joel Szabat.

    The bottom line here is that a symptom of the disease threatening KP has been resolved, but the disease itself has very decidedly not been cured.

    • I wholeheartedly agree with Tom’s comment. I urge all stakeholders to read his recent op-ed in Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. I’ve voiced my similar opinion in comments on KPS here. I think now is the time to get a good governance solution in place — while we have a Maritime Administrator and Secretary of Transportation who wholeheartedly support KP and, I believe, have the foresight to want to put KP on a secure mooring that will last long after they are out of office.

  6. Can I ask an uneducated question of you folks who are much more knowledgeable than me?
    It seems to me the recent troubles with the 7th fleet, as horrible as they have been, may be indicative of a lack of proper training in basic seamanship in the navy which may currently have more of an interest in things like weapons systems, aircrafts and intelligence. Seamanship is of course, the very heart and soul of the academy’s traditional curriculuum Given that area of expertise, would it not make sense for the academy to come under the auspices of MSC, the navy or the Coast Guard directly if one were to assume that the MARAD is not the proper place for it to be?
    Just a question…. I have no real feeling either way.

  7. BTW, my question is more of a “long term solution question” given the editorial by Mr.McCaffrey. I expect that Buzby is going to do a great job and that my mid will hopefully graduate in the next two years. I’m thinking, like Mr. McCaffrey, about what happens to USMMA after Admiral Buzby’s departure from MARAD.

    • Please see my most recent post on the Maritime TV video. In that post, I am encouraging people to post comments (preferably to that post) with their thoughts on the “long term solution.” I think many of us, certainly Tom and I, are on the same page: NOW is the time to implement a long term reform/solution.

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