Cooperation, Communication Key to Commissioning Success

Sea Power, Oct 2004 by Atkinson, Peter E

Some significant obstacles stood in the way of Naval Support Activity-Panama City (NSA-PC), Fla.'s desire to host the commissioning of the guided-missile destroyer Momsen. The Navy presence there was rather small, the Panama City Navy League Council had been struggling with membership and there had been no previous commissionings in the city, known more as a popular Spring Break destination. There was also the matter of the port not being deep enough to accommodate a ship the size of the Momsen, which has a draft of 33 feet.

But by rallying the community to support the effort, and enlisting the assistance of more experienced Navy League councils and the Navy's commissioning coordinator, a commissioning committee co-chaired by Panama City Council President David C. Steere was able to overcome those hurdles. The Momsen was commissioned in the Port of Panama City on Aug. 28, in a ceremony Steere described as "just perfect," culminating more than a year's worth of work by the team. And as a result of those efforts, the city and the council stand to benefit down the road.

"The commissioning has been a real catalyst," said Steere, a retired Navy captain who has served as president of the Panama City Council for eight years. "The port will open the city to more ship traffic. We've been able to bring more attention to the Navy in an area with a much larger Air Force presence, and the council got a huge shot in the arm. Now we're up to around 65 members and there's a real sense of excitement about the Navy League.

"It's been a wonderful couple of weeks and there's a tremendous momentum right now because of the commissioning," he said. "The real challenge is to keep that momentum going."

"The success of any commissioning really comes down to how many people participated and how much the community gets involved," said Maryellen Baldwin, executive director of the Hampton Roads, Va., Council, which is finalizing its own preparations for the Oct. 23 commissioning of the attack submarine Virginia at Norfolk Naval Station while moving ahead with planning a March ceremony for the guided-missile destroyer Nitze.

The Hampton Roads Council has supported so many commissionings - nearly 20 - that its strategy outline for the carrier John C. Stennis ceremony in 1995 serves as the basis for the Navy League's "Guide to Commissionings."

"A commissioning is something the community as a whole should be able rally around and be a part of. Because without that, your job becomes that much harder," Baldwin said.

Convincing the local community, as well as the Navy, of the importance and potential impact of the Momsen commissioning was a focal point of Panama City committee's efforts to get them engaged since the idea of hosting the ceremony was put into motion nearly two years ago.

NSA-PC is home to several hundred Navy personnel - as opposed to nearby Tyndall Air Force Base, which has several thousand airmen and women. Though the Momsen was built in Bath, Maine, and will be homeported in Everett, Wash., NSA-PC houses Momsen Hall, the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center building named for the ship's namesake, Vice Adm. Charles "Swede" Momsen, along with the Navy Experimental Diving Unit, which he once commanded.

A submariner and salvage operation pioneer, Momsen is the inventor of the "Momsen lung" used to help sailors escape disabled submarines that gained notoriety from the 1939 rescue of 33 men from the USS Squalus, which had sunk off the coast of New Hampshire.

The fact that the Port of Panama City would have to be dredged to accommodate the Momsen - a unique circumstance that goes well beyond the usual commissioning ceremonial and procedural concerns - promised to be thorny issue. Navy skeptics had to be assured that the job could be done and the local community convinced that the project would pay dividends well after the Momsen left port.

"Our Co-chairman Joe Tannehill [president of Merrick Industries in nearby Lynn Haven] is very community minded and understood the domino effect of the project," in terms of future port visits by Navy ships, increased commercial shipping and the possibility of cruise ship traffic, Steere said. "He saw this right away as a catalyst and it really got everyone's attention."

The commissioning team, made up of nearly 30 local business people, public officials and private citizens, lobbied hard and was able to prevail on both accounts. The $10.5 million dredging project was completed last spring, deepening the federal shipping channel to the 36 feet required by the Navy to accommodate the Momsen.

"The secret to success in any effort like this is to surround yourself with good people," Steere said. "We went to the very top of a number of organizations around the community [the local newspaper, Chamber of Commerce, Port Authority, major businesses] that we thought could help the commissioning effort, and everyone accepted. And they made it work."

Organizers of the May 29 commissioning of the guided-missile destroyer Pinckney at Port Hueneme on Naval Base Ventura County, Calif, used a similar strategy, said committee member Arlene Fraser, a Navy League national director and area president from the Channel Islands Council. The port had played host to one previous commissioning, the Stethem in 1995, which had been quite successful. So the Pinckney committee got the same chairman, Don Gurke, and utilized many of the core resources and people that had worked so well during the Stethem effort.