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New commanding officer at helm of USCGC Sequoia (WLB 215)

Photo By Chief Warrant Officer Sara Muir | Lt. Cmdr. Linden Dahlkemper relieves Cmdr. Ryan Adams, as the USCGC Sequoia (WLB 215)...... read more read more

GUAM

07.15.2022

Story by Chief Warrant Officer Sara Muir

U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia / Sector Guam

SANTA RITA, Guam — Lt. Cmdr. Linden Dahlkemper relieved Cmdr. Ryan Adams, as the USCGC Sequoia (WLB 215) commanding officer during a change of command ceremony on Friday aboard the cutter moored at Naval Base Guam.

The U.S. Coast Guard District Fourteen Commander, Rear Adm. Michael Day, presided over the ceremony.

Adams will report for duty as the District Fourteen chief of waterways. He served as the commanding officer of Sequoia for the past three years.

While leading Sequoia's team, the crew updated and modernized the Republic of Palau's Aids to Navigation constellation by installing or refurbishing 66 aids to navigation valued at over $400,000, supporting commerce and Department of Defense partners.

Enhancing regional partnerships, they transported the U.S. Ambassador to Palau, representatives of the Royal Australian Navy and Japan Coast Guard, and a delegation of Palauan officials to Sonsorol Island. They also delivered critical humanitarian supplies of food, water, and medicine early in the COVID-19 pandemic and conducted surveys for future civil and defense projects.

The team partnered with U.S. Navy Underwater Construction Team Two (UCT-2) for a two-month channel widening project at Kapingamarangi Atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia. They expended over 12,000 pounds of high-yield explosives to widen the channel into the lagoon and enable larger supply vessels to serve the people of the atoll.

They completed the Command Assessment of Readiness and Training and Tailored Ship's Training Availability in 2021 with a 96.8 percent rating over 97 tailored drills, earning the Battle "E" across all warfare areas. They received the Coast Guard's Forrest O. Rednour Memorial Award for medium afloat cutters for excellence in food service.

Dahlkemper comes to Sequoia from the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, where she managed all maritime security cooperation programs in the Office of Defense Cooperation Vietnam.

Her previous afloat tours include command of USCGC James Rankin (WLM 555) homeported in Baltimore, operations officer on USCGC Aspen (WLB 208), and a deck watch officer on USCGC Walnut (WLB 205). Ashore she served on the presidential transition team and in the office of the administrator at the General Services Administration as a 2016 White House fellow.

Before her fellowship selection, she taught American government and public policy courses at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. She also served as an assistant coach for the Intercollegiate Sailing team and a safety officer for the Coastal Sail Training Program. Dahlkemper graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with a bachelor's degree in government and has a master's degree in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University.

She is a native of Erie, Pennsylvania, and brings her spouse Mark and son Clarke to Guam.

Sequoia is a 225-foot seagoing buoy tender based in Apra Harbor at Naval Base Guam, a deep-water port on the western side of the United States territory of Guam.

The primary mission of the cutter is to maintain aids to navigation in Guam and the Northern Marianas. As with all cutters, it functions as a multi-mission platform for marine environmental protection, search and rescue, law enforcement, and homeland security missions. Sequoia's crew regularly conducts fisheries enforcement missions through the Western Pacific in support of Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission treaties and regulations, as well as supporting bilateral agreements between the Pacific Island nations of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Sequoia is one of sixteen Juniper-class buoy tenders built and commissioned from 1996 to 2004. It was launched in 2003 on the Menominee River by Marinette Marine Corporation in Marinette, Wisconsin, and replaced the USCGC Sassafras (WLB 401) as the only buoy tender in the Marianas.

A change of command is a military tradition representing a formal transfer of authority and responsibility for a unit from one commanding or flag officer to another. The passing of colors, standards, or ensigns from an outgoing commander to an incoming one ensures that the unit and its members are never without official leadership, a continuation of trust.

-USCG-