John Hawkinson showing a fellow Auxiliarist how to set up a “field query” in Oracle during the AUX-10 Course in Alameda, CA.
(U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 085-33-04 photo / Photo by Mr. Harry McBain, ADSO-PAP, Division 11N)
Flotilla 4 member John Hawkinson attended the Coast Guard Auxiliary AUX-10 course at Coast Guard Island in Alameda, CA. The course is designed to take new staff officers in the Information Systems (IS) field and give them some exposure to the mechanics of the AUXDATA and AUXINFO systems used to manage people and facilities in the Coast Guard Auxiliary. This class had every range of experience from brand new to experienced Auxiliarists who had been recently appointed to Auxiliary information systems positions. Some of these appointments ranged from being part of a flotilla job rotation, to a staff member of a DIRAUX office, to the then Department Chief-Information Technology (DC-I), now the Deputy Chief Technology Officer from the National Staff. (The DC-I was there to get oriented on how training and system operations look like to someone serving at the flotilla or division level).
Training ran from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and until noon on Sunday. The training was fairly fast-paced, as there was a lot of material to go through, learning how to enter personnel, activity and facility data into AUXDATA, how to run various queries into AUXINFO, and how to run a variety of reports. Students also received an orientation to the Patrol Order Management System (POMS). It was quite clear why the Auxiliary prefers to have its new information systems officers go through the AUX-10 course early on; there’s a lot of process knowledge involved in running the different databases and reporting tools effectively.
Dining was at a Coast Guard mess hall for lunch. At night students dined off-site at seafood restaurants around Oakland on Friday and Saturday evenings.
John Hawkinson is now a graduate of the AUX-10 course, and is now in the “practicum” portion of his training. He is still reviewing Flotilla 4 forms and forwarding the approved ones to the Division 33 IS Officer for data entry as before, but he is also keying in the information into an AUXDATA Training Database. This “dual data entry” will continue for awhile (potentially up to 60 days), while the Division IS officer reviews Hawkinson’s work and provides needed feedback and “course corrections”, before he is approved to officially key records into the “live” production database.
“The AUX-10 course was a very worthwhile experience,” said Hawkinson, ”one that I would encourage new Information Systems officers to apply for as early in their careers as possible.”
John Hawkinson (center) is figuring out one of the data entry assignments, entering in a simulated Boat Crew mission. Course Director McBain (standing) is making the rounds to see if we’re “getting it”.
(U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 085-33-04 photo / Photo by Mr. Harry McBain, ADSO-PAP, Division 11N)
Posts
