Local Coast Guard woman nominated for Reserve Enlisted Person of the Year
Story by PA1 Zachary Zubricki, First Coast Guard District
Photo by PS3 James Rogers
According to the Blue Hills Observatory in Canton, Mass., Boston received about 60 inches of snow this winter, and although spring has finally arrived, the weather has stayed cold and damp. It won't last forever, and as spring gives way to summer's warmth, people will flock to local beaches, which are a lot cleaner thanks to Coast Guard reservist Petty Officer 2nd Class Aurea Vazquez.
Working as a Sea Partners Campaign coordinator within Sector Boston's Prevention Department, Vazquez, a marine science technician, organized eight beach cleanup events where 700 volunteers removed hundreds of pounds of garbage from the Massachusetts shoreline last year.
Sea Partners is a Coast Guard-wide effort to develop environmental education, awareness and outreach. "I felt tremendous pride," Vazquez said. "Not only were we able to get people to show up, we were able to bring home the  |
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Coast Guard reservist Petty Officer 2nd Class Aurea |
Vazquez did not limit her work to just beach cleanups. She attended 10 local maritime festivals distributing marine environmental education material to over 1,800 people and conducted 22 marine environmental education presentations, reaching another 1,000 children and adults.
Vasquez said a large part of the outreach effort is to inspire young people.
"We really want to influence the kids," she said. "And we want them to get excited and pass it on to their friends and their families."
Sector Boston Commander Capt. Gail Kulisch saw the success Vazquez was having, and nominated her for the First Coast Guard District's Reserve Enlisted Person of the Year. While Vazquez didn't win, Kulisch noted the "countless thank you letters from classes and community leaders . . . for her time and expertise in showing them the harmful effects of marine debris."
Vazquez joined the Coast Guard in 2006 and became a marine science technician after graduating from MST "class A" school in Yorktown, Va., in the same year. She has a degree from the University of Massachusetts in earth science and geography, and saw enlisting as a way to further pursue her passion for environmental issues.
" ‘A' school was perfectly in line with what I was doing with my school work," Vazquez said. "I wanted to get back into environmental stuff. From a young age, I was always interested in things like cleaning up sidewalks near my home."
Although Vazquez said she loved working as a Sea Partners coordinator, the assignment was temporary, and her Coast Guard career took a different direction when she volunteered for an assignment in the Coast Guard's Eighth District, which covers a large portion of the southern U.S.
Since October of last year, Vazquez has been working at a Marine Safety Unit about 90 miles east of Houston in Port Arthur, Texas.
"We are basically doing port security here," she said, explaining that there is a military load out facility in nearby Beaumont, Texas that ships supplies for the Global War on Terrorism.
Vazquez became boat crew qualified and is proud of her work in the Lone Star State, but the deployment ends Sept. 15. She is excited about returning to her North Shore home in Lynn, Mass, where she organized cleanups at Lynn and Nahant Beach last year.
"I would love to get involved with Sea Partners again," Vazquez said. "The group of people at Sector Boston were wonderful to work with. They were very supportive and they helped to make reservists feel like they fit in."
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