Current State of NNPTC. [Merged]

[s_Phoenix]

They have lowed the standard from 2.8 of 4.o to 2.5 and theres talk of lowering it to 2.0.

On test's in school and overall gpa.

And to getting denuked, we have (I think) 8 maybe 9 people being denuked.  Including 1 officer.  There not even questioning request's from our ship right now.  Just processing them.  Thats not even counting those that are over there 2 year point and not qualed senior in rate.  If those all get processed it will be closer to 20.  Normally its hard yes, i've walked close to that line and have lucked out.  But now they dont care.  There just cleaning out any problems and trying to set it up for a new command.  Were getting a new CO and RO.  Plus most of our PA's are on the way out.  Most will be looking to retire and move on.

[taterhead]

I replied to you, by the way-

I will just say that I do not agree with the dire assessment you give of the Navy, Nuclear life, and life in general.  Big Navy is changing.  Yours is not the only ship to go through a period of upheaval and strife.  It happens to every ship, everywhere, at some point.  Things get dark for a while, then it gradually goes away.

This too shall pass, my friend.

[nukeET1]

That is amazing.... there must have been something really going/gone wrong to denuke 8-9 people.

I feel for ya.. I would not want to be at that command for a while.  We went through bad periods with BA on ORSE but never where the CO and RO got relieved.  That just plain sucks.

Ex-Nukeet1

[s_Phoenix]

We just scraped by to get a BA on our last orse, which was only a stepping stone in the long list of things that have gone bad on board us.

If you want a list of thing not to have happen at a young command just look at what happend on board us.

[Roll Tide]

We just scraped by to get a BA on our last orse, which was only a stepping stone in the long list of things that have gone bad on board us.

I remember the Engineer on a particular boat (late 80's) that looked at our commitments after ORSE and pronounced, "There is no way they can fail us, no one else can meet our commitments." Somehow, that became the unofficial motto of many onboard. "Significantly below average with major discrepancies" was the grade we received! 

"NEVER" and "ALWAYS" are difficult terms to justify in Naval Nuclear power.

[taterhead]

"There's no way they can fail us"

Sounds like famous last words...

[s_Phoenix]

Ok I messed up a little detail.  It wasnt NRRO that did the dead.  But rather NR, as in Naval Reactor, AKA Adm Donald, new head of NAVSEA 08.  It was at his interview for nuc officer.  Seem the adm didnt like his answer to what he did to prevent all that has gone wrong on board our ship.  Seem's telling him that its a lack of leadship from the top down is not the PC answer.

[CharlieRock]

Hey Nukeet1 - were you in the circle at NNPTC in 1997?  Just wondering, as I was also.  Remember that it was the Friday before three day weekend (Memorial Day I think) and the Admiral was nearly an hour late getting in from the Orlando Executive Airport?  After two hours in the Orlando sun, I was really ready to listen (not!)

Phoenix, I won't argue with you about the people on your ship getting de-nuked.  I wasn't there.  But I do know that we're not de-nuking in droves or even at an above normal pace.  There are always some people that screwed over.  That's a fact.  Its not fair and somebody fell asleep at the wheel.  I also know that bad morale on a ship can rapidly become a tailspin and it takes top notch leaders to pull it out.  The worst thing about that job is even if you succeed, you're not a hero, you just met expectations.

As to ADM Donald de-nuking the chief - that's his right.  There are two sides to every story and we don't know ADM Donald's.  If it makes you feel any better he just relieved the General Manager (read CO) of the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory today.  Maybe he's cleaning house - trying to find the leaders to cure the problem and he didn't like your chief's attitude.

Also I think if your Chief is de-nuked he's not getting a commission.  LDOs select for their community.  If they no longer meet the requirements they revert to enlisted status provided they have not accepted a permament commission which I think they can do at 10 years. 

[DDMurray]

Hey Nukeet1 - were you in the circle at NNPTC in 1997?  Just wondering, as I was also.  Remember that it was the Friday before three day weekend (Memorial Day I think) and the Admiral was nearly an hour late getting in from the Orlando Executive Airport?  After two hours in the Orlando sun, I was really ready to listen (not!)

Phoenix, I won't argue with you about the people on your ship getting de-nuked.  I wasn't there.  But I do know that we're not de-nuking in droves or even at an above normal pace.  There are always some people that screwed over.  That's a fact.  Its not fair and somebody fell asleep at the wheel.  I also know that bad morale on a ship can rapidly become a tailspin and it takes top notch leaders to pull it out.  The worst thing about that job is even if you succeed, you're not a hero, you just met expectations.

As to ADM Donald de-nuking the chief - that's his right.  There are two sides to every story and we don't know ADM Donald's.  If it makes you feel any better he just relieved the General Manager (read CO) of the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory today.  Maybe he's cleaning house - trying to find the leaders to cure the problem and he didn't like your chief's attitude.

Also I think if your Chief is de-nuked he's not getting a commission.  LDOs select for their community.  If they no longer meet the requirements they revert to enlisted status provided they have not accepted a permament commission which I think they can do at 10 years. 

I was at ADM Bowman's "Grassy Knoll" speech which was actually in 1998.  I believe I heard something different than the majority of staff that day.  I heard the admiral say that we needed to work harder to save as many students as we could.  The majority of staff heard, "Lower the standards."  Did we lower the standards?  I've completed two tours at NNPS.  My first tour (1990-1993) was a transitional period for me as I advanced to Chief but I remember it was the exception to let a marginal student (military or academic problems) move on.  The thought process was that we're preparing these guys for the fleet so, we were harder on them than we probably needed to be and guys got canned who probably could have made good operators.  We felt if the guy couldn't cope at NPS, there's no way he could make it at NPTU or the fleet.  Our attrition at NPS was about 25-30%. 

Fast forward to 1998 after the speech.  The thought process was that we need to give every sailor the chance to succeed because the fleet needs them.  It became harder to drop a student, but if you effectively documented the student's performance he (or she) could be dropped.  If there was any chance the student could succeed, the frame of mind was to give them a chance.  Our attrition lowerd to < 10%.  This of course puts more pressure on the NPTUs which is passed on to the fleet. 

If you look at it solely from the standpoint of attrition % , then the standards have lowered.  I will also say that many other factors influence the "quality" of students.  The number of sailors from broken homes; civilian competition; American's society shift towards gadgetry vice hard work all make it challenging to develop good operators.  The demands on the ship are much greater because of reduced budgets and tighter schedules.  Is Naval Nuclear Power broken?  I don't think so.  Does it need attention?  It always has, always will.  I think ADM Donald is demanding accountability for our actions.  In 21 years I've seen a few guys de-nuked after they made it through prototype.  I think it's pretty hard for a CO to de-nuke someone unless all possible corrective measures have been taken unless it's a gross case of misconduct or dereliction of duty.   Great discussion!

[wetbedknob]

I cannot say for sure that the standards did or did not change. I know that while I was doing my instrustor tour at S8G they held the instructors responsible for making sure the students learned. If they got too far behind the qualification curve, then the Admiral would hear about it and would crap on the CO. So instead of that happening, there was a push to keep an NDI of sorts after each shift so that the students could get checkouts during their plus hours. I did see a few instances where there were some second chances given. The worst was the DUI or underage drinking that happened too often and was swept under the rug with a warning.

I remember when I went through A school there were 14 of us. 7 rolled in (to make a total of 21) and we still graduated with 7.

[shayne]

I remember a similiar speech by the Adm. when I was at S8G followed by many radical changes to the program.

[jamster777]

I was also graduating NPS class 0406, (ET) and just to let you know it was a combination of S5W and S3G material... I actually thought it was quite confusing as our course material seemed to swap plant specs around back and forth like it was nothing... I assume that is because civilians who have never actually seen a plant write the course material...

They teach the S5W plant with the S3G core.  As far as I know, they don't switch specs around (at least not in the officer department).  Though I have not yet been to NPTU, I am told that the Charleston plants are almost exactly like what they teach at NNPTC.  The curriculum is continuously reviewed and updated by the engineers at Bettis and KAPL, and by the staff at Naval Reactors who help design the plants. All it it is approved by NAVSEA(08).  In fact, a Captain from Naval Reactors sat in on on of my classes today to assess how well the curriculum is being taught. Additionally Bettis and KAPL have design engineers permanently located at NNPTC to help with any issues that arrise with the curriculum.  Also, when these civilians that you refer to are hired on, they have to go through NPS and prototype along with the officer students.  I have two KAPL civilian employees in my section.

[visserjr]

Personally, the quality of Nubs at leats mechanics, these days, quite frankly blows. How does a mechanic not know what a flange is.

[shayne]

More than likely the KAPL employees were hired to be Nuclear Plant Operators.  They go through the Nuclear Power school and NPTU to qualify EOOW.  After their initial quals are done, they become part of the management that runs and operates the two facilities in NY.  Also, because of their position and qualifications, they help train the Navy Students, mostly officers, that are training at NPTU. 

Also, when these civilians that you refer to are hired on, they have to go through NPS and prototype along with the officer students.  I have two KAPL civilian employees in my section.

[Rad Sponge]

I was a SPU at NPTU-CHAR during the grassy knoll speach.

Like, Senior, most of us heard "Lower the standards" regardless of the voodoo Jedi Mind tricking he was attempting from his little podium.

He could of been doing a hula dance for all I knew, couldn't quite see him.

I remember this Chief pressing Mini-Admiral to say the standards have been lowered. Old Skippy bout had a P/F Scram before Chief backed off and Bo-Bo came back into the green band.

It was funny.

I, being a blatant smartass, was making the motion to raise my hand to ask the next question when my MM1/LELT looked at me with this "been on too many deployments" face and calmly said to me:

"Ask a question and you will be standing every 2nd half watch for the rest of your time here"

I lowered my hand.

[lswartz]

5.  Overall I believe the students coming out of the pipeline know as much, if not more then what we did when we went through the program.  The instructors put in the time and the exams are still equivalent.  I believe that integrity went out the window, the underage drinking problem never got solved, and the military aspect decreased significantly.  This has been shown/fedback to the command via sea-returnees complaining about the Nubs they received out in the fleet, not wanting to qualify or expecting to have their hand held the whole way.  They even had a few that showed up and when told to go look it up in the S+EPM they said the what?  They had no idea, since prototype has alot of stuff computerized.
EX-nukeet1

I haven't been in the Navy long enough to know whether integrity/motivation is any better or worse than it was before, but likely the reason the new sailors didn't know about the S&EPM is that at some prototypes (well, at MARF, anyway) there isn't any such thing--it's all in the RPM.  I didn't have any idea what the S&EPM was until I got to my boat.  (Yes, there is computer aided instruction at MARF, but we still spent plenty of quality time with the RPMs.)