The Military Sealift Command is an arm of the United States Navy that provides ocean transportation and other related services for the Navy. Commander John Eckert, commanding officer of the unit on Guam, told KUAM News of their mission, "We've got a Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force that provides underway replenishment for all of our Navy assets we've got a bunch of special missions ships that provides lots of different other special missions out there we've also have a pre-positioning force of ships that have equipment and gear ready to go in case there's a contingency around the world."


Aside from these things the biggest part of their duties is explained in their name: sealift. Commander Eckert says that during about 95% of everything that the military needs is moved by sea, includes things like fuel goods and other supplies used by the military. To accomplish its mission the military sealift command employs a lot of civilians. In fact, according to Commander Eckert, they are the largest us employer of civilian mariners. This is where Guam comes in.


"We're here on Guam and we tried to move it up a little bit earlier this year to take advantage of the almost 1,200 jobs that MSE needs this year during Fiscal Year 2007," said Eckert.


The commander says that this year's job fair showed a big turnout with about 300 people showing up over a three-hour period in the morning. He adds that in 2002 about a 120 people from Guam were employed by the MSC. Eckert continued that his unit likes coming to Guam "to get folks to work generally hard workers generally like to make careers and we've got an awful lot of folks out there especially out here in the far east on MSC ships that all may come here from Guam."


Commander Eckert says that this year's job fair was such a successful one that they may have to look at securing a larger venue with more recruiters and may even have to conduct the job fair twice a year.