Command in Complexity
What leading preservation efforts aboard historic naval vessels teaches us about safety, execution, and decision making under pressure
By Brian Luallen
Yesterday, crews cut a controlled opening into the hull of a World War II submarine in downtown Buffalo while wind whipped across the river and vacuum hoses froze mid-operation.
This was not an emergency at sea. It was preservation leadership in the real world.
Historic preservation is often imagined as quiet work. In practice, it is operational work. It involves engineering judgment, environmental compliance, financial discipline, public communication, and above all, risk management. When aging infrastructure, public access, and multi agency coordination converge, leadership stops being theoretical. It becomes immediate.
That reality is unfolding now at the Buffalo Naval Park, where a Unified Command effort is underway to remove legacy petroleum materials and stabilize two historic vessels, USS Croaker and USS The Sullivans. The work represents the first operational phase of a long term restoration campaign known as Operation Preservation.
It also offers a clear lesson in modern leadership.
Preservation Does Not Happen in Controlled Conditions
Historic ships do not sit in static environments. They respond to weather, water movement, and time. They operate within regulatory frameworks and in full public view. They require coordinated execution across municipal agencies, state regulators, federal responders, engineers, contractors, and nonprofit operators responsible for long term stewardship.
Alignment across those mandates is not automatic. It must be built through structure, communication, and disciplined sequencing of work.
Unified Command frameworks exist for this purpose. When they function well, they allow complex operations to move forward while maintaining environmental safeguards, public transparency, and operational safety.
The current remediation effort in Buffalo illustrates that reality. Treatment infrastructure has been mobilized. Containment systems deployed. Controlled pumping operations initiated. Naval architects are monitoring vessel balance continuously as fluids are removed. Confined space protocols are enforced. Operational perimeters are secured even as visitors continue to arrive.
This is preservation as execution, not abstraction.
Risk Mitigation Is the Foundation of Stewardship
Historic vessels are engineered systems. As they age, the risks they present are structural, environmental, and operational. Leadership must recognize that preservation milestones mean little if workers, responders, or the public are exposed to preventable hazards.
Operations underway involve confined spaces, decades old legacy fuel material, heavy pumping equipment, atmospheric monitoring, and constant coordination with local state and US Coast Guard safety officials. Stop work authority is real. Incident action plans are living documents. Weather conditions influence sequencing. Frozen equipment must be replaced. Wind can delay containment deployment.
These are not complications. They are the environment in which responsible leadership operates.
Public access continues wherever safe. Volunteers continue to contribute thousands of hours. Educational programming continues with adjustments. Managing those realities requires thoughtful procedures, clearly defined safety zones, and consistent communication.
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Progress that ignores safety is not progress.
Planning Meets Reality in the Field
Recent inspections identified an intermittent discharge aboard Croaker and increased water accumulation aboard The Sullivans. Neither represented imminent sinking. Nevertheless both required decisive action.
In a short time, crews have power washed internal compartments and collected contaminated fluids with vacuum trucks. A controlled access opening has been created in Croaker’s hull to allow safe transfer of diesel and oily water mixtures to treatment systems staged on site. Harbor containment is deployed when conditions allow. Sampling protocols guide discharge decisions. Operational training has been conducted jointly with emergency responders.
This work is highly procedural. It is methodical and incremental. It is exactly how preservation succeeds.
Financial Discipline Matters as Much as Engineering
The long term restoration of these vessels required assembling a public funding framework exceeding twenty million dollars. Much of that support functions through reimbursement mechanisms or financing structures that introduce liquidity constraints even when projects are technically funded.
Executing remediation efficiently protects future restoration capacity. Avoiding escalation today increases the likelihood that structural repairs and sustainable maintenance practices can be completed tomorrow.
Deferred maintenance is not simply a technical condition. It is an institutional one facing many vessels in the Nation’s “museum fleet”. Addressing it requires sustained commitment from public agencies, nonprofit operators, and the communities that value these assets.
Public Trust Is Part of the Work
Historic naval vessels are living memorials. Visitors often arrive with deeply personal connections to service and sacrifice. Public interest in remediation operations reflects ownership and pride.
Leadership must respond with candor and credibility. Not every timeline can be precise. Environmental review, dredging windows, and regulatory approvals shape what is possible. Transparency builds confidence even when complexity limits certainty.
Trust is earned through steady execution and working well with our fellow agencies.
Wartime Lessons for Modern Leadership
Ships like Croaker and The Sullivans were designed for command environments defined by uncertainty. Their crews relied on discipline, structure, and shared mission.
Preservation leadership today demands similar qualities. The adversaries are different. Corrosion replaces combat. Regulation replaces reconnaissance. Financial pressure replaces enemy fire. Yet the leadership principles remain recognizable.
Move deliberately. Protect the crew. Safeguard the mission. Adapt to conditions. Maintain confidence in the long term objective.
When these vessels depart Buffalo for dredging and dry dock, their movement will not be the result of a single dramatic intervention. It will reflect hundreds of careful decisions made correctly over time.
These ships once defended a nation at war. Today they depend on civic leadership in peace.
That responsibility belongs to all of us.
