Senior chief petty officer is the eighth enlisted rank in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, just above chief petty officer and below master chief petty officer, and is a noncommissioned officer. They are addressed as "Senior Chief" in most circumstances, or sometimes, less formally, as "Senior".
Advancement to senior chief petty officer is similar to that of chief petty officer. It carries requirements of time in service, superior evaluation scores, and peer review. In the Navy, it is the first promotion that is based entirely on proven leadership performance; test scores do not play a part. A chief petty officer can only advance if a board of master chiefs approves, convened every year around March. Senior chief petty officers make up just 2.5% of the total enlisted force of the Navy. In the Coast Guard, advancement to senior chief is similar to other advancements, in that candidates compete with other advancement-eligible chief petty officers. Advancement-eligible chief petty officers are prioritized based on written examination scores, evaluations, award points, time in service, and time in grade. Senior chief petty officers are then selected monthly from this prioritization list as positions become available.
As do chief petty officers, senior chief petty officers takes on more administrative duties in their new paygrade. In the Navy, their khaki uniform continues to reflect their responsibility level: It is similar to an officer's uniform, but with different insignia. (In the Coast Guard, petty officers, chief petty officers, warrant officers, and commissioned officers all wear similar uniforms.)
Like petty officers, every chief has both a grade (rank) and rating (job, similar to an MOS in other branches). A chief's full title is a combination of the two. Thus, a senior chief petty officer with the rating of machinist's mate would properly be called a senior chief machinist's mate, the abbreviation of which is MMCS.
Each rating has an official abbreviation, such as MM for machinist's mate, QM for quartermaster, and YN for yeoman. The rating and the rate combined give the abbreviationg of a senior chief's full title, such as BMCS for senior chief boatswain's mate. In the expanded form, the title of senior chief always precedes the rating. It is not uncommon practice to refer to a senior chief petty officer by this shorthand in all but the most formal correspondence (such as printing and inscription on awards).
The rating insignia for a senior chief is an eagle with spread wings above three chevrons. The chevrons are topped by a rocker that goes behind the eagle (or "crow", as it is commonly called). An inverted star (similar to the stars on the sleeves of line officers) is above the eagle. This is used on the dress blue uniform. On all other uniforms, the insignia used is the one that has become universally accepted as the symbol of the chief petty officer: a foul (entwined in the anchor chain) gold anchor superimposed with a silver "USN" in the Navy or a silver shield in the Coast Guard. As in the dress blue insignia, the anchor is capped by an down-pointing star.
In the Navy, officers and chiefs are referred to as "khakis". This is a reference to the color of one of their most common uniforms and is a direct contrast to those in paygrades E-6 and below ("blueshirts").
Read more about Senior Chief Petty Officer: Command Senior Chief Petty Officer, Irish Naval Service
Famous quotes containing the words senior, chief, petty and/or officer:
“Adolescents have the right to be themselves. The fact that you were the belle of the ball, the captain of the lacrosse team, the president of your senior class, Phi Beta Kappa, or a political activist doesn’t mean that your teenager will be or should be the same....Likewise, the fact that you were a wallflower, uncoordinated, and a C student shouldn’t mean that you push your child to be everything you were not.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the masterworks and chief men of each race. It is to have the sea, by voyaging; to visit the mountains, Niagara, the Nile, the desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: to see galleries, libraries, arsenals, manufactories.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)