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Had one experience with one of their engineers that I had worked with in at another job 15 years ago. He called and asked a price. Told him commercial price should be about $6,000, but by the time CG gets done with the specs it would be 3 times that. Was told that would not happen because he is writing the specs. This was a simple requirement for a tug, nothing sophisticated.

Three months later a very goofy specification came out. I bid $21,000 each. Lost the bid to someone who bid $20,000 each. CG made the decision they could not afford it and never bought.

Also learned in this process, if it says "Buy American" they don't tell you due to NAFTA that Mexico and Canada are included. On another quote they bought Mexican, and I protested. Was told they added 17% to the Mexican quote to compare to pay for inspection in Mexico. Did not take into account the 10 plus pages of FAR requirements (nondiscrimination, hire the handicap, non hazardous components, proper waste disposal etc....)that I have to meet that the Mexicans don't.

Well after the Mexicans had the contract they did not send inspectors due to budget restraints, accepted the items, and then sent them out to shops all over the country to bring to spec. In the end they bought garbage.

As a company policy we do not quote Coast guard work. All repair is paid on delivery. They even showed up to pick up a repair and their credit card was declined. Love the system.

There are plenty of excellent engineers in the Coast Guard but they never make it high enough (HQ/MLC) to change things.

I have a very good friend who TRIED to drag Coast Guard Naval Engineering into the 20th Century. His last assignment was the Naval Engineering Support Unit (NESU) in Seattle. While he was there he tried to move the spec writing/bid process off paper to CD.

He also wanted to automate shipyard contract management. For instance, right now if the yard finds a problem with the plans it can take over a week for the "paper intensive process" to review the problem and proposed resolution, then give the yard the go ahead or give them different plans. These issues could be resolved in hours if we used computer media based specs/plans, digital imaging, the internet and common software (make it a condition of the bid process that the yard have the necessary hardware/software). You would have thought he'd recommended going back to sails.

Like I said, he was a great engineer with some common sense and could think outside the box...in other words he was totally at odds with Coast Guard Naval Engineering. Then he committed the ultimate sin...he turned down Captain (0-6) and retired instead. Holland-America offered to him the position of being in change of maintenance and construction for their worldwide fleet. The big incentive was he could do it "his way". One thing about Holland-America; profit is the bottom line. He's now a VP; not many American's get there.

The funniest thing is, many of the same people who did everything they could to stifle his innovations in the Coast Guard ended up going to him to ask for jobs...the answer really shouldn't have shocked them.