People who work at theUSMMA

derekz19

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2015
Messages
28
Are the instructors military officers or all civilian?

What about the day to day operations - who are these folks? Military personnel or what.

I'm confused how it works and it is staffed.

Please help!
 
Almost all are Dept of Transportation/MARAD civilian employees. Each service typically has a military representative on campus, but everyone who is "USMS" is a GS employee, uniform or not.
 
There is a mix of civilian and military officers on the faculty.

This is kind of wrong. I believe all of the Active Duty officers have rotated off of the academic faculty in the last year. Naval Science is staffed by AD folks, but thats it. The rest are MARAD employees.
 
The chaplain is usually an AD Navy officer. The doc is usually USPHS officer, I think.

Otherwise, as noted above, the uniformed MARAD staff and faculty are federal civil service, plus AD Navy over at Naval Science. The uniformed MARAD folks might well be retired officers from the Navy or other services, but the Navy-looking uniform they wear has different devices and insignia than Navy.

I usually visited there 4-5 times a year for business, and always had to read the uniforms carefully. Sometimes I ran into Army or AF, but I was never sure if they were staff or visiting from a ROTC unit.

Sometimes there were NOAA officers walking around in their Navy-looking-but-different-insignia uniforms.

As always, KP is an interesting community to visit.
 
Last edited:
Is the US Maritime Service (USMS) still in existence onboard KP? Or has that moved to be MARAD.. . . .
 
Is the US Maritime Service (USMS) still in existence onboard KP? Or has that moved to be MARAD.. . . .
I used "MARAD staff" as an umbrella term, because I admit to not wanting to attempt to explain "USMS." MARAD is where the federal pay comes from, so I used it in the same way I would say MSC mariners are "DON" employees. I had 4 tours with MSC while on AD, and recall trying to explain "USMS" and the insignia to other naval officers.

I don't mean to muddy the waters, was just using broad strokes to give OP a general sense.
 
This is kind of wrong. I believe all of the Active Duty officers have rotated off of the academic faculty in the last year. Naval Science is staffed by AD folks, but thats it. The rest are MARAD employees.

This is right. Other than for academic courses such as Intro to Navy Science or SSO, every professor is a civilian MARAD employee. At this point, the only AD on campus are the liasons (marine corps, army, etc), One of the CO's (on the commandant's staff), and the Navy Science people.
 
The chaplain is usually an AD Navy officer. The doc is usually USPHS officer, I think.

The Medical Director at patten isn't USPHS, he's a guy who spent the majority of his career working in prisons. Which prepared him well.

Sometimes there were NOAA officers walking around in their Navy-looking-but-different-insignia uniforms.

They're all gone. NOAA BOTC used to be held at KP, but they moved it to USCGA. The NOAA ensigns were always... fascinating. I'll leave it at that.

The US Mystery Service exists only at KP

The supes' at the states schools are also "commissioned" in the USMS.
 
I recall that Patton Hospital (is that what they still call it?) was run by Mr. Billy, a Physician's Assistant who had a bedside manner of Nurse Ratchet. . . . I remember being admitted with a high fever and vomiting. . . he suggested that I was faking and may as well go and clean up the mess I was making. . . . found out later that I had an abscessed tooth. . . .
 
My experience with Patten is minimal, thankfully. I spoke to the PA once and he was great. I think m/n avoid Patten because if anything they are overly cautious (the opposite of your experience), there's paperwork and it can be time consuming. I don't want any new parents to fear their kid won't be well cared for.
 
My experience with Patten is minimal, thankfully. I spoke to the PA once and he was great. I think m/n avoid Patten because if anything they are overly cautious (the opposite of your experience), there's paperwork and it can be time consuming. I don't want any new parents to fear their kid won't be well cared for.

Patten, that's right. . . and yes, I made every attempt to avoid the place but this instance could not be helped. Was I well cared for? Yes. . . .was it great customer service? No, at first. Once it was determined that I was REALLY sick, I had no problem.
 
I spent more than my share of time at both Patten and North Shore. I had surgery, near surgery and a myriad of other bumps, bruises and scrapes. During Plebe year I lived in Patten for a week after surgery because Patten had an elevator and I couldn't get up and down the stairs in the barracks.

I have no complaint about the level of care I received, but like cmakin said customer service and bedside manner was not the best.
 
Back
Top