Coast Guard Selects 'Proven' Command Master Chief for Top Enlisted Position

Phillip Waldron, currently serving as command master chief of the Coast Guard's Personnel Service Center, has been named the 15^th master chief petty officer of the Coast Guard.

Waldron, a native of Plant City, Florida, joined the Coast Guard in 1999, enlisting after high school to serve as a machinery technician. He rose through the ranks as an engineering petty officer aboard several cutters, including the inland buoy tender Buckthorn and the patrol boats Wrangell and Adak in Bahrain.

While serving in the Middle East, he qualified as a boarding officer and engaged in 40 high-risk boardings -- operations that later earned him the United Service Organizations’ 2008 "Coast Guardsman of the Year Award."

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Across a 26-year career, he has earned his small boat coxswain qualification and his cutterman, boat forces operations and company commander insignias. Before serving at Coast Guard Headquarters at the Personnel Service Center, he was command master chief of the Coast Guard's 17^th District, now called the Arctic District.

"His extensive experience and proven senior leadership have prepared him to assume the highest senior enlisted leadership position in the Coast Guard," Acting Coast Guard Commandant Kevin Lunday said in an announcement July 2.

Waldron is a second-generation Coast Guardsman, the son of retired Coast Guard Capt. Phillip Waldron, who, in retirement, worked as city manager of Plant City.

As master chief petty officer of the Coast Guard, Waldron will be the service's top enlisted member, responsible for advising Lunday on personnel issues, including active and reserve forces, and their families.

He will take the reins from Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Heath Jones, who has served since 2022.

The master chief petty officer of the Coast Guard is selected from a pool of applicants, but selection is heavily influenced by the commandant, who relies on the MCPOCG as a trusted adviser on personnel issues. The position has been a four-year post since the early 1980s, but the changeover usually coincides with the change of command of the Coast Guard commandant.

Jones was named the service's 14th master chief petty officer of the Coast Guard, shortly after Adm. Linda Fagan was nominated to become the service's commandant. He previously had served as Fagan's senior enlisted adviser when she led the Coast Guard's Pacific Area.

Fagan was dismissed by the Trump administration earlier this year; Lunday, who has served as acting commandant since Fagan's firing in January, has been nominated for the permanent position but has not yet had his Senate confirmation hearing or vote.

In addition to his sea duties and headquarters work, Waldron has served as assistant engineer officer at Sector Mobile, Alabama, and Station Belle Isle, Michigan. He was a recruit company commander at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, New Jersey, and later served as command master chief at Base Kodiak.

His awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, four Coast Guard Commendation Medals, four Coast Guard Achievement Medals, the Iraq Campaign Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal.

Waldron will assume his new duties during a change of watch ceremony on July 25 in Alexandria, Virginia.

Related: Coast Guard Drops Numbered Districts, Adopts Geographical Names for Operating Areas