TRACEN Petaluma

TRACEN Petaluma is one of the three training sites operated by the United States Coast Guard to educate and improve the skills of its military units. The other two centers are located in Virginia and New Jersey. The one in Petaluma is one of the two centers that host the A schools. The other such center is the one in Virginia. The center in New Jersey is responsible for providing the basic training sessions for all the operations the US Coast Guard is involved in. When the students aim to choose a particular specialty, they are redirected to one of the other two facilities. The center is located about 65 kilometers away from San Francisco and only 15 kilometers from the coast. It spreads over 800 acres and two different counties – Marin and Sonoma.

History

TRACEN Petaluma doesn’t have a very impressive history. The facility started as a top secret installation built and operated by the United States Army. Its primary mission was to deal with the communicational missions. It was one of the facilities a few knew about until World War II reached to an end. It was referred to as Two Rock Ranch Station. The facility lost its importance after the war. It was kept by the US Army for the Korean War and the Vietnam War too, but then it was inactivated. This is when the United States Coast Guard stepped in. The force took it over in 1971 and commissioned it as a training center on July, 1-st.

Schools

TRACEN Petaluma is one of the two options the young students choose after taking the basic training sessions from the center in New Jersey. The site has seven different schools, each of them with a particular specialty. The students may train up as storekeepers, yeomen, health, IT or electronics technicians, operations or food specialists. The schools differ from the center in California, therefore the students must first decide what career they aim for before choosing the right training center.

There are about 4,000 students attending the courses at TRACEN Petaluma every year. Once they graduate, they are directly hired as petty officers and deployed to one of the United States Coast Guard installations. The courses are updated and improved on a regular basis. Each course is maintained by a few professionals. They are petty officers with plenty of experience and knowledge in the field they work in.

Aside from these A schools, TRACEN Petaluma also hosts the Chief Petty Officer Academy. The academy prepares some of the finest personnel for both the US Coast Guard and the US Air Force. Those who look forward to join the US Air Force graduate as master sergeants, while the US Coast Guard only looks after the chief petty officers. There are four major principles the officials runs this academy by – expert leadership, professional tutoring, communications and systematic thinking abilities.

Other than these institutions, there are a few other schools at TRACEN Petaluma, but they are not as significant for the US Coast Guard.