Growing up in Sitka, Kobi Weiland saw the Coast Guard’s presence everywhere. He had friends in Coast Guard families, saw Coast Guard helicopters flying in drills and rescue missions, and doing flyovers during parades. Enrolling in the United States Coast Guard Academy seemed like a natural progression after high school — which is why he was surprised to find that as of today he’s the first Sitkan to graduate from the academy.
Weiland, 21, received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in ceremonies today at the academy in New London, Connecticut, and will be commissioned to the icebreaking tug CGC Biscayne Bay, homeported in Saint Ignace, Michigan.
He will serve as an ensign, the lowest-ranking officer, helping other officers on board with logistics and managing the enlisted personnel.
“We tell him how we feel and how much we see his hard work, sacrifice and commitment,” Weiland's mother, Erika Knox, said. “He’s got great opportunities that other people don’t have. There’s probably nothing else to tell him we haven’t told him before.”
As a cadet, Weiland underwent a liberal arts education in addition to seamanship and military training. He highlighted his experiences with the offshore sailing team as one of his favorite memories. He had sailed in Sitka before, but never anything like the high-pressure situations on bigger boats that the academy required of him. He described a sailing race from Newport, Rhode Island, to Bermuda that took more than three days.
“The weather was pretty terrible for most of it. It was big seas and a lot of wind. But being out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a really well-trained crew is part of what makes the Coast Guard fun,” Weiland said. “When you have a crew of people who have trained together a bunch and you get into a bad situation, like [we did], everyone just works together to get what we want done. That’s a really cool feeling.”
Knox expected Weiland’s penchant for the sea, however. She told a story about Weiland in middle school, when he spent his mornings walking the docks with his father, Pete Weiland, and used his birthday gift certificate to Old Harbor Books to buy all the sailing and knot-tying books he could find.
Eventually, Weiland convinced his parents to purchase a sailboat, which they bought and fixed up themselves. A self-taught mariner, Weiland and a friend sailed it to Juneau a couple of times.
“He’s just been very curious about adventure and curious about learning. He’s self-driven and accountable, which maybe is not unusual, but an admirable and hard thing to do,” Knox said.
She added how she was glad Weiland got to increase his experiences with sailing at the academy. “He’s been in just gnarly conditions while sleep deprived and wet, but at the academy, they test you at that level just out of its nature,” she said.
As part of the contract for graduating from USCGA, which waives tuition for all its cadets, Weiland will serve for five years as a commissioned officer. He has the option to extend his service after that.
“We don’t get a lot of time off, so it’s a lot of time away from home. Going from living in Sitka for 18 years to leaving and only coming back infrequently was difficult, but at this point, I’m used to it,” Weiland said. “Another adventure is coming up, and five years of being wherever I’ll be doesn’t seem like that long of a time away.”
Knox added that she’s excited to visit Weiland wherever he is stationed.
“We’re very close as a family, and so if there’s times when he has a break or we want to see him, we’re going to try our best to do that,” she said. “We’re excited to see what life he’s created there and the adventure he finds and explores places we’ve never been.”
Both Weiland and Knox highlighted experiences with former Coast Guard members as major influences on why Weiland is serving as an ensign today.
“I feel strongly that retired Coast Guards who live in Sitka have had a profound and positive influence [on Kobi],” Knox said. “They check in with Kobi and with us as a family. We have dinners with them and they share their stories. They ask Kobi questions [about] how he’s doing and what’s going on. Without them, he wouldn’t be there at all.”
Now, Weiland is serving as the same source of positive influence on younger Sitkans also interested in becoming Coast Guard officers. Razie Guillory and Atigun Pensley, respectively a Sitka High and Mt. Edgecumbe graduate, are currently enrolled in the academy — though Weiland was quick to assert that he doesn’t “want to take credit for them coming here.”
“I grew up doing outdoor activities, hiking in the mountains all the time and swimming in the ocean,” Weiland said. “Personally, I’ve never gotten in trouble enough to call the Coast Guard, [but] I’ve had friends who had to. I thought it would be really cool to be that person to respond to the call and help somebody.”
