Chapter 7 - Characteristics of Active Component Officers

The USCG uses a variety of officer commissioning programs. These include programs for civilians and active USCG enlisted members and warrant officers to become commissioned officers. In FY 2001, the USCG commissioned a total of 399 new officers, down from 437 in FY 2000. The USCG commissioned officer corps stood at 5,550 at the end of FY 2001, up from FY 2000 when the end-strength stood at 5,542.

In Table 7.6, the distribution of new USCG officers (accessions) and current officers (corps) by source of commission is presented with applicable overall DoD figures for comparison. The USCG relies heavily on the U. S. Coast Guard Academy for its officer accessions. The USCG gets 83 percent of its new officers from its Academy and Officer Candidate School as compared to less than half that (41 percent) for DoD as a whole. This large difference can be explained almost entirely by the fact that the USCG does not have an ROTC program. The fact that an even greater proportion of the USCG officer corps compared to USCG officer accessions were academy graduates is an indication that the retention rate for graduates is higher than for the other sources of officers.

Table 7.6. FY 2001 USCG and DoD Active Component Officer Accessions and Officer Corps by Source of Commission (Percent)
	Officer Accessions		Officer Corps
Source of Commission	Guard	DoD	Coast Guard	DoD
Academy	39.5	15.7	47.9	17.9
ROTC - Scholarship	0.0	18.6	0.0	25.0
ROTC - No Scholarship	0.0	14.9	0.0	14.6
OCS/OTS	43.5	25.3	33.4	20.7
Direct Appointment	0.3	11.6	5.2	14.3
Other	16.7	13.9	13.5	7.6
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Columns may not add to total due to rounding. Percentages do not include "Unknown" data. Also see Appendix Tables B-40 (Active Component Officer Corps by Source of Commission, Service, and Gender), B-41 (Active Component Officer Corps by Source of Commission), and E-20 (Coast Guard Active Component Officer Accessions and Officer Corps by Source of Commission, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity).