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What if you could find a secure, well-paying government job,
but instead of a cubicle, your office has an endless horizon?
It's definitely not your 9 to 5 job...
Never a dull moment. It's kinda fun.
Instead of a commute, you get to travel around the world?
You go places not many people get to go.
We got some time in at St. Kitts and in the *** Islands.
We're going to take off to French Polynesia and Nuku Hiva.
Places I've never been. Places that are so pristine
that no one in the commercial industry will ever get to.
And what if, instead of a monotonous day-in, day-out shift,
your job was surrounded by cutting-edge technology
and groundbreaking discoveries every day?
You get involved in projects that you read about in the news.
There's always new things you're discovering.
You're surrounded by the latest and greatest technology,
new designs, new engineering systems...
That's what you'll find in a career with
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA -
the premier science agency of the United States federal government.
Aboard NOAA's growing fleet of oceanographic and fishing vessels,
career positions are available at all levels of experience,
including no experience. As a civilian mariner with NOAA,
you'll have opportunities to train and work at sea
aboard state-of-the-art scientific ships, which are commanded
and managed by officers in the NOAA Corps,
as well as civilian officers. The NOAA Corps is a branch of
the uniformed service dedicated specifically to NOAA
and under NOAA's own leadership. You will work in concert with these
officers and visiting science teams in support of NOAA's mission:
to further the nation's understanding of oceans and atmosphere,
and protect lives and property. It's no small thing that we're going out
and that the data we collect is the data that they use
to manage the fisheries. We're part of that,
there's no doubt. That's what we do.
A lot of the science that is done out here
is pretty high-profile stuff
and these ships support that science.
All through college you learn about NOAA as being
a leader in oceanographic research,
and to be able to work for the organization is pretty amazing,
The instruments that protect our coasts from deadly tsunamis
are deployed by NOAA wage mariners.
When disasters occur at sea,
NOAA ships respond, lending their unique capabilities
to mitigation efforts.
And research that shapes national policy on air quality,
climate change, fishery management
and many other key issues could not be maintained
without competent mariners keeping the ship and its crew going.
Without the mariners you will not accomplish any mission.
A deck officer, as myself, drives the ship,
whereas the mariner will be the one
that's actually making sure that we get our mission completed.
We will get out there, they will service the buoy,
they will make sure that we get the fishing lines in and out.
They're the ones that feed us.
They're the ones that collect some of the scientific data
and they're the ones that clean the ship and maintain the ship
and make sure it's running in proper condition.
Most of the vessels in the NOAA fleet remain in U.S. waters.
Home ports are many...
from Woods Hole to Kodiak,
and from Charleston to Honolulu.
Many of the ships in the fleet are new, with more on the way,
which means you'll have the opportunity to work
on high-tech, modernized platforms,
such as acoustically quiet fishery science vessels
and a recently refitted ship devoted entirely to ocean exploration.
When you're bringing stuff up from the ocean
it's really exciting to see these things,
especially stuff you've never seen before. Stuff that looks just like
the weird cartoons and the science fiction stuff.
It's an unbelievable science platform -
anything from acoustics to fish surveys
to charting the ocean bottom
to studying the water column.
Basically, in a nutshell,
it's like the space shuttle but on the ocean.
Most NOAA mariner positions fall under one of four departments:
the deck department,
the engineering department,
the steward department,
and the survey department.
NOAA is a multifaceted organization,
and shipboard missions are very diverse.
But crucial to the success of each one
is the role played by the ship's deck department.
A NOAA ship doesn't depart
or tie up at a dock or arrive on a location
without the deck hands handling lines and weighing anchor.
From fishing trawl nets to oceanographic instruments
to rescue boats to supplies, the deck department is directly involved
with everything that goes on or off a NOAA ship.
Each person that's a part of this crew has a lot of responsibilities,
whether it be being a coxswain running the boats out there
and keeping the scientists safe while they're out there performing their jobs
or you're on deck running the cranes, handling lines.
There's a lot that goes on that you have to be ready for.
It's extremely important to have trust in your shipmates
when you're doing this and you need to be confident
upon what your tasks are and what you're doing.
We have training all the time as well.
When we have our drills it's to keep our skills proficient.
Aboard NOAA's fleet of ships,
officers and scientists will come and go.
But critical to the success of every operation
are the ship's fulltime personnel,
the single greatest resource in the NOAA fleet -
the wage mariner.
Nobody does what NOAA does.
Every trip I come back learning something new.
It’s a great opportunity and a great experience
and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
If you have any interest to going to sea,
working for NOAA would be an ideal opportunity.
I'm positive that this experience will open a lot of doors for me.
If we're going to continue to research our planet
and learn more about global climate change
and all these different things that are going on,
we're going to need some really good sailors
to go out there and retrieve that data.
So I see a bright future in the mariner community here in NOAA.
Knowing that I'm contributing to the larger body of scientific work that's out there,
I find that incredibly gratifying.
Being on a NOAA ship,
it's the intangibles that matter more than anything else.
It's not the paycheck,
it's not the steady employment,
it really is the science.
You get to be onboard with crews from National Geographic,
some of the preeminent scientists in the world doing cutting-edge studies.
Where else are you going to find that?
You won't.
You have a chance to be part of something bigger
than just a commercial organization, and that's what NOAA's about.