[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 75 (Friday, May 24, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E764]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          HONORING THE SERVICE OF VICE ADMIRAL KEVIN M. McCOY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JOE COURTNEY

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 24, 2013

  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise proudly today to honor Vice Admiral 
Kevin M. McCoy, United States Navy, who is retiring after more than 34 
years of faithful service to our nation, culminating in his service as 
the 42nd Commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command, NAVSEA.
  A graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Vice 
Admiral McCoy held several key leadership positions over the course of 
his distinguished career, including the NAVSEA Deputy Commander for 
Ship Design Integration and Engineering, NAVSEA Deputy Commander for 
Industrial Operations, and the 80th Commander of the Portsmouth Naval 
Shipyard in New Hampshire. He also served aboard USS Daniel Webster, 
USS L.Y. Spear, and at the naval shipyards at Mare Island, California; 
Charleston, South Carolina; Puget Sound, Washington; Norfolk, Virginia 
and Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
  Vice Admiral McCoy's initiative, vision and wise counsel were of 
extraordinary value to the Department of the Navy during a period of 
significant change and challenge. Leading the Navy's largest Echelon II 
Command, he oversaw more than 60,000 civil service and military 
personnel at 38 major shore locations nationwide and an annual budget 
of more than $30 billion.
  A leader in the acquisition community, McCoy stewarded NAVSEA's 
associated Program Executive Offices through the design, contracting, 
construction, testing, and delivery of the San Antonio-class Amphibious 
Transport Dock program, the Virginia-class submarine program, the 
Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship program, the Lewis and Clark-class 
Dry Cargo Ammunition program, the Mobile Landing Platform program, the 
Joint High Speed Vessel program, the Zumwalt-class DDG 1000 program, 
the Gerald R. Ford-class Next Generation Carrier program and the USS 
George H.W. Bush. Vice Admiral McCoy was integral to successfully 
transitioning the Littoral Combat Ship from concept to first deployment 
in a fraction of the time required for earlier ship classes.
  Most notably, he was the driving force behind significant 
improvements in performance across the shipbuilding industrial base, 
the execution of maintenance and modernization in both public and 
private shipyards, process changes to improve the overall readiness of 
the Fleet, innovative business practices to garner savings for Navy 
leadership to reinvest in high priority requirements and human capital 
strategies designed to continue the development of the future 
workforce.
  Under his leadership, the naval shipyard community experienced the 
highest workload faced by the four Naval Shipyards in two decades, 
resulting in the execution of 72 major depot-level availabilities, 8 
submarine refueling overhauls and an additional 31 minor maintenance 
periods all supported by a $15.2 billion operating budget. Vice Admiral 
McCoy's leadership and focus was directly responsible for the 
successful execution and completion of the bow wave of submarine depot 
maintenance work begun ten years earlier resulting from an overlap in 
the life cycle maintenance plan of submarine refueling and depot 
maintenance work. The annual rate of submarine days lost due to depot 
availability delays at Naval Shipyards dropped during this period to an 
all time low of 205 days--the lowest value ever achieved. Compared to 
historic averages in the 900-plus day range, this is the equivalent of 
providing the fleet with an additional two submarines for their use 
every year.
  However, his acheivements did not stop there. Vice Admiral McCoy led 
a number of wide-sweeping improvements to ensure that our surface and 
submarine fleets can reach their expected service lives. For example, 
he led a series of initiatives to increase support and improve 
maintenance practices across ship classes, while also modernizing the 
fleet to keep pace with mission requirements. Vice Admiral McCoy was 
also the driving factor within the Navy to improve surface ship 
material readiness. He developed an end-to-end surface maintenance, 
modernization, and sustainment process to better ensure readiness and 
meet service life and total ownership costs. This process led to the 
development of the Surface Ship Maintenance Engineering Planning 
Program, SURFMEPP, which re-established surface ship maintenance 
requirements similar to those used by carrier and submarine 
communities, and the reconstitution of the Regional Maintenance 
Centers. He also spearheaded the stand up of Surface Team One, which 
brought together maintenance and modernization stakeholders, operating 
as a single community, to measure surface fleet materiel readiness. 
Similarly for submarines, Submarine Team One was chartered to develop, 
champion, and improve cross-organizational processes for the planning 
and execution of submarine depot availabilities and provide a structure 
for the management and long term systematic improvement of cost, 
schedule, and quality performance.
  The cornerstones of Vice Admiral McCoy's corporate operations were 
sound corporate strategy, mission focus, a dedicated attention to 
detail, and a devoted commitment to meet fiscal and technical goals. 
Demonstrating a consistent drive to streamline the organization, he 
instituted a process for services contracting reviews that ensures 
constant vigilance of contracting and respect for the tax dollars that 
fund it. This process is now in use across the Navy. Additionally, 
through his efforts as the NAVSEA commander, his organization has 
offered the Navy more than $2.7 billion in Future Year Defense Program 
savings in response to calls for cost reduction through Total Ownership 
Cost reduction projects and corporate efficiencies.
  As important as his achievements in the shipbuilding maintenance 
area, Vice Admiral McCoy also took a leading role in the Wounded 
Warrior Program to offer education counseling, internships, 
apprenticeships and employment to injured veterans culminated in the 
hiring of more than 1,500 Wounded Warriors in the NAVSEA enterprise--
the largest single-organization Wounded Warrior hiring effort in the 
nation. Under his leadership, NAVSEA was recognized as a Top 50 
Employer Award winner four times.
  Mr. Speaker, as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I 
have been fortunate to work closely with Vice Admiral McCoy both at 
many appearances before the committee, and working with him and his 
great staff directly to address workload shortfalls in our submarine 
maintenance programs. He has consistently been accessible, thoughtful 
and forthright, and I am grateful for all his assistance. With his 
retirement, our Navy--and our nation--will lose a tremendous leader and 
friend both to our men and women in uniform and our defense industrial 
base. I am sure though that he will write a new, interesting chapter in 
his life of amazing service to our nation. I thank him and his family 
for his honorable service in the United States Navy and ask my 
colleagues to join me in wishing him ``fair winds and following seas'' 
as he concludes a distinguished naval career.

                          ____________________