USCG Introduces Collateral Duty Reserve Mobilization Team to Streamline Large-Scale Contingency Operations

On April 26, the U.S. Coast Guard Operational Logistics Command (LOGCOM) released a solicitation for reserve yeoman to join the USCG collateral duty Reserve Mobilization Team (RMT) being stood up in May. The message, ALCOAST 189/24, SOLICITATION FOR LOGCOM COLLATERAL DUTY RESERVE MOBILIZATION TEAM (RMT), establishes a new collateral duty component of the USCG's Deployable Specialized Element (DSE).

According to the message, these are primarily remote positions, and will be responsible for Personnel & Administration (P&A) and Servicing Personnel Office (SPO) functions, including vetting members for activation, creating, authorizing, and finalization orders, and performing pay transactions. These positions are open to yeoman and PERS warrants of any rank, and they require a 24-month commitment. Any personnel already attached to a DSE, such as an Incident Management Assistance Team, are not eligible.

36&'s Take

Yeomen are some of the first activated and the last demobilized from an incident, and a good yeoman knowledgeable in contingency operations is worth their weight in gold and bitcoin. This is a much-needed element for the USCG to provide orders and activate reservists in a timely manner, and being reserve members themselves, these RMT members should hopefully understand the nuances that come with activating a reservist. Too often previously, these activations would simply go into an active-duty unit's P&A or SPO queue, meaning there was less urgency, and they get acted on as part of routine business. This should also help solve the "pay-cut" timing, whereby an active-duty yeoman would act on pay related transactions based on the system's timeline for processing pay as opposed to the member's actual order dates. This had unfortunate cascading impacts, such as with applications for reserve healthcare, a nuance that many junior (and some senior) yeoman simply were not aware.

This also seems a solid compromise for calls for a "reserve SPO," a specialized SPO that would handle only reserve personnel pay and order transactions. The Reserve SPO concept, while seemingly a good idea, would be difficult to implement given how SPO's currently manage personnel based on geography. The USCG already manages larger incidents with dedicated Personnel Support Teams, and because funding for an incident (including pay for activated reservists) is technically separate from regular transactions, this RMT seems a natural extension of the PST and IMAT concepts.

It remains to be seen how many yeoman actually apply for these positions and whether the Coast Guard looks at alternatives for staffing given the increasing personnel constraints and numerous reserve activations already taking place to support active duty shortages. The message states selections will be announced via email around 30 May 2024, so we'll be listening to see how many folks are selected.