USCG'S First Female 4-Star Admiral

Great news.
Hope everyone who wants to climb the ranks can do it regardless of sex or skin tone, abilities and talent only, no affirmative action.

Good almost morning. Twilight here and my sleep is still confused. I'm going to carefully define two terms before adding to this discussion as everyone has their own definitions of these terms.

Affirmative action-The act of adding preference to the historically under-represented group when making a hiring decision.

Affirmative recruitment-The act of making an extra recruitment effort so the historically under-represented group will be better represented in job applicants and have an improved opportunity of getting the jobs.

Affirmative action may or may not, depending on the employer, hire a less qualified candidate over another based on their demographic.

Affirmative recruitment simply means making extra effort to come up with qualified candidates from selected groups. I think the CG and the yachting industry definitely need that. It has to start in the maritime schools and continue all the way up.

One thing too that happens is even those we use to supply candidates need to be constantly reminded because of the acts of others. I know we've been successful at finding exceptionally qualified females because of employment agents who had boats reject females and refuse to hire them. I remember early in my career getting a great young female industrial engineer but only after HR sent a couple of male resumes I rejected and then said, "well, if you'd be interested in a female". They had two incredible candidates they were holding back on. The one I hired went on to a great career with us.

Often too it's exposure growing up as fewer minorities grew up with exposure to yachting. It was even more pervasive in textiles where blacks still thought of it as related to working the fields picking cotton.

Over the years I've encountered people who went through stacks of resumes and I checked the ones they cast aside and all they had in common was the names were not plain white American names. I've hired incredible candidates who the recruiters told me after that the only reason they'd not gotten other jobs was their minority status. I once hired an incredible systems analyst who applied for a job he wasn't qualified for but was so impressive I had to create an opening for him. While was he available? Confined to a wheel chair. Amazed at those who wouldn't hire him, some because they were afraid of insurance. He was still there when I left and worked circles around others, plus had a power chair and got around the building faster than anyone else.

Hiring discrimination goes deeper than just illegal discrimination too. Amazing the things some will use in their decision making thinking it's such an important factor and being so wrong. Our attitudes must evolve and we must all continue to change. I know retailers who will not hire anyone with visible tattoos. 30 years ago I might have agreed. However, we hire with tattoos all the time in retail, only no offensive ones. Hilariously, the ones retailers fear are older lady customers and we find they are fascinated by them and the young tattooed salesperson becomes their favorite. I know many charter boats are very anti-tattoo. We sort of swoop in and grab those others discriminate against. By their actions, they improve our pool of available candidates.

Now, as to yachting. I will say to any owner that there are incredible female candidates for all positions, well deserving of consideration. If you're not interviewing them, then you need to make more recruitment effort. I will also say there are minority candidates but a woefully low number, especially for US boats as most of the minorities are not eligible for US employment. As to those running charter boats and concerned about guests and how they'll react to tattoos or female captains or minorities, I can only suggest it's time to decide where you stand. We are in retail and we have customers with all sorts of prejudices, but we do not let them make our employment decisions. As a US owner, I can't hire from other countries, but I know foreign boat owners who will not consider from some countries.

I know there are some influential industry professionals here and all of us must do our part toward improving the industry. One reason the industry may have challenges "finding good people" (although I've not seen that problem personally but I'm such a small employer in yachting) is through a history of excluding some groups. It's important for all of us to do our part in changing that.

People should be hired exclusively based on their skill level and fitness for completing the job. The problem now is better candidates are being left behind because their skin is to light. I see this especially in government.