This summer saw two U.S. Coast Guard members, both of whom had graduated from high school in Jefferson County, engaging in a generational succession of sorts.

Capt. Brian Erickson graduated from Port Townsend High School in 1992, while Isaac Reid graduated from Chimacum High School in 2022. June 7 saw Reid at another graduation, this time from Coast Guard Intelligence Specialist A-School, where he also advanced in rank from seaman to petty officer third class.

Isaac Reid was joined not just by Erickson, but also by his father, Brian Reid of Port Hadlock, Erickson’s best friend in high school. The two older men pinned the younger man’s new rank insignia, known colloquially as his “crows,” on his uniform shirt lapels at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown in Virginia.

“What’s quite exciting is that Isaac has accomplished a significant amount of service to the nation in such a short amount of time since he graduated from high school,” Erickson said of the newly minted Intelligence Specialist 3rd Class Isaac Reid.

Just as the Coast Guard offered Erickson the opportunity to go beyond his hometown without going overseas, so too did the Coast Guard appeal to the younger Reid as a non-college military option that nonetheless left the door open for him to pursue a college education down the line, while also remaining stateside in his duty stations.

Erickson attested to the camaraderie he’s developed with his fellow Coast Guard members over more than three decades, since he enlisted in the fleet in 1992, served aboard two vessels — the second of which, USCGC Point Bennett, was homeported in Port Townsend — then graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy as a commissioned officer in 1998.

Erickson credited the Coast Guard with helping him develop a more “cohesive understanding” and “higher sense of service.” He said he came to “crave the challenge” of new assignments, and that he enjoyed performing well in such positions.

“When you consider the relatively small percentage of people who serve, it’s a privilege to do it, even if we might occasionally take it for granted,” Erickson said.

After Reid graduated from basic training, and before he attended Intelligence Specialist A-School, he served onboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca in Portsmouth, Virginia, where he multitasked as a master helmsman, lookout, and member of the security detail and helicopter tie-down crews.

Reid was handpicked to drive the 270-foot Coast Guard cutter through what Erickson described as “some of the most challenging navigational moments” during two transits of the Panama Canal, in addition to conducting long-range counter-narcotics patrols and alien migrant interdiction operations in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

“He also performed all-weather day-and-night search-and-rescue operations, and performed duties responsible for the successful repatriation of 373 migrants lost at sea, which contributed to deterring illegal immigration,” Erickson said.

Following his graduation from A-school, Reid is due to report to the U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence Coordination Center in Washington, D.C., where he’s set to serve in the Commandant’s Intelligence Plot.

“This position will require him to provide essential intelligence products to the most senior leaders in the U.S. Coast Guard, to make crucial national security decisions,” Erickson said.

Reid conceded his upcoming duties represent a new frontier of responsibility for him, but said he believes his rate as an intelligence specialist affords “a good foundation” for pursuing a number of future career paths.