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Cordle, a human resources engineer for Commander, Naval Surface Atlantic (COMNAVSURFLANT), is a retired Navy captain who commanded two ships during his career. Even after taking off his uniform, he continued to dedicate his professional life to helping sailors. Today he is a subject matter expert in worker persistence, shipboard safety, and the use of circadian clock cycles to improve operational performance. His priority is to find the most human-friendly way for the crew to complete a mission.
The George HW Bush Reactor Department and Cordell looked at the use of circadian clock math to learn what the fleet is doing and what needs to be improved, as well as what the space and aviation communities can learn from each other.
“This is about three things: the Navy and making it better, George HW Bush, and it’s about you,” Cordle said. “Only you know how tired you are. Better sleep makes you a better sailor, it makes you a better person, it helps your physical and mental health, and it’s another thing to understand that it’s a lifetime investment. As a leader, I have a responsibility not to use you or abandon you.
While aboard George H.W. Bush — the command he served in his career — Cordell described his first attempt at a circadian clock bill. The biggest issues they faced was the uneven distribution of skills between mealtimes and the rotations.
“Another thing I didn’t do the first time was ask the staff for feedback, which I thought was a good idea,” Cordle said. “If the captain says so, you do it. That never works, but I didn’t know that. So I learned to listen to my people.
Cordell acknowledged that George HW Bush has additional consideration as a surface platform with the aviation and nuclear communities required to carry out special departmental missions in support of the carrier’s and ship’s strike group missions. On board, he said, what works for one community often affects another, so planning and teamwork are needed to balance requirements.
“Crew resilience programs like Circadian Monitoring Bills are important because they’re not only the right thing to do for our team, but they also make us a more lethal warfighting team,” said Captain David-Tavis Pollard, George’s commanding officer. HW Bush. “The planning effort and commitment to creating healthy solutions for the Marines and order fulfillment is not easy, and I am proud of the work our leaders are doing on this initiative.”
Below deck, the nuclear community is known for long hours to make sure the carrier can complete its mission. Under George HW Bush, the reactor department is leading the charge on circadian-based time bills. Capt. Jason DeBlock and Lt. Cm. Kara Vance, the ship’s reactor training assistant, works diligently with her team to create a schedule centered around sleep.
“This is a significant team effort, and I’m impressed not only with the work, but with the results,” DeBlock said. “There is always room for improvement so we will continue to make more changes here and there, although the feedback we get from sailors is that this has been successful for their quality of life and reflected in team performance.”
One of the biggest challenges in the department’s schedule are mandatory exercises. To build a workable time bill for their employees, DeBlock and VanCyce started their time bills with basic protected sleep time, then scheduled meetings, and finally set watch hours. After implementing their shifts, most sailors alternate between standing for one or two hours each day. That allows all observation teams to participate in the exercise and remain ready.
“Having Dr. Cordle on board has been exciting,” said Vancis. “His experience and passion for our revolutionized circadian rhythms is invaluable to the reactor crew and is paying off in the process.”
The Reactor Department worked closely with the ship’s Training and Supply Division leadership and the Command Triad to remove remaining barriers to executing their plans.
“Your approach to taking a whiteboard and throwing away your protected sleep is that the construction part is completely flipped on what anybody says,” Cordle said. “I’ve been focusing on wristwatch math, so it’s great to see it done like this.”
The biggest takeaway from the whole ship was listening to each other and questioning everything.
“Break the stereotypes,” Cordle said. “Take things like mealtimes. When it comes to where you eat, I don’t care if you’re an officer or an enlisted man as long as you eat. What are the barriers because it is a law, rule or regulation and what is a barrier because ‘this is how we have always done it’? That is the most dangerous phrase in the Navy.
Adopting a culture of quality sleep in the Navy will lead to a more productive Navy and more satisfied sailors.
George H.W. Bush provides a flexible, adaptable warfighting capability such as the carrier strike group flag, a national command authority that maintains maritime stability and security to ensure access, deter attack, and protect US, allied and allied interests.
For more information about the George HW Bush Carrier Strike Group, go to Facebook (www.facebook.com/csg10) and (www.facebook.com/ussgeorgehwbush). Instagram (www.instagram.com/ghwbcvn77). LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/carrier-strike-group-ten) and (www.linkedin.com/uss-george-hw-bush-cvn77)
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