Courtesy Photo | Capt. Dorothy Hernaez (left), Rear Adm. Jeffrey Novak (middle), and Capt. Brian...... read more read more
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HONOLULU — The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stratton (WMSL 752) held a change-of-command ceremony Tuesday at Base Honolulu.
Rear Adm. Jeffrey Novak, deputy commander of Coast Guard Pacific Area and commander of the Coast Guard Southwest District, presided over the ceremony in which Capt. Dorothy Hernaez relieved Capt. Brian Krautler as Stratton’s commanding officer.
Krautler served as Stratton’s commanding officer from April 2023 to July 2024. Under Krautler’s leadership, Stratton’s crew sailed more than 75,000 nautical miles throughout four deployments. He led two deployments to the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea to support fisheries enforcement and provide a U.S. military presence within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone and two deployments to the South China Sea in the Western Pacific to strengthen international relations with Coast Guard partners.
During the Alaskan patrols, Stratton conducted more than 690 helicopter landings and tripled the number of qualified shipboard helicopter pilots in the region. It was also the first national security cutter to anchor in Auke Bay, Juneau, Alaska. During the Western Pacific patrols, Stratton conducted the first trilateral exercise between the U.S. Coast Guard, Philippine Coast Guard, and Japan Coast Guard in 2023. This year, Stratton participated in the second trilateral engagement between the services in Kagoshima, Japan, and conducted the first national security cutter visit to Palau before hosting the first Quad at-sea observer sail.
“This [Western Pacific patrol] has been a tremendous deployment to wrap up my sea-going career,” Krautler said. “I started on a buoy tender in Guam, followed by another in Hawaii. I never would have imagined making the jump to white hulls late in my career and certainly never would have imagined I’d still be at sea, 27 years later, finishing where I started – with a lot more tonnage, a lot more miles beneath the keel and a few more gray hairs. It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve the nation at sea, as a part of so many great crews, doing work that matters in amazing places.”
Hernaez reported to Stratton after serving at the Coast Guard’s Office of Information and Intelligence Law. Her most recent afloat tour was aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane (WMEC 903) where she served as the commanding officer from June 2019 to April 2021.
Krautler will serve as Pacific Area’s Chief of Operations, where he will be responsible for directing Coast Guard operations throughout the Pacific theater, ranging from South America to the Arctic and west to Russia and Asia.
A change-of-command ceremony is a time-honored tradition, a formal ritual conducted before the assembled crew, formally transferring total responsibility, authority, and accountability from one individual to another.
Commissioned in 2012, Stratton is one of ten legend-class National security cutters and one of four homeported in Alameda, California. National security cutters are 418 feet long, 54 feet wide, and have a 4,600 long-ton displacement. They have a top speed of 28 knots, a range of 12,000 nautical miles, and sail with a crew of up to 170. National security cutters routinely conduct operations throughout the Pacific, where their unmatched combination of range, speed, and ability to operate in extreme weather provides the mission flexibility necessary to conduct vital strategic missions.
The namesake of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stratton is Capt. Dorothy Stratton, the first female commissioned officer in the Coast Guard. Stratton led the service’s all-female reserve force during World War II, commanding more than 10,000 personnel. The ship’s motto is “We Can’t Afford Not To.”
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| Date Taken: | 07.22.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2025 18:10 |
| Story ID: | 544071 |
| Location: | HONOLULU, HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 113 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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