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Welcome to the Marine Safety and Marine Environmental Protection page.

Phil Schnering is the DSO for Marine Safety for District 17. Phil and his wife Susan moved to Alaska in 2016, to retire and be nearer to their daughter Penny and her family.

Phil has 65 years sailing experience, with a portion of that time (in the 1970s) as Master of a U.S. Army cargo vessel. More recently, he spent 16 years as an owner and captain of an “inspected” charter sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay. Phil holds a USCG 100 ton Master’s License, and brings 20 years of experience as a marine surveyor to this position.

The Coast Guard Auxiliary Marine Safety Program is designed to facilitate and encourage Auxiliary support for active duty Coast Guard Sectors in the “Legacy” Marine Safety and Environmental Protection Programs. The majority of the Auxiliary standards for individual qualifications are based on active duty qualifications.

All Marine Safety programs open to Auxiliarists are based on the needs of the Individual Sector. For Alaska, this is Sector Juneau, or Sector Anchorage. In order to ascertain whether sector approval will be forthcoming for a specific qualification, interested Auxiliary members should contact the DSO-MS, Phil Schnering, or the ADSO-MS, Jean Butler.

There are four divisions in the Prevention Directorate devoted to the Marine Safety Program. These are:

• Commercial Vessel Activities (primarily Commercial Fishing Vessel Exams)

• Uninspected Vessel Activities (exams of “six-pack” commercial sport fishing passenger vessels)

• Port and Facility Activities (Inspection of “dry land” facilities, Marine Safety related MOM patrols, and waterway management)

• Prevention Outreach (Pollution Responders and education of the public for nautical pollution prevention and remediation)

More detailed information on the above categories is available on the “Prevention Directorate” page at https://wow.uscgaux.info/content.php?unit=p-dept

Awards associated with Marine Safety include:

• Marine Safety Training Ribbon
• “Trident “ award
  

Please use this form to ask questions or to pass information to the DSO, we need your input on what is working and what is not. Thanks for helping District 17 keep moving forward!