This Chouest employee just needs to take the Mate 500 license course for free at the Chouest school and send in the certificate instead of taking the exam at the USCG. We all know that most license schools make sure that virtually everyone passes the end of course exams at the school.
It is a very significant conflict of interest for a private company to be running an in-house license school, that is only open to its own employees, that is authorized by the USCG to issue course completion certificates that substitute for the USCG exams to its own employees. What a farce.
Particularly egregious, is that this private Chouest license school is partially funded by government grants paid for by us taxpayers.