Inside The Coast Guard Foundation’s Lifelines For Families

When a cutter launches into a storm or a helicopter hovers over a capsized hull, the story we don’t see is the family at home watching the radar, praying for their service member going into harm's way, or the kid who just switched schools again. This episode pulls back the curtain on the Coast Guard Foundation—the nonprofit lifeline that helps Coast Guard members and their families stay ready, resilient, and focused when it counts most.

We sit down with Ron LaBrec, a 29-year Coast Guard veteran and the Foundation’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, to explore what real support looks like on the ground. Ron shares how targeted emergency assistance steps in after hurricanes, floods, and wildfires so responders can save lives while their families rebuild. He walks us through a powerful education portfolio—scholarships for Coast Guard children, spouse education grants, and workforce development for members—that turns service into long-term opportunity. We also dig into youth enrichment programs that help kids find friends and confidence before the first day of school in a new town.

Mental resilience takes center stage as Ron explains how first-responder stress tests even the strongest teams. From suicide prevention and marriage retreats to crew cohesion activities, the Foundation invests where readiness begins: with people. And with the Coast Guard poised to grow by 15,000 members, the need is rising across housing-challenged communities, high-tempo units, and families who serve alongside the mission every day.

If you care about search and rescue, maritime safety, and the flow of commerce that touches nearly everything we eat, build, and use, this is a must-listen. Hear how the Foundation plans to triple its annual impact and why every donation fuels real outcomes—from faster recovery after disasters to more scholarships at the $5,000 level. Subscribe, share this episode with someone who loves the sea services, and leave a review to help more people discover these stories of service and support.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Larry Zilliox 0:14

Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. And this week our guest is Ron LaBrec. He's the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Coast Guard Foundation. And Coast Guard uh is a favorite of mine. A number of my chefs at the visiting chef program here at the Warrior Retreat are amazing Coast Guard chefs, Chief Johnny Tolman, who's at uh the Naval Observatory, and uh uh Daniel Hughes, Chief Daniel Hughes, who's no longer serving as RA chef. Um, she had been the chef for the chairman in his residence a couple years ago, but she is now in charge of recruiting in Manhattan or New York City. Which it's kind of an odd thing, but I've I've noticed that this is something that the Navy and the Coast Guard do, is that when you make chief, they just think you can do anything. So they'll take you out of the job you have you know five 15 years experience in and put you into something uh new that you have no understanding of. But um it's a little hard to figure out uh coming from the Air Force. But uh uh the other thing is too, uh I want our listeners to understand that um Ron is you know when the Coast Guard Foundation w went looking for somebody to handle their uh communications, they didn't just put an ad in the paper and take the first guy that signed up. Ron has over 29 years experience with the Coast Guard. During that time, he was uh director of public affairs for the Coast Guard, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Recruiting Command, Chief of the National Search and Rescue School, which had to have been pretty cool, and uh assistant superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy. So he I I I don't think there's anybody out there who knows more about the Coast Guard than Ron. So listen, Ron, welcome to the podcast.

Coast Guard Chefs And Morale

Ron LaBrec 2:13

Well, thank you, Larry. It's uh really to be with you, and I'm glad that uh you have a warm spot for the Coast Guard in your heart there, and I'm glad our Coast Guard culinary specialist chiefs are uh are helping you out there. Um they're wonderful folks, you know, having served on several Coast Guard ships. You know, it all comes down to how uh how good the food is in terms of uh promoting morale and keeping everybody fueled. So I'm glad you're experienced in that as well.

Larry Zilliox 2:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're phenomenal chefs. I mean, both of them have been military chefs of the year. Uh Johnny Tomen um won the American Culinary Federation Chef of the Year in 2024. So uh having competed against some of the best chefs in the country, uh, he was number one. So take every opportunity I have to talk to uh folks about military chefs and because I don't think they realize how good they are and how important it is to eat good food when you're working 12-hour shifts, you know. So it it is if if the food's not good, the morale's not good.

Ron LaBrec 3:18

You said it. Yep. And I'm glad uh Chief went up to the recruiter in charge, I take it, probably at the Manhattan recruiting station. It's pretty funny when I became the commanding officer of the recruiting command for the Coast Guard. I too had no experience of recruiting. Um but uh but we certainly learned a lot and it's wonderful. It's a great leadership opportunity uh for a new chief to do that in a interview public and bringing aboard the newest service members, the next generation of Coast Guard members. So I I trust she's gonna do great in her legacy will endure and the new members that she brings aboard.

What Recruiting Really Takes

Larry Zilliox 3:55

Yeah, uh she actually came back from New York City uh in November when we do our annual home away from home dinner, where we invite about 70 wounded warriors and their families out for a home cooked Thanksgiving dinner this Sunday, the weekend uh before Thanksgiving. And Danielle came down from New York City to help with that. And I I I think she misses doing that kind of thing, but I think too, she's very excited about her new role. And um, you know, it's a it's an important role too. I think uh a lot of uh folks out there, not our military listeners, but a lot of listeners think that, you know, you just show up uh at a recruiting office and you know, they get a piece of paper out and you sign your name. Next thing you know, you're off to basic. And it just doesn't work like that. Um and the Coast Guard, like the Air Force, they're picky about who gets that privilege to be a member of their branch of the service. And so it's a it's an extremely important role. What did you find was the hardest thing when you were in charge of the um uh recruiting command? What did you find the hardest uh thing was for you to do?

Ron LaBrec 5:13

That's uh that's a a really interesting question. So we had about 70 to 80 recruiting offices across the country in um you know, all around the coast, but then also in you know Middle America, um, trying to recruit folks from all over the nation to serve. And probably the biggest, I don't know if it's a challenge, but the biggest thing that we had to um communicate to the many uh applicants and prospects and their their families was kind of exactly what you said. You know, it's it shouldn't be a decision taken lightly. It's a wonderful opportunity to serve in the Coast Guard or any of our uh military services in terms of the work you get to do, the people you get to serve with, and uh, and the skills that you acquire. Um, but it's not for everybody, right? And so, you know, to be informed and make sure that um these young people and their support networks understood what they were getting into and were excited about it, were prepared for it, making sure that they were uh physically prepared um for the rigors of boot camp. Um that was really the biggest part, right? It's just making sure that the fit was good. Because when we brought somebody aboard, we really wanted to make sure they were successful. We obviously had to make mission, right? We had to bring the people aboard that we needed, but we wanted to make sure everybody was gonna be successful at boot camp and then were excited about their careers as they went out into the fleet. You know, the last thing you would we would want to do is to sell somebody uh a story that wasn't gonna match their reality because then you just would have a you know a person that was was not satisfied, disgruntled, um, and wasn't uh you know, kind of up for the challenge. So it was really it, it was it was about uh educating and then uh helping people make the right decision while still bringing in uh all the folks that uh that we needed to support the fleet.

A 29-Year Career To Foundation Work

Larry Zilliox 7:03

Yeah. So 29 years. That's a long time. Well, how did you make the decision that it was 29 years and not 30?

Ron LaBrec 7:14

Well, that uh brings us to the topic of today's conversation, the Coast Guard Foundation. You know, it was it was funny, Larry. Um, I never planned to make a career of the Coast Guard. It wasn't that I was uh I had an objection to it, it just wasn't like a long-term plan that I had. I graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in in 1989, uh many, many years ago, and uh went to a ship and had an incredibly great first tour on the Coast Guard Cutter Gamble, uh, which was out of New Bedford, Massachusetts at the time. We did mostly uh drug interdiction enforcement as well as some uh fisheries enforcement, making sure the fish stocks were in good shape and just had a wonderful, wonderful uh time there. And so, you know, with every step of the way, every tour, um, I just kept having more and more fun. And they let me do different things and new things. And then uh I enjoyed the people I was with and enjoyed uh the mission. And then 29 years later, I knew that I was gonna have to find something uh else to do because you can only serve 30 years as a commissioned officer unless you uh enter the flag corps. And um, I was up at the Coast Guard Academy, and the then president of the Coast Guard Foundation, who is now uh my boss, Susan Ludwig, came in to talk to me and the superintendent of the academy about the support that the foundation was providing to the Coast Guard Academy, which we were well aware of, and as well as the support that they were providing um to the broader Coast Guard all around the country. And as she was having this discussion, she explained her vision and her plan to grow the foundation to a much larger organization with much more impact on the Coast Guard. And she explained how she was opening up uh new fundraising regions uh around the country to kind of power that. It just kind of, you know, I had known about the Coast Guard Foundation for many years uh as a Coast Guard member. Um, but I was thinking that's kind of interesting. She's gonna grow, it's gonna have more of an impact. I knew I needed to do something else within the year, you know, I was probably gonna retire at 30. And so I went back and talked to some of my mentors and some folks and said, I wonder, you know, if I should throw my hat in that ring and see if uh I could do that job because then I could do something different, but still support the team as it as it is, you know, support the Coast Guard. I had done public relations work and some training work and recruiting, obviously. And so, you know, I was able to interact with uh um you know people outside the service and uh and I had certainly uh uh raised money in a philanthropic sense, but I had you know spoken about my programs and my units and advocated for funding from within the Coast Guard. And so I thought I could probably do a pretty good job. And thankfully, the um feedback from my network was like, yeah, you you can do that job, Ron. And so I uh reached out to Susan and the foundation, and they didn't have a Coast Guard member on staff at the time. And um they did have uh a couple board members who were uh prior uh Coast Guard flag officers, and I had worked for both of those flag officers. And so they uh they gave me uh, you know, I guess a good report card, and so we gave it a try. And so I became the mid-Atlantic fundraiser for the Coast Guard for three years and uh had a wonderful time learning philanthropy and fundraising, and then moved over into this communications role, which is really something I had done repeatedly, the Coast Guard. So that's why it was 29 years and not 30. Uh an opportunity to stay on the team long term uh versus retiring and then having to find another job.

Transition To Philanthropy And Life After Uniform

Larry Zilliox 10:48

And so you retired and stepped right into that role. What was your transition like? Um, you didn't quite leave the tribe behind like a lot of service members do. But for you, uh, what was that like for you personally?

Ron LaBrec 11:04

It's a it's a really good question. So I started uh two weeks after my retirement ceremony I started uh uh with the Coast Guard Foundation. And, you know, to your point, the fact that I had 33 years of of uh experience in the Coast Guard was very helpful, right? I mean, I had all that down, I had the relationships, I knew the structure, I knew what was needed, um, but I had to learn fundraising. So that was uh a big transition. Uh learning how to engage with donors, learning to understand that you know donors are wonderful people who want to have an impact beyond their job and their family. They want they they want to help others. And to help those people enjoy that in giving to the Coast Guard Foundation, we'd like to say it's like you're bringing the joy of philanthropy to the to the people that uh are looking to support good causes. And so you're looking to marry up their interest um in philanthropy with the needs that uh your organization has. And in supporting the Coast Guard and Coast Guard members and their families, there are uh a number of uh really important needs that we we supported the Coast Guard Foundation. And so that was kind of a transition for me, right? Helping to you know make those connections and helping to uh help fund the organization. I I guess the other big transition was, you know, for the first time since I was 18 years old, you know, it wasn't 24-7 accountability and you know, where are you and always, you know, just all the things that go with military service. Um, I had to figure out, you know, like like all of our transitioning folks, you know, what do I wear today? Simple things like that, but on a much broader level, you know, I think folks get out of service, you know, they they want to still have an impact, they want to still have a mission. They spent you know, three decades in the service. It was probably about the mission, you know. And so I was lucky that I got to pour my uh efforts into uh a mission that supported my my former um uh shipmates. So overall, I think it was a good transition, but there's a there's a significant kind of mental shift when you go from a military organization to any other. And I would say that took me a year to three years to fully embrace that uh that change.

Larry Zilliox 13:18

Did you make a VA claim, disability claim?

Ron LaBrec 13:22

Yeah, so uh before I um you know before I retired as part of the transition, um, the Coast Guard make sure that you get your kind of your last physical, and they um uh you know make sure that you, you know, this knee, that ankle, you know, the different thing parts that are broken, they make sure they write all that up so you can provide that to the to the VA. So yeah, I did.

Why Donate: Coast Guard Missions Explained

Emergency Assistance For Disasters

Larry Zilliox 13:44

Good, good, good, good. Um, listeners, uh, I want to direct your attention to the web page. It's uh it's pretty simple. It's Coast GuardFoundation.org. I want everybody to go to the web page. There is a red donate button right up in the right hand corner, like all veteran service organizations, but as soon as you land on the play page, it's gonna they're gonna splash a uh a give uh little thing at you there. And I encourage everybody to uh donate. I know it's something that I I encourage everybody to do for every VSO that comes on. But this is this is special. You know, I I don't really think there's a lot of people out there that don't realize the depth of what the Coast Guard does. They just occasionally see a news story about uh maybe a d a big drug bust at sea by a cutter or uh during a national disaster, you know, it's the Coast Guard helicopters that are above rescuing people. Um but uh you know they also um do a lot of uh maritime work with uh the buoys and and everything that's out there to keep the flow of of all these goods coming to the United States and the shipping in at least some sort of order. And uh it's just it's just amazing the the work that they do. And there are a couple of things that the foundation does that I really wanted to highlight and talk to you about. Number one was emergency assistance for Coast Guard members. Can you talk a little bit about how how that helps service members?

Ron LaBrec 15:22

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so you know, at the Coast Guard Foundation, we focus on Coast Guard members and Coast Guard units. Um, and in that way, we really uh kind of support the Coast Guard as a whole in terms of meeting its mission. Um, our our main areas of focus are readiness with the member, their resilience, and then their families, because that allows them to serve. And so, you know, when you look at all of our programs, of course, across education, morale and wellness, and emergency and tragedy assistance, that emergency response um mission that you mentioned really hits all those things, right? Readiness, resilience, and families. So if there's a hurricane or flooding or fires, you know, all the different types of emergencies that can impact communities around the country, and there's a Coast Guard unit in the vicinity, in most cases, those Coast Guard members are going to be responding to that emergency. Um, obviously, you you know, you mentioned hurricanes is the obvious example. Um, but uh because you know, they're along the coast and there's water and wind involved, and so the helicopters and the boat, but even um flooding, just recently in western Washington, you may have heard there was um significant rainfall and flooding and mudslides uh occurring in the western part of that state. And Coast Guard units uh responded to uh to save people and rescue people. Um, and so as those members are responding, you know, their families and their homes and their possessions and vehicles are often being impacted as well. And uh, you know, they're losing their homes and and you know, suffering from the same uh disaster. And so what we try to do is we try to provide them a level of emergency support so that they know that their families will be, you know, will have access to resources, they will be taken care of, and they will be able to rebuild, they will have support in rebuilding. And we do this with other, you know, there's other organizations that provide distorted as well. And we partner with them and we do that so that the Coast Guard member can keep their uh mind on the mission. They can respond, they can support the local community, they can help rebuild that local community, knowing that there's people standing behind them to help them rebuild. And so it's a really important program for us. Um let's see, 2024, we did a million and a half dollars, over 600 families we supported through um emergency assistance. And that's because the hurricane season, as you recall, remember in 2024 was really devastating. Uh, a couple of storms hit Florida within 30 days of each other. We actually had some families that we supported twice in that year because the Gulf Coast of Florida got hurt hurt so bad. Um, this past year in 2025, there were no major hurricanes that made landfall and caused destruction, but there were plenty of smaller disasters. The uh flooding, I mentioned there was flooding in Juneau, where there's a large uh June, Alaska, where there's a lot of Coast Guard station because a glacial dam broke and it flooded uh part of the town. There were obviously the wildfires out west. So we uh supported about 44 families last year uh through those disasters.

Larry Zilliox 18:25

Does the foundation do any policy work or uh advocating on a congressional level for uh you know benefits for for its members? I'm thinking that the Coast Guard probably has the same problems other branches do when it comes to housing and housing allowance. Um are you guys doing any of that?

Awareness Over Lobbying: Public Understanding

Ron LaBrec 18:47

No, so we're a social services organization, so we don't do any policy work or lobbying. Um, but we what one of our missions is though to um acknowledge Coast Guard service and Coast Guard missions and try to help the public understand them so that the public understands that the Coast Guard is an important service for uh security and for safety, as you mentioned, uh in the maritime realm, as well as for the economic prosperity of our nation. Um, you know, probably 90% have heard that number of the things we use and touch and and burn and eat and you know, things that that come in contact with us over the course of a day have probably come over the water at some point. And so the Coast Guard facilitates all that um commerce, which contributes trillions of dollars uh to the GDP and you know affects millions of jobs. Um, and so while we don't do the lobbying, we try to um basically help people understand how important the Coast Guard is.

Family Strain, Housing, And Support

Larry Zilliox 19:43

Well, I don't know how they can't understand that. I think most people think of the Coast Guard that the one job that stands out to all of them is rescue swimmer and the amazing, amazing bravery and work that they do um to help people who are in trouble when they're out on the ocean. I like to go back to l what you said before about um helping the families, because uh, you know, the families served along with the service member, and it's hard. It it is hard on families to move, especially kids, you know, and you know, some of the places where you uh have uh Coast Guard stationed, um housing is a huge issue, especially in Florida and and um you know areas like that where uh it's hard to find housing or it's really super expensive, and they have to live a good distance from the base uh just to be able to afford housing based on their housing allowance. So it's a strain on the entire family and and God bless you you guys for for helping them out. The other thing that jumped out to me is you've got a scholarship program, which I want our listeners to know about. How does that work? Is that for the kids? Is it is it for the service member, the spouse?

Scholarships, Spouse Education, And Youth Programs

Ron LaBrec 21:06

Yeah, uh so Larry, I I just want to echo what you said about you know families serving too. We say that all the time. You know, the members sign up, but the families serve right alongside them, uh, you know, through the deployments, through, you know, shift work, uh, living at remote units, those frequent PCSs that all military families endure. And that's why we focus so much on uh family support as well. You know, one of the things that's different with the Coast Guard is most of their members and most of their units are out in the communities they serve, right? There are Coast Guard bases, but they're very small by um uh kind of like the traditional sense of what a military base is. And so most folks live out on the economy. Um, they live in the communities, their kids are going to the community schools. In many cases, those remote units, they may not even have uh kind of an adequate housing stock in that town, right? That can allow for people to rent. Or as you said, in some cases they're in uh they're in the Gulf Coast of Florida and the housing is very expensive. So they're driving. And so all those things, you know, we try to um support the families in in any way that that either helps them. Thrive in a military life, a military family life, or helps their member be ready for their job, or helps them build community where they are, right? Because they don't have that base to build that community. And so we try to bring people together, families together, so they can find that community wherever they are, big base, small, small unit. Our education programs really serve the entire uh the entire base there. So we have education programs and grants for members. We have workforce development classes we provide for members. Um we provide spouse education grants for the spouses of uh members. Because you know, your your folks are probably well aware of the spouse employment gap, right, between a military spouse and any other person. You know, at one point I think it was 25% distance between the employability of uh of a uh you know just a person and a military spouse. Um it's huge. And so we we provide those grants to at least help them uh get get their degree, get a new certification, kind of reinvent themselves for wherever that that PCS move is taking them. And then lastly, the Coast Guard children, we run uh youth enrichment programs for children when they're um in grade school and in middle school and high school so that they can go to camps uh during the summer. Um, you know, it's very hard when you're moving into a new community and you show up the first day of school in August or September and you don't know anybody.

Speaker 2 23:40

Right.

Ron LaBrec 23:41

And so to be able to let those kids go to camp over that summer, maybe meet some kids, make some friends, start to feel comfortable in their new environment, make a big difference. Um, and then beyond the youth enrichment uh program, we run college and trade school um scholarships for the children of Coast Guard members and retired Coast Guard members. And um those are incredible. We I think we had over 266 kids we offered scholarships to last year. And the scholarships range from $2,500 to $5,000. And you know, one of the things we're working to do as part of that growth that I mentioned earlier is serve more and more Coast Guard kids, provide more scholarships, and then up the amount. You know, college is incredibly expensive. And $5,000 helps, uh helps a great deal. Um and so we're gonna try to get every kid a $5,000 scholarship, whereas right now it's about half of our scholarships are at that level. So our education program is one we're very proud of, proud that it helps the whole family because everybody serves, like you said. Um, and we're proud of the fact that it not only helps kind of the Coast Guard member, their spouse, and their children, but it helps the broader community, right? Because you're helping people gain skills, you're helping people be successful in life. And you know, with in the case of the youth enrichment program, we're helping fund those those uh those summer camps, those YMCA camps, sports camps. You know, so we're we're contributing to the to the communities where uh these Coast Guard families live. So there's a lot of kind of ripples to that stone in the pond, and we're very proud of that program. So thank you for bringing that up.

Strategic Growth And Mental Resilience

Larry Zilliox 25:20

Yeah. Wow. Well, listeners, again, the web page is Coast Guard Foundation.org. Uh, go ahead and uh go to it, uh, hit that donate button, bang on it, give what you can, because they're gonna take that money and they're gonna use it for some pretty amazing programs to support uh active duty Coast Guard members and their families. They have a number of different awesome programs, events. If there's a Coast Guard event in your area, if you live along the coast, go to it. Uh at a minimum, go tour those uh cutters uh that are in port sometimes, and you know, they they have like an open house, and you can go talk to them and you know, at a minimum say thank you for everything that they do, because uh they may not touch your life directly, but I guarantee you they are touching your life indirectly. And this is a great way for you to give back by making a donation and helping the foundation out to support all their programs because uh it cost it costs a lot of money. Uh uh nonprofits, they're all you know, need donations and funding. But the kind of programs that they have and looking to give uh all the kids a five thousand dollar scholarship, that could be the difference between that child, you know, being able to go to college or to go to a trade school, you know. So uh think about that as a way to give back and you know, check out their social media and you know, drop the link to the Coast Guard Foundation website in your social media and let everybody know about it. And if you're a Coast Guard member and you need help, this is the place to go. You go right to the webpage Coast GuardFoundation.org and you can start the process of getting some assistance right from that webpage. Um don't wait. If you have a question, contact them. Um, don't think about it. Don't ask somebody else who you work with. You might not get the right answer. You know, go directly to the source at the foundation and uh and see see if uh they're able to help you. Where do you see the foundation in say three to five years? Are there programs that you'd like to see implemented that you you don't have operational at this time or certain ones you'd like to expand? What what do you what's the vision look like?

Coast Guard Expansion And Future Needs

Ron LaBrec 27:47

Yeah, Larry, that's a great question. Thank you. We are we are currently in the middle of a five-year strategic plan, and our goal is to triple our support that we provide to the Coast Guard. If you look a couple of years back, it was about $5 million in support annually. We're looking to stabilize that in two years at $15 million annually and then grow from there. And so when you look at that as kind of the immediate goal, um, every one of our programs, right, whether it's the education and workforce development, our morale and wellness and mental resilience support or the emergency support that I um I talked about, every one of those programs is limited only by the amount of funding we have. We have growth opportunities across all of them. And so that's why we put this plan in place to try to uh address kind of that unmet need of being able to support more Coast Guard members and being able to um support them at enhanced levels. Um so that's part of it. And then when we look at future programs, to your point about that, we um we work to maintain uh an amount of funding every year that we can use for things that come up during the year. So, you know, two years ago it was unprecedented hurricanes and being able to surge our resources to that is the greatest need because folks didn't have homes, didn't have cars, and needed and needed immediate support. Um, during the pandemic, if we look back at that, we maintained uh funding so that we could surge support to the major Coast Guard cutters. Because you may you may uh recall, so ships were still getting underway, Navy ships and Coast Guard ships. And what those crews had to do is they had to isolate for I think it was two weeks to four weeks before the ship got underway, had to go do their mission, and then uh had to isolate a bit when they came back. And so that was incredibly taxing on those crews. So we surged support to those major cutter crews to be able, when they're underway, you know, to have some morale and wellness activities and have things on board that would um, you know, provide them them some relief. When you look at things for the future, mental resilience continues to be an important, um and an important program for all the military services. We know about the suicide, uh, I don't know if I call it an epidemic, but the suicide crisis that occurs with members and and veterans. You know, some of the statistics we've seen are that Coast Guard members suffer the same amount of kind of emotional trauma because of their first responder duties that some folks may experience coming back through a combat zone. You have to remember a lot of our members are searching for people that are have had boating accidents, they're recovering bodies, um, they're dealing with family members who are grief stricken because you cannot find uh you know their family member. And so there's a lot of mental wear and terror that occurs on our people uh who do that in in and out. And um, so we we're really focused on mental resilience, working with the Coast Guard, providing kind of measures of excellence. The Coast Guard's investing in this area uh a lot, um, but we're working with them to support their investment through suicide prevention training, through marriage counseling, keeping those uh in in uh retreats, marriage retreats, keeping those marriages strong, because that's an important part of the members' mental resilience. And then working with crews uh to have resiliency outings and different things that can help that crew maintain their free decor, their camaraderie, but also be able to know as a crew that they can do something really difficult and then be able to transfer that to their operational realm. And so mental resiliency is probably uh one of the areas that we're gonna lean into uh more and more over uh the next several years. Um the field commanders are telling us that's that it's important. Coast Guard you know, headquarters and the programs there are focusing more on it. So that's an important one for us. And then probably lastly, we we always say that we try to meet the most important need that the Coast Guard may be. And I've given you some examples, um, but we're not quite sure, you know, maybe what that will be five years from, right? Yeah, one of the one of the things is the Coast Guard's growing under the Um Reconciliation Act last year, um, and under uh a plan called Force Design 2028, which the Coast Guard has put in place. Coast Guard's expected to grow by 15,000 members in the next several years. That's a 30% increase in its its military workforce. And so with that, we know there's going to be more coasties, more coasting families uh that need support, just like the current ones, and there may be some new needs there. So we're trying to um grow so that we can be ready for what the next need is, not just the ones we see on the immediate horizon.

Larry Zilliox 32:25

Well, listeners, again, the webpage is Coast GuardFoundation.org. They need all the help that they can get. So please visit the page, share the page, and uh go ahead and donate. Uh donate what you can uh to help because uh as you just heard, there's gonna be more um hiring, more Coast Guard families that are gonna need assistance. So this is a great way to give give back. We really appreciate it. So, Ron, thank you so much for coming on and and telling us about all the great work that you guys do.

Closing Thanks And How To Help

Ron LaBrec 32:59

Well, Larry, I want to thank you for your interest in the Coast Guard, your support of the Coast Guard. I want to thank you for introducing the Coast Guard Foundation to your listeners. We like to say we're the premier Coast Guard supporting organization. We've been around since 1969. Um, we've, you know, we've been supporting the Coast Guard a long time. We're a four-star charity navigator charity, platinum candid seal of transparency. So we're very proud of uh the work that we do, but we couldn't do it without uh great patriotic uh Americans and generous people. So I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank your listeners for the support they provide to all the military services and all the military members. Um, you know, as a as a veteran, we do it because of you all. Uh, that's why we serve. We serve for our country, we serve for our neighbors and for our families. And uh so your support means everything. So thank you.

Larry Zilliox 33:49

Well, listeners, we'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at wheelingwarriors.org. We're on all the major podcast platforms on YouTube and Reefs Across America Radio. Until then, thanks for listening.