YORKTOWN – The first class of Intelligence Specialist petty officers at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown graduated Friday.

The new Intelligence Specialist enlisted rating was officially stood up January 1st of this year. Friday, after months of studying and hard work, the first class of eleven Coasties graudated from Intelligence A School and prepared to devote their careers specifically to finding and neutralizing potential threats against the United States.

"Sixteen weeks is a really short amount of time for the amount of information that we had to get, but I'm really looking forward to applying it out in the field," said LS3 Kevin Thomas.

The Coast Guard became a member of the Intelligence Community in December of 2001, joining 15 other agencies, services, bureaus, and other organizations within the executive branch that play a role in the business of national intelligence. 

This is the first time the Coast Guard will have specific career tracks dedicated solely to the intelligence field.