Selecting Peter Schmidt to lead Sea Scouting seems like a no-brainer.
I mean, take one look at the young man’s Scouting résumé: Quartermaster Award, Eagle Scout Award, Venturing Silver Award. Numerous council, regional and national training courses and leadership roles. A vision for Sea Scouting’s future that focuses on growing the program’s numbers through improved marketing and communication.
I’m sure there were many great candidates, but it’s clear Peter will do an outstanding job.
Last month the National Sea Scout Support Committee named Peter as the 2014-2015 National Sea Scout Boatswain. The Sea Scout from Ship 123 in the Springfield, Ill.-based Abraham Lincoln Council will serve from June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2015.
Peter leads roughly 7,000 Sea Scouts nationwide and is the lone youth representative on the National Sea Scout Committee. He reports to the National Commodore (Charles Wurster) and the National Director of Sea Scouts (Keith Christopher) and is a conduit through which regional boatswains and other youth leaders can offer feedback to the national committee.
And, somehow, Peter still has time to be a college student. He’s studying engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Peter’s Scouting résumé
Peter has earned the Quartermaster Award, which means he’s in rare company within Sea Scouting. As I reported earlier this year, just 0.57 percent of Sea Scouts earned the Quartermaster Award in 2013. He’s also been ship boatswain, ship yeoman and council boatswain.
He served as the Central Region Area 3 Boatswain from 2010 to 2011 and as Central Region Boatswain from 2011 to 2013.
He’s also an Eagle Scout, Vigil Honor member of the Order of the Arrow and recipient of the Venturing Silver Award, which is that program’s top award.
He’s completed numerous BSA training courses at the council and national levels.
Read the full write-up about Peter on the Sea Scout website.
Peter’s Sea Scouting vision
His goals cover the areas of marketing, recruitment and communication. He wants to establish quarterly communications with the region boatswains to discuss ideas, events and recruitment practices to help grow the program in a youth-driven way.
He would also like to focus on using social media, in order to publicize the Sea Scouting program to both potential and existing members.
All worthy goals, and it seems like Sea Scouting has the right guy to get them done.
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