Dangerous Goods Training and a Foundation Degree, at the Same Time

The Chief Naval Logistics Officer's Award for the 2017/18 training year was presented for the Supply Chain Branch through the Defence Maritime Logistics School. It goes to the rating judged to have made the most significant contribution to delivering or promoting high quality training and coaching that year. The award recognised my time covering two Royal Navy units at once, from December 2016 to June 2018, while finishing the Foundation Degree I have written about elsewhere on this site. At the time, I was serving as Assistant Fleet Stores Logistics Co-Ordinator. The Royal Navy's own news report of the school's annual award ceremony, published in July 2018, records the award.

One Person, Two Units

By 2018 I was the sole logistics and supply chain point of contact for two Royal Navy units at once. The citation describes a dedicated service delivering support to a wide range of customers and consistently achieving results. It also records the confidence of the chain of command that I could take on additional responsibility without a senior rate above me to whom matters could be escalated. That is the same gap the work-based project I have written about elsewhere on this site was built to close, at unit level.

Explosives, EOD Training, and Operation Tapestry

Part of that additional responsibility was being trusted to handle and administer dangerous goods, including explosives, and to liaise directly with external organisations where needed. The citation records that I went on to deliver dangerous goods awareness training to Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel based in the Portsmouth area. It also records that I maintained Operation Tapestry, the Royal Navy's dangerous goods and explosives safety programme, throughout. Alongside that, I wrote the Standard Operating Procedures the unit did not already have. They covered the demand and return of dive cylinders, moving permanent and limited items back through the reverse supply chain, and categorising stores correctly in the first place.

In civilian terms, this was regulated dangerous-goods compliance and safety-critical training delivery, the domain in which hazardous-materials, explosives-transport and safety compliance functions operate, supported here by procedures written from scratch.

Mentoring Ahead of the Qualifying Course

The citation also credits mentoring alongside delivery, since I was coaching peers and subordinates on MJDI and supply chain knowledge before they sat their Qualifying Course at the RN Supply Chain school. That kind of support rarely shows up as a metric, except later, as other people passing their own courses.

The Same Year as the Degree

The citation itself closes by naming the Foundation Degree in Logistics Management I had just completed with the University of Lincoln, and a Level 5 Award in Management and Leadership presented around the same time. It credits study and delivery in the same sentence.