U.S. COAST GUARD
Doug Affleck watches a computer monitor as he scans in Ward Gagnon’s fingerprints at the Port of Wilmington, Del.,
Oct. 15, 2007. Gagnon was one of several transportation workers who applied for a Transportation Worker Identification
Credential (TWIC) at the Port of Wilmington, the nation’s first port to start taking applications for the card.
itime community, the Coast Guard has worked closely
with TSA to support the program’s implementation.
“It’s been a joint effort,” Kiefer said. “Overall, we’re
extremely pleased. The success [of the initial imple-
mentation] is a direct result of outstanding coordina-
tion, partnering and planning by the maritime commu-
nity with the Department of Homeland Security, TSA
and the Coast Guard. TSA was responsible for the
enrollment and the local [Coast Guard] Captains of
the Port had representatives that worked directly with
TSA at multiple levels.”
Captains of the Port enforce regulations for the pro-
tection and security of vessels, harbors and waterfront
facilities, anchorages, bridges, safety and security
zones, and ports and waterways in 42 zones around
the country, according to the Coast Guard.
For the TWIC rollout, the Coast Guard fashioned a
phased-in zone compliance schedule across its Captain
of the Port zones. Enrollment and issuance of TWIC
began at the Port of Wilmington, Del., in October 2007.
The Coast Guard and TSA expanded the effort over
a seven-month period through the rest of the Captain
of the Port Zones, with the goal of enrolling about 1. 1
million licensed mariners by the April 15, 2009, deadline for implementation. By the end of the year, more
than 1. 3 million mariners had been enrolled.
TSA, which tapped Lockheed Martin to operate its
enrollment and credentialing centers and develop a
call-center and Web site for pre-enrollment, managed
the application process in each region through the
enrollment centers and nearly 500 mobile teams
nationwide.
“The [enrollment] centers were actually opened
well before compliance. The goal was to give each
Captain of the Port Zone about 18 months to enroll,
from the date of starting the enrollment to the implementation in April,” said Murk.
“We had [some] challenges early on during the
height of enrollment, but we worked through them.
There were a lot of people coming into the enrollment
centers. For the number of people that had to be
enrolled, it was very successful. They did have some
impact but not significant impact that affected commerce in any of the port areas,” he said.
Murk said the implementation phase for enrollment
essentially ended at the April deadline.
