Chief Electronics Technician Jeremiah Picou
Chief Petty Officer Jeremiah Picou joined the United States Coast Guard in February of 2002. Basic Training was 8 weeks long in Cape May, New Jersey.
After graduation CPO Picou was ordered to the Electronics Technician Training school located in Petaluma, California where he spent 13 months learning how to operate and repair advanced electronic navigation, communication, and radar guidance equipment.
After his training was complete, he was ordered to Boston, Massachusetts where he served 4 years on the US Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba, as a duty electronics technician. His duties included search and rescue coordinator, drug and migrant interdiction, and fishery law enforcement.
After 4 years in Boston, Chief Picou was transferred to Honolulu, Hawaii. There he served at the Electronic Support Unit maintaining the Digital Global Positions Satellite systems. Two years later he was transferred to New Orleans, Louisiana as part of a Maritime Safety and Support Team, where he specialized in the safety and security of our ports and waterways. His duties included military escorts for submarines, and working with President Obama's Security team on two occasions to ensure the local waterways around the President were secure.
When his tour in New Orleans was complete, he opted to gain additional training on the MK92 Gun fire control system. This system allows a radar system to track and shoot down incoming missiles. Once his training was complete, he returned to Honolulu, Hawaii, and served 3 years on the US Coast Guard Cutter Jarvis. He followed this tour with an additional 2 years serving on the CGC Morgenthau, as the communications expert.
When the Morgenthau was decommissioned, he transferred to Pensacola Florida to serve onboard the US Coast Guard Buoy Tender Cypress, where he used his skills in electronics and navigation to repair, replace and properly monitor the navigation buoys in various ports from Corpus Christy, Texas to Georgia, and as far south as Puerto Rico.
Now Chief Picou is stationed in Galveston, Texas where his team of Electronics Technicians maintains the electronics for 9 Coast Guard Cutters and 30 small boats throughout the area.
His time in the Coast Guard has presented him the opportunities to stand alone in the middle of a Redwood Forest, stand where the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, see the OLD North Church where Paul Revere hung his lanterns, to swim in the ocean every day of the year, to scuba Dive in the Mariana Trench, to stand at the top of Mt. Fuji and pondered, to cry at Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki. He has seen eagles flying free over the snow-covered Alaskan Mountains, learned to husk a coconut from children on an Island in the Pacific that can count the number of visitors it gets each year one using only their fingers. He has Crossed the point in the Ocean where the International Date line and the Equator Meet, traveled back in time and relived the same day twice.
He combated a shipboard fire as 50,000 people watched the Blue Angels fly overhead, while none of them knew the danger he and his crew were in, while they still maintained their position. His efforts are credited for saving more than 370 lives from the sea.
Chief Picou credits his successful career in the US Coast guard to the skills and abilities he learned in the Boy Scouts of America, in his progress from Tiger Cub to Eagle Scout, and the love and support of his family, Erin his wife, Cierra his Daughter, and his son Clayton.
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