>ESU Kodiak’s National Distress System team

Posted by , Monday, May 11, 2009

>ESU Kodiak’s NDS team oversees the contracted maintenance of more than 40 sites including VHF, HF, microwave links and Command Center watch positions throughout the state of Alaska. With ETC Mike Yrjana as the one Quality Assurance Evaluator (QAE) in Kodiak and AJ Edwards as the NDS Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative (COTR) in Juneau, this dedicated and well trained team works hard to ensure the Coast Guard’s National Distress System radios throughout Alaska stay on the air. This ensures D17’s operational commands are equipped to listen for mariners in distress and conduct command and control of their CG assets. Providing coverage to several thousand square miles in the Gulf of Alaska, Prince William Sound, Bristol Bay and the inside waterways of Southeast Alaska, NDS sites are located in some of the roughest terrain in the state. Given these remote mountain top locations, the ESU Kodiak NDS team and maintenance contractors log as much commercial helicopter travel time as anything else – a necessary hazard of the job but a welcome one instead of the view from an office window or cubicle.