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Office of Public Affairs |
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| Feature Story |
Date: Mar. 26, 2008 |
Planning out the ForumBy Petty Officer 1st Class Anastasia Devlin |
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Here’s the problem: Six major countries, 17 agencies, 71 delegates and hundreds of staffers, security, interpreters, planners -- all in a major metropolitan city for one week of highly-anticipated, expert-attended, potentially policy-changing meetings. You’ve got less than six-months to plan and a tightly-controlled budget. Where do you start? Lucky for Seattle and the members of the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum, Capt. Robert Day has six years experience planning and attending these semiannual meetings. With a core staff of about five reservists and active duty Coast Guard members, some working on the planning as a collateral assignment in addition to their daily work, Day set to breaking down the monumental task of ensuring the delegates’ arrival, safety and ability to function comfortably at the forum. “We’re working with the menus to make sure there’s something at each meal that satisfies the palate of our international visitors, because if we serve bacon and eggs every day at breakfast, they’re going to be disappearing to the city to find some food that’s palatable to them. They’ll experiment with Western food, but you have to take that into consideration in terms of providing a welcoming environment,” said Day, commanding officer of Maintenance and Logistics Command Pacific Area. Making sure the delegates, most of whom were senior members of their countries’ coast guards and civil maritime components, feel comfortable enough to relax and concentrate on the reason for them being here was a lofty goal with lots of moving parts. From making sure delegates got through customs to contracting the buses for their transportation, Day found his staff expanding to more than 40, including those working in the 24-hour command post within the hotel. Interpreters were a key part of getting the conference attendees able to work with their foreign counterparts. Day hired a professional linguist service similar to the UN setup, but he went a step further. “Luckily when we ran Coast Guard [systems], we found just a plethora of Coast Guardsmen that have very solid skills in all the languages we needed here. Just from the results from first day and a half, the foreign delegations are very pleased with these Auxiliarists, active duty and reservists that we’ve brought here to Seattle from all over the country, and they fit in absolutely perfectly.” Over the years, hosting countries have put more and more time, money and effort into the planning of the forum. Day said it’s been impossible to top the presentation that the Russian delegation put on in St. Petersburg last year. Still, he’s looking forward to showing them Coast Guard asset capabilities, construction on the 787 Dreamliner at the Boeing plant, and numerous dinners, receptions and tours of Seattle’s famed downtown. “I hope this event is as enjoyable as all the ones that I’ve been to that [other countries] have hosted. I’m looking forward to the completion of a successful event, and getting a few hours of sleep when this is all done,” said Day. “My contracting officer is going to sleep for about a month after this.”
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