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Sept 24, 2009

Petty Officer Erik Swanson

(510) 289-5794

Patricia Stolle was a 1970s farm girl from Petaluma, Calif. She slopped the hogs and fed the chickens alongside her four brothers and three sisters. Waking at 3 a.m. to begin the chores, there was no separation between men and women’s work on the farm. As a young woman she worked long hours, got dirty and often heaved heavy bales of hay and bags of feed.

The early mornings and long hours prepared her for the Coast Guard where at least she enjoyed sleeping in until 5 a.m. When she joined, she couldn’t have known the profound positive affect a farm girl from Petaluma could have on the entire Coast Guard workforce.  

“I joined the Coast Guard to run away from the farm!” Master Chief Petty Officer Patricia Stolle laughed.

Serving in the Coast Guard for more than 35 years, Stolle overcame many struggles, and left a legacy of historical achievements and contributions to the service.

Stolle enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1974. A year earlier, legislation was passed to begin integrating women into active duty and reserve forces. She experienced the Coast Guard’s transition from an all-male service to the equal opportunity organization it is today.

Her boot camp drill instructors were not accustomed to incorporating women into the training program and went out of their way to avoid favoritism and treat everybody equally, said Stolle.

"The women were actually given men’s names. I was Sam! We were treated like the guys - 50 pushups and 50 sit-ups for everybody,” said Stolle.

Many of the drill instructors assumed that female recruits would be physically inferior to the male recruits, and believed they would require assistance to accomplish the 12-week program, Stolle explains.

“Frankly, there were quite a few women, including myself, that didn’t need any help,” Stolle insists. “I was a farm kid – I could definitely out wrestle some of the male recruits!”

Despite their differences, the men and women in her company jived. The women would iron uniforms and shine boots for the men, while the men cleaned the women’s rifles.

"After eight or nine weeks, we were one big family," said Stolle.

After boot camp, Stolle was sent to Training Center Petaluma to attend yeoman school, one of four available schools offered to women at that time.Yeomen are administrative specialists, managing payroll certification and delivery, preparing military travel orders and arranging transportation, and maintaining files and administrative records. 

While she attended Training Center Petaluma, many women excelled at yeoman school, typically offering good typing and organization skills. For that reason, the Coast Guard’s workforce welcomed them into their ranks and many excelled in their careers, said Stolle.

“A female yeoman wasn’t under the same pressure or discrimination as a female serving in an operational assignment,” Stolle reminds.

After graduating from yeoman school, Stolle was sent to her first unit at Governors Island, N.Y., to work at the Coast Guard Third District.  Although succeeding at school and feeling welcomed into her career, she soon felt discriminated for being a woman while participating in the Ceremonial Honor Guard.

After seven months of marching and spinning a rifle in the honor guard, Stolle was finally good enough to participate in a large parade.  Just days before the parade, her honor guard company was practicing on the golf course where the Coast Guard Third District commander happened to be playing golf. He noticed Stolle wielding her ceremonial rifle, and the next day she was notified that she would not participate in the parade and was pulled from the team altogether. In 1976, the law stated women were not permitted to bear arms, which the commander interpreted accordingly.

 “The military taught us how to shoot a rifle and now we can’t bear arms?” Stolle said confusingly. “It was the first time I felt discriminated because I was a girl.”

While stationed at her first unit, Stolle advanced to petty officer 1^st class in three years and two months. Subsequent assignments included instructor duty at yeoman school at Training Center Petaluma where she advanced to chief petty officer in 1983. Soon thereafter, she received orders to report to the Coast Guard Cutter Mellon making her the first female chief petty officer to serve at sea.

“After eight years of skirts and panty hose while serving at Coast Guard administrative offices, I was convinced I would never experience sea duty, said Stolle. “I was petrified of the thought of leaving my husband in charge of the kids and finances!”

Stolle managed her full-time career, attended college and took care of her two young boys and finances. She wanted to show her husband, Doug, she was capable of doing it all but soon recognized that he was capable of doing a great job of staying home to care for the boys and manage the finances, said Stolle.

“If it wasn’t for him, I would have done 20 years and got out,” said Stolle thankfully, “he made being in the Coast Guard a lot easier.”

When times got tough, Doug decided to quit his job for a while to stay home with the kids. Throughout the years, he would sacrifice his career to stay home or endure low starting wages or layoffs as an auto mechanic whenever being forced to transfer jobs as the spouse of a military member, said Stolle.

“Without the love and support from Doug and her two sons, Stolle’s many contributions would not have been possible,” said Rear Adm. Jody Breckenridge, commander of Coast Guard Pacific Area. She spent more than 16 years as a master chief petty officer, more than 40 percent of her entire career, and there are very few people who can claim that.”

 Senior Chief Petty Officer Toby Vice, the command chief of the Mellon, helped Stolle adjust to being the first woman to serve as a chief aboard a cutter and become a valuable member of the male dominated Chief’s Mess, the place where chief petty officers discuss and decide upon important issues that affect the enlisted workforce of the cutter. She was proud to serve as a role model and lead the junior women aboard the cutter, said Stolle. 

Although the Mellon was a challenging assignment, her most difficult unit was not until she attained the rank of master chief petty officer in 1993 and returned to Petaluma to teach at the Chief Petty Officer Academy.  Her promotion to master chief marked the first time an active duty woman had advanced to that rank. She was chosen to teach at the academy because one of her qualifications was a step aerobic instructor.

Part of the academy curriculum required three step aerobic classes to promote cross training. Stolle, with less than 20 years in the Coast Guard now, would teach 32 chiefs with large egos.

Some chiefs would complain, “Do I really have to do this? I’d much rather go running.” Stolle would then calmly remark, “No chief, you do not have to do step aerobics – you can go right up to the barracks, pack your bags and go home.” A chief who singled himself out would normally get called to the front of the class and all 32 would soon learn how difficult step aerobics really was.

When Stolle was not enforcing step aerobics, she could also be found teaching chiefs how to attain a degree through distance learning. She soon noticed that those who were stationed at units with good educational service officers were further along in their degrees. Her opportunity to help change this inconsistenc y came later in her career while stationed at Maintenance and Logistics Command Pacific as the command master chief.

“Stolle positively impacted so many  people by serving as a coach and mentor to countless young guardians and ensuring they were well trained and inspired to meet the Coast Guard challenges of tomorrow,” Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, wrote in a letter for her retirement ceremony.

Vice Adm. Harvey Johnson, the commander then of Coast Guard Pacific Area, initially challenged Stolle and two other members of leadership to improve Coast Guard Pacific Area’s educational service program. She loved the idea and requested permission to run with it.

“As a leader, Stolle has embodied our guardian ethos, to protect, defend and save,” said Master Chief Petty Officer Charles W. Bowen, the Master Chief  Petty Officer of the Coast Guard.

 She employed full-time civilian educational service officers because they didn’t transfer every three years like their military counterparts. 

“Everyone should have equal access to educational information,” said Stolle. “The opportunities to make changes as a command master chief are amazing. To take something from nothing, get it started and to watch it grow Coast Guard wide is awesome!” said Stolle.

Stolle’s proudest achievement was developing Learning Centers at all the sectors in Coast Guard’s Pacific Area and equipping them with full-time civilian educational service officers. She added that since this implementation, Coast Guard Atlantic Area has begun to follow these practices to have a strong educational assistance program.

“By spearheading such initiatives as staffing learning centers with full-time educational service officers, Stolle made remarkable contributions to the professional development of Coast Guard members,” said Allen.

 Stolle’s successes and many contributions to the Coast Guard during her 35 years active duty were possible because she recognized the need to set specific rules to continue being happy and successful in her career.

Rule number 1-Job must be fun.

“If you want to be happy in your career and take control of your future, then you must decide early on what your rules are,” demanded Stolle. “Don’t do this job for the money. If you’re not having fun, then go find something else.”

Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the former commander of the Coast Guard Eleventh District who worked alongside Stolle, calls her a keeper. He compares her with the Coast Guard’s first lighthouse keeper Ida Lewis who maintained the Lime Rock Lighthouse, R.I., for more than 39 years and saved 18 people.

“Stolle has been a keeper, she has been a keeper in the Chief's Mess and she has really raised the bar for future chiefs who may be seaman today,” said Zukunft. “If aspiring chiefs should set one goal, it should be to emulate Stolle’s career.”

The lasting contributions achieved by Stolle, once a gritty farm girl, positively impacted the entire Coast Guard workforce. She set the example that neither male or female, college student or farm girl, are limited in their potential to succeed.

As Stolle would say after receiving a “job well done” from her superiors, “I’m just doing my job, boss."