Rear Adm. Joseph Servidio oversees Coast Guard inspections, compliance, marine transportation systems, commercial regulations and standards. He is responsible for the development and maintenance of policy, standards and program alignment for the prevention activities of the Coast Guard.

Greetings Maritime Professionals,

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Coast Guard Maritime Commons. This is the first official Coast Guard blog specifically designed to keep you, the maritime community, informed as we work together to promote maritime safety, security, and stewardship.

We recognize our responsibility to provide you with trusted, authoritative information about the Coast Guard policies, regulations, and programs that impact your operations. This blog will supplement information published in traditional and official forums, such as Marine Safety Information Bulletins and the Federal Register, and represents our commitment to better information sharing.

Over the past six months, we reached out to many of you to determine more efficient ways to communicate. Feedback received indicated difficulties in finding updates and information dispersed across locations such as the Federal Register, Homeport, and various Coast Guard websites. Others indicated a strong preference for receiving notification updates rather than having to go and search for them. This blog is our attempt to meet those goals and to improve communications between the Coast Guard and the maritime community.

We begin this blog with content from our Commercial Vessel Compliance program, and will expand it to include additional programs based on your feedback.

We have also included a RSS feed capability in Maritime Commons allowing you to subscribe to the information most relevant to you.

This tool is for you and we want to provide the type of content and information that is applicable and relevant. As Maritime Commons grows we will look to provide a straightforward dialogue, where we will listen as well as speak. As we move forward, please be an active participant and give us feedback to let us know how we are doing and what we could do better.

Looking forward to your comments and our shared safety, security, and environmental stewardship success,

Rear Adm Joseph A. Servidio, USCG

This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official source documents, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These documents remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.