Photo By Ryan Carter | Military Sealift Command Executive Director Steven Cade (right) presents Procurement...... read more read more
This year, Military Sealift Command is celebrating its 75th anniversary. For 75 years, MSC has provided agile logistics, strategic sealift and specialized mission capabilities to the Department of Defense. At the heart of the MSC’s longevity are thousands of dedicated civil service mariners and civilian employees who work at sea and ashore to ensure the mission is accomplished.
The “We Are MSC75,” series focuses on some of MSC’s team members who have worked relentlessly over the years to make MSC what it is today – the nation’s premier maritime logistics provider. All of them have their own unique path and story, but the one thing they have in common is pride in working with MSC.
MSC Procurement Analyst Michael Peroha has worked with MSC as both a mariner and civilian employee. He recently received a citation for 25 years of service – 16 of those years have been with MSC.
“I’ve left the command and come back to it three times,” said Peroha. “It’s really about the mission. It is not well recognized just how important the mission of MSC is in the overall national defense. Without that logistic support, we can’t sustain our forces overseas that defend this nation.”
Peroha, a Ballston Spa, New York native, enrolled in the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College after a four-year tour in the Army. He graduated and passed the third’s mate exam with the Coast Guard in 1994, but he was uncertain about his future as a mariner.
In the fall of 1993, he met Achille Broennimann who was on a recruiting tour of the state maritime colleges and the Federal Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, for MSC and looking for acquisition interns that had a maritime background.
“I began as an acquisition intern at the Washington Navy Yard when the headquarters was still there in March of 1994. The merchant mariners had limited billets and opportunities to sail. Achille Broennimann, who is currently the MSC Director of Vessel Charter Contracts, recruited me for the internship and I thought it was a great opportunity,” he said.
Peroha completed his internship in March 1997 and was hired directly by MSC. However, he still wanted to be a mariner and resigned a few months later.
“I had put in a lot of effort in getting my third mate’s license and I wanted to sail. After talking with people in N1 (Total Workforce Management), I was pretty confident I could. MSC is always looking for mariners. So I resigned my position,” said Peroha.
But before he joined the fleet, Peroha took on a more personal challenge. Something he’d wanted to do for many years, a cross-country bike trip from the East to West Coast.
“I started in Bath, Maine, August of 1997, ocean-to-ocean, I cycled all the way to Los Angeles - Santa Monica pier - and then up the scenic Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, finishing up in December a week before Christmas, a journey of 5,000 miles. I went northeast to southwest, crossing the Continental Divide in New Mexico, where the Rockies are at their lowest point in October, visiting the Grand Canyon (the only snow he encountered) and the Mojave Desert in November. That journey was an incredible experience.”
Peroha said he wanted to make the nearly six-month trek to test himself, figuring if he was successful in crossing the American continent on a mountain bike, he might be able to match the perseverance and the commitment MSC’s civil service mariners display day in and day out during the often grinding tempo of MSC operations at sea. When he returned from his trip, he got in touch with an MSC recruiter and by February 1998, he was in the pool awaiting his first assignment.
He would go on to sail for nearly four years. His first ship was USNS Kilauea (AE-26) where although he had a third mate’s license, he started out as an Able Bodied Seaman - Watch Stander. He honed his mariner skills for nine months, and when it was time for him to lead a watch team, he didn’t hesitate.
“The third officer at the time was overdue for relief. The captain came to me and said ‘if you’ll do another tour, we’ll let you relieve Mr. Talbert,’ and I said OK. So I was on the ship another seven months, this time as the third officer and while standing watch eight hours a day, was charged with the safe navigation of the ship, and the safety of its crew and cargo.”
After his initial 16-month tour aboard Kilauea, Peroha would sail aboard USNS Yukon (T-AO 202) and USNS Navajo (T-ATF 169). He says serving as the senior third officer and navigator on the Navajo was the pinnacle of his sailing career
“In 2001, we did a voyage where we departed from our home port of from San Diego and sailed to Pearl Harbor to pick up a World War II-era destroyer. As the ship’s navigator, I put the entire voyage plan together and laid down on the charts the courses we would follow,” he said. “We towed that ship from Pearl Harbor all the way to Newcastle, Australia, stopping at the French protectorate of New Caledonia for supplies on the way. The ship we towed was a target ship for the Cobra Gold Exercise and was destined to be sunk. That shows one aspect of MSC’s capability – towing a ship Down Under to participate in a multi-national exercise in the Pacific. Once we finished our delivery, we went to Sidney and on our way back to San Diego we stopped in Bora Bora and Tahiti. It was my most memorable time at sea. I got to ride the bike I stowed onboard in places I probably would have never seen had I not been an MSC CIVMAR.”
A life changing moment came for Peroha May 5, 1999 when he met his wife, Chinara, while in Dubai. He spent the next few years occasionally visiting her in her home in Kyrgyzstan. Following his tour aboard the Navajo, he decided it was time to begin the next phase of his life.
“I was on the Navajo when 9/11 occurred,” he said. “I got off the Navajo in November and on December 31st I was in Kyrgyzstan. My fiancé and I got married in the capital Bishkek where we lived the next five and a half years and where our two daughters, Jasmine and Lily, were born. We returned in 2007.”
When he returned however, the country was about to enter the Great Recession of 2008. It was difficult initially, but he eventually found a job working in contracting in Fort Drum, New York, home of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. A few years later, his MSC journey came full circle.
“While I was attending training, I met Lorrie Leedy, who was a contracting officer at MSC at that time, and she worked for ‘guess who’…Achille Broennimann,” said Peroha. “The command was moving from the Navy Yard to down here at that time and they was experiencing a lot of attrition. They were looking to fill a lot of openings, and ‘lo and behold’ in August 2015 I was back at MSC as a contract specialist hired by the very person who recruited me nearly 30 years earlier.”
Since returning to MSC, Peroha’s professional career has progressed. He was promoted to contracting officer. He was also promoted to assistant branch head of N103B. In May 2022, he transferred to Business Operations (N101) where he is now a procurement analyst in the E-Business Branch, and plays a critical role in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).
It has been a unique journey at MSC indeed. Whether at sea or on shore, Peroha has committed himself to MSC’s mission. His dedication is a reflection of his own thoughts about MSC’s longevity and its ability to evolve to meet the nation’s needs.
“Seventy-five years of maritime excellence means adapting, and innovating in order to perfect how MSC carries out its logistics mission,” said Peroha. “MSC’s mission at its essence is getting to our warfighters what they need, where they need it, when they need it. And we’ve been engaged in perfecting that process over 75 years.”
Whether it is delivering a target ship to U.S. and allies for military exercises in the South Pacific, or logistics to Navy combatant ships at sea, Peroha’s time as a CIVMAR provides a couple of examples of the extent of MSC operations Worldwide as it carries out its timeless mission of delivering what DoD needs for the national defense, where it needs it, when it needs it.
MSC directs and supports operations for approximately 140 civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships at sea, conduct specialized missions, preposition combat cargo at sea around the world, perform a variety of support services, and move military equipment and supplies to deployed U.S. forces. Celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2024, MSC exists to support the joint warfighter across the full spectrum of military operations, with a workforce that includes approximately 6,000 Civil Service Mariners and 1,100 contract mariners, supported by 1,500 shore staff and 1,400 active duty and reserve military personnel.
| Date Taken: | 03.27.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 03.27.2024 13:28 |
| Story ID: | 467167 |
| Location: | NORFOLK, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 143 |
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