Top 10 Agency Initiatives: U.S. Navy

As part of the special Federal News Radio series, “The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years,” we asked more than two dozen federal agencies — including all of the Cabinet-level agencies — for a list of the three most effective, nonpolitical management initiatives or policies they’ve embarked on over the past four years.

21st Century Sailor and Marine

After a decade of hard and effective fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Navy and Marine Corps Team has proven it can withstand a sustained, high operational tempo. Sailors, Marines, and their families must be equipped to continue to meet both the physical and mental challenges of a military career. The 21st Century Sailor and Marine initiative is a set of objectives and policies, new and existing, across a spectrum of wellness that maximizes each Sailor’s and Marine’s personal readiness to hone the most combat effective force in the history of the Department of the Navy (DoN). Our resiliency after a decade of combat is important because our people are DoN’s most important asset. We want to provide our Sailors, Marines and families with the tools needed to face the challenges of the 21st Century and to help Sailors and Marines preserve the skills and talents they bring to the fight.

This initiative will advance progress by leveraging programs under the following five areas.

• Readiness: Sailors, Marines, and their families must be prepared to handle the mental and emotional rigors of military service. We renew our commitment to reducing suicides. Both services are introducing campaigns this year to deglamorize, treat and track alcohol use. We have also developed new means to detect Synthetic Chemical Compounds, like Spice, through expanded drug testing. Our Family and Personal Preparedness programs are being reinvigorated, to include Life-Work Balance and Personal Financial Counseling programs. Sexual Assault is inconsistent and incompatible with our Navy Ethos and core values. New training is being developed and implemented at multiple levels for our Sailors and Marines. We are actively minimizing institutionally-biased reporting stigmas (e.g. SF86 Security Clearance Application).
• Safety: We must ensure the safest and most secure force in the Department’s history. We are reinvigorating our efforts to ensure the safe use of motor vehicles and motorcycles. We will ensure our most senior members set the example of zero tolerance for drinking and driving, with formal policy to ensure any infraction is properly reviewed prior to promotion.
• Physical fitness: An important central thread that resonates throughout the five areas of the 21st Century Sailor and Marine Program is personal fitness. We will improve nutrition standards at our dining facilities with the introduction of the “Fueled to Fight” nutrition program ensuring that healthy food items are available at every meal. We are ending subsidies for the sale of tobacco products in our exchanges, while also providing to any Sailor or Marine who wants it, easy access to smoking cessation products.
• Inclusion: The Department of the Navy will be inclusive and consist of a force that reflects the nation it defends in a manner consistent with military efficiency and effectiveness. We are establishing a new DoN Diversity Office, with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) serving as the DoN’s Diversity Officer.
• Continuum of Service: The Department will provide the most robust transition support in the Department’s history. Individuals preparing for either separation or retirement will be afforded myriad assistance programs and benefits that are available to them as they transition to civilian life. These programs, which include education benefits, transition assistance, career management training, counseling, life-work balance programs, and morale, welfare and recreation programs have been recognized by human resource experts as some of the best corporate level personnel support mechanisms in the nation. For our Wounded Warriors, are aspiration is to be able to say, “If you want work, you’ve got it.” Navy Safe Harbor and the UMSC Wounded Warrior Regiment are providing tailored lifetime assistance. The Department of the Navy’s Wounded Warrior Hiring and Support Initiative and the Marine Corps’ Warrior Hope and Care Centers are nearing completion.

Great Green Fleet

In 2009, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced five aggressive energy goals to reduce the Department of Navy’s consumption of energy, decrease its reliance on foreign sources of oil, and significantly increase its use of alternative energy. The purpose of these energy goals is to improve our combat capability and to increase our energy security by addressing a significant military vulnerability: dependence on foreign oil. On July 18, one of those goals will be accomplished with the sailing of the Great Green Fleet during the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise.

Sexual Assault Prevention and Response

The Department of the Navy is working aggressively to prevent sexual assaults, to support sexual assault victims and to hold offenders accountable.

As part of the Navy’s continuing efforts to eliminate sexual assaults and promote positive culture changes within the fleet, the Chief of Naval Personnel announced June 28 the creation of new Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) training. Furthermore, the Department of the Navy Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office is teaming up with Central Michigan University to raise sexual assault awareness in the Navy and Marine Corps with a performance aimed at challenging sexual assault myths and stereotypes, which will be performed on bases around the fleet this year

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