19 Spring 2025 Proceedings The Navy-Coast Guard Research Partnership The Naval Postgraduate School perspective by retired mariNe corps coL. raNdy puGh Vice Provost for Warfare Studies Naval Postgraduate School I n 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered two squadrons consisting of 16 battleships and numerous smaller vessels on a deployment around the world. This two-year cruise was a deliberate way to demon- strate the U.S. Navy’s technical superiority as well as its ability to conduct prolonged blue-water operations. It was a display of power and agility that would serve as deterrence to the potential aspiration of rising powers. Upon the conclusion of the Great White Fleet’s circum- navigation of the globe, one obvious lesson learned was that technologically advanced ships and sophisticated combat systems were going to need highly educated offi- cers to effectively employ and maintain them. In 1909, the Navy established a graduate school of marine engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy with the mission of training officers in the rapidly evolving fields of ordnance and gunnery, electrical engineering, radio telegraphy, and naval construction. These officers, armed with superior knowledge and skills, would prove critical to sustaining maritime dominance in the decades that followed, a time of rapid technological advancements in platforms and weapons systems.1 As technology has evolved, the school has changed its name from the School of Marine Engineering to the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and has relocated to Monterey, California. However, it still maintains its core mission to meet unique naval needs in graduate educa- tion. Considering the current assertions of a revisionist Chinese Communist Party, its illegal, coercive, aggres- sive, and deceptive activities in the South China Sea, and the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s rapid development of advanced capabilities and capacity, NPS’s contribu- tion to the Navy’s mission and the nation has never been more critical. Since NPS’s founding, the world’s economies have grown increasingly interconnected and interdependent, and the Navy’s role has expanded to providing global maritime security in partnership with allied nations. In response, NPS has found it necessary to constantly evolve. Its partnerships with other federal agencies, the militaries of partner and allied countries, academia, private industry, and think tanks have been large con- tributors to the school’s evolution and its continual effec- tiveness. One relationship that has proved especially impactful is an ongoing seven-year engagement with the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center (RDC). The relationship between the Coast Guard and NPS is not new. Coast Guard officers have attended NPS throughout the school’s history with more than 75 earn- ing master’s degrees in the past decade. The commonal- ity between the Coast Guard’s and the Navy’s missions, operating environments, platforms, and systems natu- rally make many of the academic programs NPS exe- cutes on behalf of the Navy also highly relevant to Coast Guard students. This general applicability and benefit to individual Coast Guard officers became an increas- ing priority for NPS following the publication of the Tri- Service Maritime Strategy in 2020. Accordingly, in 2021, NPS and the RDC renewed and expanded the NPS-Coast Guard RDC Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) originally signed in 2018. The MOU appointed Dr. Joe DiRenzo of the RDC as its liai- son officer to NPS and he began an aggressive pursuit of key objectives of the joint cooperation. These initiatives included: • Jointly submitting research proposals with NPS and RDC co-investigators • Sharing access to and use of unique laboratories, facilities, and other assets • Sharing of publications of studies, evaluations, and lessons learned • Joint participation in conferences, symposia, courses, workshops, exhibitions, and other meetings of mutual benefit, and exchanging technical data and information2 “Since an MOU was signed three years ago, the RDC has become a topic sponsor,” CAPT Daniel Keane,
