Council of Class Presidents Meeting -25 March 2013
Reported by Dave Carruth
Weather precluded my attendance at this meeting. I am now in receipt of the minutes and will try to give you a feel for what was done.
As I have told you before the COCP meetings have seven decade tables from the 30-40 decade to the 2010 decade. The decade reps are also Trustees on the Board of Trustees (BOT). The COCP is now at the point where we have eight decades so an adjustment must be made. A proposal was made to slide the 50s decade into the senior group which is now 30-40-50 then bring 2010 on line and there are once again 7 trustees. These seven are joined on the BOT by the representatives from 12 Chapters, that is one from each of the 9 largest chapters
plus 3 others elected by the BOT from the smaller chapters. The 7 trustees from the COCP can speak for all of the 70,000 plus alumnae, while the chapters are very involved with the Blue & Gold program.
One of the action items I mentioned in my last report was an effort to improve the horizontal communications for the COCP members. Ingar Grev ’89, chairman of the communication committee, updated the effort on Office 365, donated for our use by Microsoft. I cannot comment on the software because I haven’t had time to test it. I’ll try to cover that in the next report.
The outgoing Commandant of Midshipmen, CAPT R.E.Clark II ‘80, then reviewed the status of progress in the Brigade, happily noting a decline in conduct and honor violations, the rise in academic grade points and steadily improving retention. He also commented on the continuing increase in overseas placements of midshipmen. This was CAPT Clark’s last meeting with the COCP for he is being relieved by CAPT Bill Byrne ’87.
When CAPT Clark is relieved, he will become the Commandant with the longest tenure in the job-overtaking the record of Bud Edney’57.
As I have said before, the COCP is the alumni association’s key to the alumni wallet, i.e. the money raisers, and the meeting agenda registered, as always, that fact for next up was a presentation by Skip Orr ’65 titled “Class Reunion Giving.” The first slide was titled “The Physical Mission, The Fund for Athletic Excellence & NAAA” It stated that the goal was to increase annual available funds from $1.5Million to $2.0Million. The money goes to coaches/educators, student-athletes, operational support, physical mission support and facilities enhancements. Skip then used the classes of 65 and 76 to show how in their reunion planning they pledged, for 65 - $2M, allocated for Ethics Chair (52%), Athletic Excellence (20%), Annual Fund (18%) and Navy Goat Project (10%). Class of 76 pledged $800K, allocated Cyber Support (37.5%), Athletic Excellence (37.5%) and Annual Fund (25%). The final recommendation was that each class include in it’s reunion gift a percentage for Athletic Excellence.
The COCP chairman asked about soliciting “older” classes who are beyond the 50th Anniversary- and Skip responded that the Foundation would welcome such support-but his slides were illustrative of ongoing efforts with classes looking forward to major quintennial gifting. Skip noted that for the upcoming (2014) Capital Campaign, gifts/pledges currently made will be integrated into the new campaign so as to avoid duplicate solicitations.
Chet Gladchuk then gave a presentation focused in detail on the rationale for joining a conference. He stated that it is necessary to be in a conference in order to schedule games with major teams and retain TV contracts, and many other factors-the sum of which make it essential to continuing the success of Navy athletics. He recognized that conference membership will have costs that Navy will have to “Step up” to meet, but expressed confidence that these challenges will be met. Regarding game start times he said the coming seasons will feature a variety of starting times so there will be something for everyone.
The next presentation was by VADM Michael Rogers, USN, Commander U.S. TENTH Fleet to give an overview and update of the Navy’s Cyber Warfare activities. He covered his command and it’s structure-pointing out the Navy’s methodology in dealing with Cyber Warfare. He described the issues and challenges faced by the need to expand the numbers of personnel needed and recently authorized (about 1800 navy billets) to meet these challenges. Newsworthy examples of the use of cyber warfare in China and North/South Korea were noted. He showed that we are on the ground floor of Cyber warfare but emphasized that the Navy’s approach is to treat the matter as a warfare Specialty- and recognize its pervasiveness-and the need to develop ways to fight it both offensively and defensively. In response to a question, he said that unlike most other types of warfare in which “defense” has an inherent advantage, in Cyber warfare this is not the case. He emphasized the challenge of retention of trained personnel all of whom are sought by better paying civilian firms. He described the career path for officers and enlisted personnel entering the community-entry schooling, initial tours and follow on education and touring. He described new rating (CT Network, IT & IW) being created in the navy to manage personnel.
He reiterated that Cyber warfare affects all people in the navy pointing out that what is required is a program similar to the Nuclear Weapons “Personnel reliability Program-PRP” that is used to provide needed security for Nuclear weapons capable ships and squadrons. But in Cyber warfare, every person in the navy becomes an operator, because of the pervasiveness of technology.
Finally he pointed out that his command, 10th Fleet, differs from other such organizations in that it is not geographically oriented but is defined by its mission.
Now, back to money!
Byron Marchant ’78, Alumni Association & Foundation’s President introduced Bill O’Connor, Alumni Association Executive President for Development. He reported on accomplishments with respect to the upcoming campaign-“Leading up”research is completed; there has been good response to review of the case paper. Going forward:
· 2 tracks to complete by November-Set up 5 regional committees-each with a co-chair to include corporate and parents’ groups
· Recruit/set up an Executive Committee
· Above to be presented to NA foundation in November
· By July 1, 2014 intend to have a large network in place. Start “silent Phase” Main conduit is “Class giving.”
Bill O’Connor concluded by offering 3 thoughts on Class Giving:
1. Know what the campaign plan-set a goal-and then divide goal amount by percentages.
2. Provide ample recognition materials.
3. Stress importance of Annual Unrestricted giving.
LtGen Jack Klimp ’68-Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees then reported on his experience chairing the Committee to select Distinguished Graduates. He reported that the committees are always highly diverse, but include at least one former recipient of DG honor. He noted that nominees are allowed three consecutive (but newly refreshed) opportunities to be screened and encouraged broad participation. He pointed that any member of the Association may nominate a person for consideration, but without an official endorsement by the nominee’s class such a nominee would not be selected. He encouraged class presidents to actively solicit nominations from their classmates to enhance the pool of nominees.
Scribe notes: The cyber presentation was one I had been looking forward to. I’m told it was the best presentation ever given to the COCP.
This is the third, or maybe the fourth, report I have given you on COCP meetings and I would like some feedback concerning what you want to know, what interests you? If I’m covering too much let me know.
Dave
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