6/25/19 Update
Medical Certificate received, but useless without MMC.
NMC is saying the TSA is the problem,
TSA is saying NMC is the problem.
Getting nowhere.
Update 6/28/19
Talked to NMC Security Branch apparently the TSA has a new contractor that handles TWIC. Well the system or new system is messing up and holding about 140 mariners hostage with me being 1 of them. The NMC cannot get my TWIC info and there for they cannot process my application. They said to just keep checking on it weekly.
Now I think is when you document all this and take it to your congress-critters to apply a bit of leverage to the situation.
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I think I might do that. The security guy said it’s above his pay grade. I’m making no money while it just sits in that phase. I just can’t believe after all this time the NMC and TSA never communicated until now. After about 30 calls to NMC and 11 to TSA.
“New contractor”…
New set of alligators in the swamp.
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The NMC and TSA follies continue.
TWIC is a useless failed program. Shut it down.
NMC is a failed program. Shut it down.
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Update 7/1/19
Received a call from TSA this morning and they said they are working on it and will be pushing the info thru to the coast guard.
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Sounds like this is the TSA’s issue. Mine though is still at READY TO BE EVALUATED PQEB.
It’s been in that status for several weeks. Waiting to be assigned.
Hopefully you get moved up soon.
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If you want to get your MMC, hire a good license consultant and pay him double his usual fee
right up front. Let him work his inside contacts at NMC. He has phone numbers that you don’t.
Also get your homestate Senator on this. Go to the Senator’s local field office in person with all your paperwork and correspondence. Each Senator has a contact person at the USCG to facilitate their inquiries.
Put your Senator’s aid in touch with your license consultant. The license consultant is a former USCG licensing expert with credibility that can explain to the Senator’s aid how bad things are at NMC.
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Not really. All inquiries from Congress go to the congressional Affairs office where a staff member tries to figure out what office it belongs to. Its then forwarded via email and share point. A few rounds of “not us, maybe them” usually follows until it eventually ends up with the right office.
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The school I went to has a retired CG guy helping me out. He contacted them a week ago and got some deeper info about the info. But at this point I believe its up to the TSA. I talked to a TSA security guy yesterday who called me and he seems to have it sorted out. I notified the security dept in NMC and they keep checking it. After it clears they said to call back and ask to be put on top of list with PQEB since I’ve been waiting since 1st of April. We will see. If nothing gets better by end of week i’ll take it from there.
My understanding is the backlog to be assigned to an evaluator right now is an average of 25 days and it takes 1-2 days for that process depending on how complicated your case is.
They have a pdf which shows performance and stats for the NMC by following the links here: https://www.dco.uscg.mil/national_maritime_center/
In a lot of ways, I sympathize with them, they have a backlog of around 6500 applications right now, when they typically have around 2000. Down to the stupid government shutdown.
Seriously? The current backlog isn’t due to the shutdown at all. It is simply due to utter mismanagement. The shutdown ran from 12/21 through 01/25. Although it may have been the longest shutdown in history at 35 days, it actually was only 22 work days at NMC and since it was over the typical holiday break, it probably had much less impact than that.
Let’s just say that your numbers are accurate (they aren’t, by the way). NMC says they issued 44,071 MMCs in 2018. That works out to a monthly average of 3,672. I doubt that there is any greater number than that submitted over the holiday period during the shutdown. So how can they blame a backlog of 6,500 applications on the shutdown?
Not to mention that the DHS shutdown only affected civilians. All of the blue-suiters were exempt and would have been at the NMC anyway.
NMC will continue to milk the shutdown as the excuse for their incompetence for years to come.
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But they’re the only ones that actually do anything…
I’m not going to argue whether my numbers are accurate or not when people can look and decide for themselves.
Application inventory: https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/NMC/pdfs/reports/performance/2019/performance_2019.pdf
Very top graph.
I don’t have any knowledge what “blue-suiters” can or can’t do when the DHS is shutdown.
6,500 is not the backlog. It is the total inventory. According to the page you posted, Mariner Credential Application Inventory is the total number of applications in the Mariner Credentialing Program that are currently being processed. The NMC has set a goal of 9000 applications or less in the system at any given time. Backlog of Applications refers to the number of applications in excess of that goal.
You can’t use annual stats as your sole reckoning. Applications in mid winter to late spring are far more numerous than the rest of the year. You also need to consider capacity to process. If your pumps can only match the rate of flooding, you’re not going to make much progress on the water that was there before you started pumping.
“All of the blue-suiters…”? You really have no idea what you’re going on about. There might be, at most, a dozen of them at NMC.
One has to ask why that is all. While I and most mariners have the utmost respect for the mission of the Coast Guard, I doubt anyone believes Coast Guard appropriately prioritizes licensing of mariners.
How many civilians are employed at NMC? I find it most unsatisfying that the help desk is staffed only by contractors. If NMC wants to increase throughput, the first step would be to let applicants talk directly with their examiners.