Innovation & Imagination

In support of the establishment of the U.S. Coast Guard Innovation Program, the mandates in Force Design 2028, and the Commandant’s directive to foster a culture of continuous innovation and learning, the SPG has been formed to provide, maintain, and support a collaborative, open-invitation think tank environment where skilled and talented people can share their personal and professional expertise on issues that relate to and affect the safety and security of recreational boating.

Due to various post-9/11 assignments, including reallocating resources to our domestic maritime borders, enforcing exclusive economic zones in the Indo-Pacific, addressing ongoing Middle East issues, adapting to new Arctic challenges, and conducting recent high-seas vessel interdictions, the U.S. Coast Guard, the world’s premier maritime law enforcement agency, now faces being overextended, short-staffed, and underfunded, while still being expected to deliver its traditional domestic protective services at the same levels historically provided.

This is where the Division 7 Special Projects Group (SPG) can assist with these challenges now and in the years ahead.

In support of this Coast Guard-wide effort to increase efficiency and accelerate the process of turning innovative ideas or solutions into mission results, the SPG provides an environment and structured framework that encourages the subject-matter experts among us to contribute their experience and know-how to small, single projects with clearly defined beginnings and end points, thereby assuring them protection from the all-too-common occurrence of being “volunteered” later to run an entire department because a single project they worked on previously was so successful.

By bringing together creative and imaginative members in a decentralized, open dialogue framework that fosters collaborative brainstorming and the cross-pollination of ideas, the SPG ensures that the path from initial idea to meaningful impact remains clear and achievable by maintaining a nexus where leadership can directly request ideas from the group and the group can directly share ideas with leadership.