Organizational Change and a Letter from 1872

Disclaimer: These views are my own and do not represent the views of the Armed Forces of the United States.

A few days ago I was researching a figure in Coast Guard history for a presentation on organizational change. I came across a website that sold old documents of historical significance. For sale on this website was a letter signed by this very person in 1872. For more money than I wanted to spend, I purchased the letter.

The letter is co-signed by the Honorable Sumner Kimball, who from 1871-1915 was Superintendent of the Revenue Marine, one of the predecessors to the US Coast Guard. What makes the letter special is not that it is so old, nor even that it was co-signed by the person responsible for the modernization effort that created the modern Coast Guard. The content of the letter is mundane, a routine order directing another member to inspect some “surf-boats.” The letter is special because is captures a small piece of the massive organizational change that ultimately created the systems that the Coast Guard uses to train and evaluate small boat stations to this day.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, the Revenue Marine was shattered. Vessels of the service had been lost to the Confederacy, sunk, or damaged. Reports indicated that after the war, vessels were used to serve as the private yachts of local political figures. The U.S. Lifesaving Service, a loose network of community based search and rescue stations administered by the Revenue Marine, was also in shambles. Crews did not have the equipment or vessels to effectively help those in need of rescue. Internal organizational structure of the stations was ineffective and external central control over the stations was non-existent.

For the United States, this lack of readiness could not have occured at a worse time. The 1800s was a period of American expansion. Mass immigration from Europe meant that overcrowded migrant vessels sailed for U.S. ports in great numbers. Without the aid of modern tools like GPS and weather satellites, many of these ships ended their voyages in disaster on the shoreline of the East Coast. In 1870, a vicious storm hammered the East Coast resulting in many deaths. Public outrage over the deaths signaled that it was time for change and reinvestment in the Revenue Marine and the U.S. Lifesaving Service.

The Honorable Sumner Kimball, a young lawyer, and Treasury Clerk from Maine was asked to take over the beleaguered agencies by Treasury Secretary George S. Boutwell. Recognizing that political corruption and diversion of government resources to powerful individuals were factors in the deterioration of the agency, Kimball sent the following reply:

“I shall accept your offer upon one condition. If you will stand by me, after I have convinced you that I am right, I shall attempt to bring about the reforms you desire. But I want to warn you that the pressure will be tremendous. Congressmen will come to you in long processions and will attempt to convince you that I am wrong and that the service is being ruined. It will require an uncommon display of backbone on your part, but if you will stand firm and refer all complaints to me I promise you that I shall put the service where you want it and where it ought to be.”

It is an interesting response from a junior executive to an offer of a major promotion to the C-suite. It asks for unconditional support and protection from outside forces. In return, Kimball promises to get the job done. One of the most striking aspects of this promise is the part “I shall put the service where you want it and where it ought to be.” This last part indicates that they have a shared vision of what the end state should be and that the current state is unacceptable. Secretary Boutwell replied simply, “I shall support you. No matter what the pressure may be I shall not interfere.” This interaction represents an exchange of trust between two leaders to do the right thing by the American public.

Immediately after Kimball took the job, he directed one of his most trusted Officers to inspect the coastal life saving stations, Captain Faunce. What he found was shocking. Boats in poor shape, untrained crews, and stations too far from each other, leaving gaps in service which prevented coordinated responses by multiple units. The Lifesaving Service in 1871 was fragmented.

Kimball set to work immediately. He enacted new hiring practices that banned the practice of nepotism. He standardized staffing requirements, hired additional managers where needed, and firing those who were not effective. He created standardized procedures so that people across the service could be trained to perform the same tasks in the same way. This standardization of training allowed him to relocate stations to distances where they could be mutually supporting in large-scale disasters. Under his watch, telephones were installed in stations creating true coordination. He standardized equipment at each station and created flexibility in staffing and planning that never existed before.

In 1872, Kimball and the Treasury Department commissioned standard wooden “surf-boats” to be deployed across the stations. This is where the letter fits in to the story. The letter is from the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, co-signed by Sumner Kimball and addressed to Captain Faunce and Captain Merryman. Captain Faunce is significant to Coast Guard history because he was the Commanding Officer of the Harriet Lane when it fired the first maritime shot of the Civil War at a blockade runner in Charleston Harbor in 1861. Eleven years later, he is purchasing wooden boats and reconstituting the Life Saving Service. The letter directs the two captains to Squam, New Hampshire to inspect and accept one of these newly constructed boats.

What Kimball did was amazing, even by modern standards. From 1871 to 1915, he created the Coast Guard that we know today though modernization, merger, and change. He merged distinct services with very different cultures into a single organization. The missions of the Life Saving Service and the Revenue Marine are still distinct in the modern Coast Guard. Surf Stations conduct very different missions than the sea-going cutters.

However, Kimball’s greatest success was the merging of the culture of the people within the service, whether a Surfman or a Cutterman, every person in the Coast Guard carries the cultural legacies of both these services. From the Revenue Marine, is the military professional, representing a seagoing warfighting and law enforcement tradition founded in 1790. From the Life Saving Service is our humanitarian spirit, a voluntarist tradition of others before self, developed by coastal communities that relied on each other to survive storms. It was the merger of these dissimilar traditions that created the unique service identity of a United States Coast Guardsman.

In 1915, the Coast Guard as we know it was formed by uniting several legacy maritime services under the same name and Kimball retired. His work was done. In 1917, the U.S. entered World War I. The U.S. Coast Guard had the highest per capita casualty rate of any service as a result of escort duty in the Atlantic. Without Kimball, the Coast Guard would not have been ready.

The legacy of Kimball lives on to present day through standardization of equipment and training. Both Coast Guard cutters and small boat stations practice continually to respond to those in need. Readiness inspections of field units today are conducted similarly to those made by Captains Faunce and Merryman in 1871. We continue to check for the same fundamentals, the training of the crews, and the condition of the equipment. The Coast Guard motto “Always Ready” is insured by the organizational focus of standardization instituted by Kimball so many years ago.

As I reflect on this letter, and this small souvenir of the Coast Guard past, I continue to be in awe of the work of these people. Their work stewarded the service through the end of a devastating civil war to the beginning of a world war. They could not have known how valuable their work was at the time.

For the first time in my Coast Guard career, I find myself working behind a desk. I often struggle with the desire to do more, to recertify as a Boarding Officer and get back underway. Recently three hurricanes hit my region, and despite working long hours, I felt guilty because I had not gotten wet.

The letter makes me want to do more in my current role. Kimball was not operational. He was an administrator, but his work was pivotal. The letter makes me feel that working behind the scenes is also honorable and important. The letter challenges me to reimagine what my contribution will be in this time of rapid technological and societal change. The letter is a validation of the hard work of the people I work with. The letter makes me optimistic of the future of our service and our ability to collectively respond to a changing world. For that, buying this letter was some of the best money I ever spent.