Now available! - The March edition of our award winning newsletter, The Helmsman. Go to our Newsletters page or click here.

---

   Just in! - Photos from our Annual Coast Guard Easter Egg Hunt and BBQ. Go to our Gallery page or click here.

---

President's Message

Broward Council Members and Friends As the first newsletter of 2026, we have a lot to catch up on. We started the year with our January dinner meeting where we installed our officers for 2026 and heard from CWO2 Brad Bishop, the Commanding Officer of the USCGC BERNARD C WEBBER, one of our four adopted Fast Response Cutters at Base Miami Beach. Brad was able to fill us in on the many missions of the cutter that have kept them very busy off our coasts and in the Caribbean. The Council made a donation to the WEBBER's MWR fund to defray the cost of new unit ball caps since the crew was swapped from the USCGC PAUL CLARK that is now in the shipyard for a major overhaul. Our Council also formally adopted the USCGC WINSLOW GRIESER, a Fast Response Cutter that moved to Miami last year as part of the same overhaul program. Our March Dinner meeting featured Joe Farrell, Jr., US Coast Guard Vietnam veteran and owner of Resolve Marine, as our guest speaker. Joe filled us in on his history from growing up in Boston to service as a diver on a Coast Guard icebreaker and supervising explosives loading in Vietnam. After leaving the Coast Guard, he founded Resolve Marine, which has grown to one of the largest marine salvage companies in the world. We were fortunate that a contingent of cadets from the Taravella NJROTC program were able to join us as well. That was followed by a very successful Easter Egg Hunt and Barbeque for Coast Guard families on Saturday March 28th at Coast Guard Station Fort Lauderdale. Shelley and her team of volunteers did an outstanding job pulling it all together, supported by a generous donation from Council member Bob Giacin. Since the Department of Homeland Security and Coast Guard still doesn't have a FY2026 budget, there is still much uncertainty over whether the Coast Guard military members will continue to get paid, the Council provided gift cards to each family attending. We were also proud to attend two recent events at our adopted units where the Coast Guard Southeast District's Enlisted Persons of the Year were honored by the District Commander, RADM Chamie. The active-duty award recipient was ME2 Michael Hand from TACLET South, and the Reserve recipient was AMT1 Haylee Davalos from Air Station Miami. Our congratulations to both for a job WELL DONE! We will be joining the Fort Lauderdale Council at their next dinner meeting on May 20th, and our next dinner meeting will be on Thursday, June 11th at Tropical Acres, featuring CAPT Aaron Ortenzio, Commanding Officer of Coast Guard Air Station Miami. CAPT Ortenzio will fill us in on what is going on at our largest adopted Coast Guard unit, and you won't want to miss it. Finally, we are still accepting payments of local dues. Although voluntary, these funds allow us to continue supporting our adopted unit and youth programs, so please do consider a contribution. In closing, this is your Council, so please do let me know if you have any questions, comments, or ideas on what we should focus on. It is also coming up on summer transfer season, so we wish safe travels for any members leaving our adopted units and welcome any new members. Best regards, Glenn A. Wiltshire Capt. USCG retired Council President

---

Local Dues Have you sent yours in yet?     Each year, we ask our members to pay local dues for our Council and if possible make an additional donation.  Your local dues provide direct financial support to the Council which enables us to carry on our mission here in South Florida. As we have done in the past, we are providing a registration form that enables members to designate additional funds to be used for Council activities. The form lists the names of the military units we support as well as several major events we host. We hope that you might consider making a donation along with your dues in order to help us to continue these activities.  The form for this purpose is available by clicking here. New! - This year in addition to writing a check, our Treasurer has set up the means to send in our dues using the internet and a credit card. To take advantage of this new feature simply click here! However you decide to contribute, we hope you will be able to complete this New Year's chore soon. With the pandemic and other changes, some of the traditional revenue sources we have enjoyed over the years are no longer available to us. Thus making local dues more important than ever.

   All of our Newsletters are available online! - Past and present editions of our award winning newsletter, the Helmsman, are available on our newsletters page.

---