Poor PIO work on oil spill mission

[RiverAux]

The one on the command patch?  Sure.  No need to come up with another version. 

[bosshawk]

Can you imagine how boring it would be to have everyone wear the same emblem(the Command Patch)?  That would keep National from confusing the entire country with the multiple patches and seals that grace our uniforms and allow people to identify us at a glance.  It also would reduce the income from Vanguard sales and would probably reduce the number of people who work at Hq, trying to induce hysteria among the population.

[RiverAux]

Apparently the mission is winding down.  FL Wing had a nice article with one of the better "plane and people" photos I have seen (if you leave out the fact that every Lt. Col. in the picture has at least one uniform issue). 

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Please don't use that article as any indicator, River. In a nutshell, it's inaccurate, the writer botched the story, the crew wasn't briefed beforehand, and the crew was totally out of uniform.

The mission totals are impressive. Since the State of Florida gave us the call, we've worked both the state and federal missions, and it's just amazing the flight hours, the man-hours, the number of sorties and photos, and the fuel bill. We had a bunch of aircrew people, but we had a bunch on the ground, too, who kept 'em flying and told the world about it. Final totals on the state mission are forthcoming, as well as (hopefully) more accurate totals from the federal mission.

[RiverAux]

Please don't use that article as any indicator, River. In a nutshell, it's inaccurate, the writer botched the story, the crew wasn't briefed beforehand, and the crew was totally out of uniform.

Actually didn't have any issues with the article itself - some issue with the photo.  But even the uniform issues were minor enough that the quality of the photos probably made up for them. 

The mission totals are impressive.

Certainly don't dispute that at all.  But the fact that the PIO work overall was weak is the problem -- I've seen routine airplane search missions get better and more wide-spread press coverage. 

[BuckeyeDEJ]

River, information for routine aircraft searches doesn't jump through nearly as many hoops as information on the oil spill response. Approvals for releases in Florida had to route through FLWG/PA, and we fired them off to SER/A6PA, who sent them on to CAP/PM, and the Joint Information Center at Mobile had to see everything, and we were told that at one point, the White House became involved.

Any media request we had automatically set off this approval chain, too. If a TV station wanted to fly, we had to clear it through everyone but Dick Cheney.

And any squadron that wanted to put a release out or talk to local media had to go through us and up the chain, too. Anyone who didn't (and this one wasn't approved, nor did it get our help) was taking a risk.

So if you wonder why we were tight-lipped, you now know. What we could say was carefully controlled -- what we could say was only what our part was, and any broader questions had to go up the approval chain.

[RiverAux]

So if you wonder why we were tight-lipped, you now know. What we could say was carefully controlled -- what we could say was only what our part was, and any broader questions had to go up the approval chain.

Perhaps these sorts of restrictions absolve some of the low-level PIOs of some responsibility, but as we discussed earlier in the thread there were very few, if any, time sensitive issues involved in this mission and even if it took 2 days to get a release approved, that would be just fine.  All I can look at is the results -- whatever the system was, it did not produce much in the way of real results for CAP. 

Since so little appeared to have actually gotten out of that process it leads me to believe that there weren't actually very many PIOs trying to get something into the process in the first place.  I could be wrong and maybe there were floods of stories submitted through this process.  But, if that is the case, it would appear that most of them got canned somewhere along the way.  What happened to them?  If stories were bottled up and never released, that is a major procedural issue that needs to be addressed. 

I have yet to hear of any PIOs actually being assigned out in the field for this mission producing any material.  Were there PIOs appointed for this mission as would be required by regulation?  From what I can tell, it seems like when some random CAP public affairs officer felt like writing a story they did it rather than making it someone's responsibility to ensure that stories were being produced on a regular basis.

And going back to the "process"....it looks like it needs some major improvements.  Region PAOs and CAP NHQ should not be in the loop at all, unless they have actually been appointed to be the PIO for that particular mission.  We don't make mission PIOs get approval for releases from their Wing PAO because they are a mission function.  Region PAO is adminstrative only.  You just can't have people involved in the process unless they are actually assigned full-time to the mission.  It is unacceptable for a release to be sitting around in people's email system waiting for them to get back from work or whatever they're up to.  This is MISSION public affairs.   Are releases just supposed to sit around waiting all weekend for the NHQ staff to come back to work on Monday? 

Here is how it should go on a major mission where we are being told to route our stuff through a JIC
Mission PIO -- guy working on the ground at the local mission base writes release
Local CAP IC --- Approves release
Joint Information Center -- Approves release
Mission PIO - distributes release out to local media, sends to Wing PAOs of those wings other than theirs that have sent people to the mission base.  Those Wing PAOs distribute release as appropriate in their state.
Mission PIO - sends copy of approved and distributed release to NHQ. 

When there are multiple mission bases and the mission is such that it is absolutely critical that CAP coordinate its message, there perhaps could be a overall Mission PIO but they would need to be on the job full time.  There main duty would be to try to generate regional and national media coverage of CAP's actions.  They would not be involved in the release approval process except in those rare cases where the mission is senstive enough that close coordination involving the message is important.  If they can't do it some day, then that duty needs to be passed to someone else so that there is always someone avaialble. 

[BuckeyeDEJ]

I don't know where you're sitting, River, but here's what I can tell you:

1. Florida Wing was involved in TWO missions -- one for the State of Florida, and the other for the Unified Command in Mobile, Ala., once the UC was stood up. We were flying for the state before the feds got started.

2. Florida Wing had two PIOs involved at wing level, and screened releases from subordinate units. Some of the releases that made it to print included stories from Marco Island, Charlotte County, Fernandina Beach and Ocala. There's a new one tonight that we shipped to CAP/PM that NHQ released instead of sending it back to us about the FLWG chaplain's involvement at the ICP at Mobile. We had releases and we worked within the framework we were given. Stories weren't bottled up, though there were subordinate-unit PAs who complained about being edited (frankly, they need to get over it, too -- everyone gets edited).

3. Wing PAs from across Southeast Region were on a conference call with the CAP/PM folks early on, after the wing PAs expressed frustration at what they could and couldn't say, and the rapidity of the approval process. We were told at that time that the approval process extended beyond National Headquarters, and included First Air Force, the Joint Information Center at Mobile, and later on, apparently, the White House.

4. The SER/CC and staff decreed that all public information would be coordinated through Mobile, including the FLWG mission for the state, which fell outside the federal mission. We saluted and executed. SER/A6PA had someone on site at Mobile all through the response, and we worked closely with them.

We followed procedure. We followed ICS, and any deviance from ICS came from way up the food chain. It's not that we didn't try, but instead that there were things we couldn't talk about. The frustration that CAP couldn't talk up its participation is felt, especially when our crews flew the bulk of the sorties, by far, and Florida Wing's aircrews exemplified the organization with professionalism across the board.

Information was tightly controlled. This oil spill had political and international ramifications, and message control was so tight, we had a time getting stories out locally. We did what we could with what we had. Unless you were here, you might not know that, though....

[BillB]

When I was Florida Wing PAO, we had a similar mision that required approval of news releases by outside agencies. In this case it was the UD Navy. All news releases from Squadrons had to go through FLWG PAO then to the Navy for release. I'd guess that less than 1/4 of the releases from Squadrons got the Navy approval. The releases that were sent out by the Navy had been edited by the FLWG PAO staff and again by the Navy. (amazing the number of misspellings nd grammaer errors). The Navy however did give credit for the releases and CAP was mentioned throughout.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

We didn't/don't have to worry too much about higher headquarters and other agencies bogarting our releases, though the one that was sent from CAP/PM about the oil spill response chaplaincy was sent their way for approval by... Florida Wing's public affairs and marketing directorate!

But the approvals and the filtering gets a little cumbersome, and it puts some folks off. There's no problem as long as everyone "stays in their lane" and only speaks to the things they know.

[RiverAux]

We didn't/don't have to worry too much about higher headquarters and other agencies bogarting our releases, though the one that was sent from CAP/PM about the oil spill response chaplaincy was sent their way for approval by... Florida Wing's public affairs and marketing directorate!

An excellent article by the way. 

[Robborsari]

The frustration that CAP couldn't talk up its participation is felt, especially when our crews flew the bulk of the sorties, by far, and Florida Wing's aircrews exemplified the organization with professionalism across the board.

I agree with everything you have said except the one sentence.  We (CAP) did not fly the bulk of the sorties at all.  I think we averaged %10 to %15 percent of the sorties on a given day.  There was a huge effort that was not well publicised on the part of the airforce, the national guard, the coast guard, the coast guard aux, the navy, several privately contracted firms, several state fish and wildlife agencies (including CA), and probably others I have missed.  We were a significant contributor to the air effort but in no way the largest. 

All of the wings involved did an excellent job and the vast majority of the crews did exemplify the ideal of the unpaid professional.  In any operation this large there will be less than stellar moments and we all had our share  

I think everyone involved did their level best to do the mission and make sure that we made a good impression on the customer and the media.   I think we did as good a job as anyone on making sure people knew we were there helping without overstating our involvement.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Uh, have you seen the totals? Maybe news doesn't travel to Tennessee as fast as it does to Florida? 

From First Air Force and the Coast Guard, 6 July-13 August:

Total missions flown: 416 planned, 371 actual
CAP missions flown: 185 planned, 181 flown
(Next highest total: RC-26 platform, 73 planned, 63 flown)

Imagery reported
Total images: 45953
CAP images: 39475
(Next highest: RC-26, 2873 images)

Hours reported
Total: 987.55 hours
CAP: 425.75 hours
(Next highest: RC-26, 210.2 hours)

Percentages by platform
CAP: 43%
(Next highest: RC-26, 21%)

And those are just the FEDERAL numbers, which as yet are incomplete (Florida's flight hours on the federal mission alone are 504). Florida's state-mission numbers were impressive, too. Let me toot Florida Wing's horn a little here on the state totals, then on the overall Florida Wing contribution.

Florida mission photo total: More than 43,000
Florida mission aircraft flight hours: 356 (on 129 sorties)
Florida mission man-hours (aircrew and ground): 4,309 (1,842 by aircrew members)

State and federal missions combined:

Total man hours: 10,586 (5,960 mission base and 4,626 aircrew)
Total flight hours: 860
Total mission sorties: 341

So yes, when you look at the data, CAP was the largest. And when you look at Florida Wing's totals, you know we were there when we were needed. And isn't that what CAP's all about?

[Robborsari]

I have not seen those totals and they do not match up at all with what I saw in the weeks that I worked in the air ops office.   I don't know where you got those numbers.  Can you post a link?  The RC-26 flew way less than the NOAA and USCG Casa for instance.  There was also an ANG C130 that flew the whole thing twice a day.  If you are looking for hour totals by platform I would expect the Casa to come out on top if not the P-3 although there was only one of those.

CAP total hours for the federal mission is currently 1874.6.  I don't know where those numbers came from but if they are as short on everyone else as they are on us it does not paint a very realistic picture.

Don't get me wrong.  Everyone did a great job and lots of hard work.  There is plenty to be proud of and I am certainly proud to be a part of this organization.  I don't want us to start overstating our role to the point that someone (non  cap) who was there calls bull$#!t.  That would not make us look good at all.  We did a very professional job and were right in the middle of it on an equal footing with everyone else who spent long hours flying low in the heat and working at the ICP.   

Florida did their share as did MS, AL, LA, TN, GA, NC and GLR.  There are also plenty of dings to go around in the AAR and we need to be realistic about that and try to improve as well.   In the immortal words of Han Solo, "Great kid, don't get cocky"

[RiverAux]

While the last few posts are a little off-topic, I can use them to bring us back on topic .... CAP still has a Gulf Oil Spill response web page up http://www.capvolunteernow.com/highprofile_missions//gulf_oil_response/ and it has mission hours posted on it, but it hasn't been updated since 20 August.  Just shows a lack of attention to detail.  They started to do the job, but aren't keeping it up.  And in this case the onus falls squarly on NHQ.  Apparently they wanted tight control over PIO work on this mission and failed to follow through.  The data block was consistently a week or more out of date since they put it up.

Incidentally, I wouldn't believe those man-hour totals on that web page.  Maybe things are different for this mission, but our ICs have been told to only report aircrew man-hours to AFRCC.   Since CAP has no way of actually collecting man-hour information any such figures are extremely suspect.

[Robborsari]

While the last few posts are a little off-topic, I can use them to bring us back on topic .... CAP still has a Gulf Oil Spill response web page up http://www.capvolunteernow.com/highprofile_missions//gulf_oil_response/ and it has mission hours posted on it, but it hasn't been updated since 20 August.  Just shows a lack of attention to detail.  They started to do the job, but aren't keeping it up.  And in this case the onus falls squarly on NHQ.  Apparently they wanted tight control over PIO work on this mission and failed to follow through.  The data block was consistently a week or more out of date since they put it up.

Incidentally, I wouldn't believe those man-hour totals on that web page.  Maybe things are different for this mission, but our ICs have been told to only report aircrew man-hours to AFRCC.   Since CAP has no way of actually collecting man-hour information any such figures are extremely suspect.

You are right.  We took the number of people on the 211 and averaged the length of the day.  Some worked shorter and some worked more.  It is a very rough estimate but not total fiction.  We did include staff and aircrew. 

Back on topic   I agree that we did not do very well at making the information available to the membership at large.  There were a lot of hoops to jump through on this one but we could have put more effort into it.  Something else for the AAR.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Based on Florida's numbers for the federal mission, there's some catching up to do on the Mobile count, and definitely some rethinking.

Well, that is, unless Florida Wing flew the vast majority of flights on this mission. And that'd be weird (even though half of Southeast Region is in Florida Wing), because this oil spill was in Louisiana's and Alabama's back yards, we have CAP wings in those states, and surely people in those two states know how to fly airplanes. Right? Never mind the other wings that got involved.

The criticisms I've heard on the CAP tallies out of Mobile are that we're underreporting non-flight hours and that mission base personnel not physically showing up at Mobile are being hosed (and that would include me, a PIO on both missions who worked from here on Florida's Gulf coast).

Robborsari, there's no link. The file I have is a PowerPoint presentation generated together by the USCG and First Air Force, and while those totals aren't the most recent, they appear to show a darned good trend that CAP did a whole heck of a lot of flying on this thing. Unless there was an violently dramatic shift in aircraft use after that report was generated, these percentages should generally still track. I would dare say that your accounting is anecdotal, since 1AF and USCG would have a 40,000-foot view of things and would be in a better position to know.

We need to ensure we're not downplaying our role here. CAP provides value, and just because we're not paid people, it doesn't mean we can't play along with those who are. (Forget the inferiority complex, unless you truly don't know what you're doing, and if that's the case, who the he## paperwhipped your SQTRs?)

As for information given to the membership, again, we have been under constraints that only allowed us to speak for ourselves, and only after prior review -- that last part, the prior review, is seemingly hard for people in CAP to get their heads around. And that prior review didn't stop at HQ CAP/PM and SER/A6PA. It went to Washington, D.C., and messages there were tightly controlled. Read between the lines, folks.

MODIFIED: Let me add something here. The tally of man-hours, flight hours, photos taken, etc., help tell the story of our deployment to support the Unified Command and the Florida state missions. We made a huge contribution here. This is part of our story, even part of our history. We need to ensure we're accurate with the totals, and we need to make sure we play this up. A correct tally is vital to public information efforts, and to public affairs and marketing initiatives, as well as for government affairs folks.

[RiverAux]

I've got to say that I'm more than a little surprised that the latest Volunteer has an article praising CAP's public affairs work on this mission. 

Getting a few nice stories in the national media isn't anything to be sneezed at, especially when CAP was such a minor part of a such a huge operation and those involved deserve credit for that.

But, the overall CAP PIO effort was incredibly weak and while to some extent I accept the arguments above that it isn't all our fault due restrictions imposed by outside agencies, here is my recap of the main problems:

Issues entirely under CAP control
1.  Failure of NHQ to maintain current information on its website about the mission.  They made a start, but didn't really follow through very well.
2.  Failure of most Wings and the region involved to promote CAP involvement through their own web sites.
3.  Failure to assign a full-time PIO to this mission.  Apparently we decided to depend on local PAOs to write articles when they felt like it and given our general lack of PAOs in the first place this resulted in not many articles getting in the pipeline.  PIOs from around the country could have been routed in for a week or two so that we were putting out some sort of news on a regular basis.  Earlier we were told that there was a SE Region public affairs guy at the Mobile ICP, but he/she apparently didn't actually produce much. 
4.  Failure to take advantage of this opportunity for local public affairs.  Every unit that sent any resources or participated in any way should have had at least one local tv or newspaper story about it (Local CAP unit responds to DWH).  As far as I can tell, this didn't happen.  A full time PIO could have written these cookie cutter stories and got them out in a prompt manner.  This, by far, was the biggest failure. 

Failures not entirely the fault of CAP
1.  Apparently the system for approving releases was incredibly complex as might be expected for such a huge mission.  However, this is no excuse for the lack of CAP releases.  This mission was going on for months and even if it took a week to get a release approved, thats not a big deal.  Because we depended entirely on local PAOs rather than an assigned PIO we just didn't get many releases in the system in the first place. 

[BuckeyeDEJ]

River:

-- Yes, there was an assigned PIO from CAP at Mobile, a member of the HQ SER public affairs directorate. Again, information was controlled, and not by CAP. Say what you want, but it's not like we wanted to clamp a lid on things.
-- Additionally, on the Florida state mission, there were two PIOs assigned. We promoted the crap out of it until HQ SER said the state mission's public information needed to dovetail into the federal mission's work. The State of Florida wanted us to put information out, and the state wanted our images out there for CAP's and the state's benefit, as well as to promote "government in the sunshine."
-- Florida Wing set up a Deepwater Horizon section on its website. As a clampdown grew tighter, that site was neglected. Again, don't blame us for the control sought by higher-ups. We wanted to beat that like a drum.
-- Individual squadrons were encouraged to promote their involvement, as long as releases were cleared up the chain of command and through the JIC, 1AF and official Washington. That happened, but not enough. And frankly, that doesn't have to be a PIO duty -- a squadron PA can do it just fine. And to be fair, the folks at HQ CAP/PM aren't PIOs and they were filtering/approving everything.

It's unfair to give our people a bad rap here. The back story's much more complicated.

Robborsari: I haven't forgotten to send you that file. I apologize. Things have been crazy here outside CAP.

[RiverAux]

As I noted earlier in the thread, FL was one of the few Wings that was at least trying.   

Nevertheless, this mission was an abject failure from the point of view of public affairs with blame going both to CAP (at all levels) and to the rest of the DWH public information structure as well.  Plenty of blame to go around.