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Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer E-7 Chief Petty Officer, U.S. Coast Guard

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Coast Guard Ranks » Chief Petty Officer Rank • CPO Pay • CPO Rank History • Promotion Information

History of the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Rank

A Chief Petty Officer is a Chief Petty Officer in the United States Coast Guard at DoD paygrade E-7.

While the rank of Chief Petty Officer had been used in the US Navy since 1893, its use in the Coast Guard was first authorised on 18 May 1920 by the 66th US Congress to bring Coast Guard ranks in line with those of the Navy. There were initially eleven ratings for CPO in the Coast Guard, represented across the Seaman's Branch, the Artificer Branch, and the Special Branch. With the formation of the US Coast Guard in 1915, the rank of CPO had become necessary to clear up seniority confusion between the surfmen of the former US Lifesaving Service and the petty officers of the former US Revenue Cutter Service. Since its introduction, the CPO rank represented the pinnacle of advancement in the career of enlisted personnel in the United States until 1958, when two new pay grades, E-8 and E-9, were introduced in order to prevent the loss of their expertise through transfer or retirement. The US Coast Guard used these pay grades to establish the new ranks of Senior Chief Petty Officer and Master Chief Petty Officer and thus the "Chief" became the third highest enlisted rank.

Want to learn more? Read about the Coast Guard's Chief Petty Officer rank on Military-Ranks.org.