A little-known program has been underway for several months between U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) officers at the area port of Portland, Oregon.

The Officer Exchange Program began January 2006 as a pilot program that would enable CBP and the USCG to share information, cross-train, generate better cooperation between agencies and to establish a professional exchange of ideas along with gaining better understanding of each other’s mission. It was also envisioned that this program would assist in possibly consolidating duties/tasks of both agencies.

One CBP officer and one USCG officer exchanged roles and worked with each other’s agency to gain a better understanding of how each differing organization operates in the marine environment. Officers received intensive training in vessel targeting, fraudulent document training and dual-agency vessel boarding along with counter-terrorism response training, which CBP offers and Incident Command System (a method of handling a situation or event with multiple agencies) training, which the USCG provides.

CBP Officer Gregory Fiorentino and USCG Officer Lieutenant Michael T. Block were the first two officers to participate in this new program. Both officers agree that the program has value and should continue to be offered to other participants in the future. Officer Block said, “I did not know how CBP screened and targeted vessels for inspections, prior to this exchange program. But I now see how we can work together to do a much better job of sharing intelligence, coordinating port security boarding and detentions, agriculture examinations and keeping track of vessels that are in port.”

The three-month pilot-program will now go through an evaluation period before the next two officers are chosen. Officer Fiorentino said, “All of the time spent on the exchange has been valuable in providing me with a clear picture of the USCG duties, procedures, structure and culture. In addition, getting to know the people has been a great personal pleasure.” Upon completion of the evaluation, best practices will be established for this ongoing program.

Innovative programs such as this one demonstrates how agencies can work together to establish and maintain productive work environments through cooperative means by an exchange of human resources. San Francisco Director of Field Operations Nat Aycox said, “The benefits of cross-agency collaboration have shown positive results for CBP and the USCG. We must continue to come up with new and better ideas such as this one to address our priority tasks of keeping terrorists out of the country while facilitating trade and travel.”