OfficerCoast Guard Cutter Cypress is scheduled to host a change-of-command ceremony at 10 a.m. Friday at Coast Guard Base Mobile. Lt. Cmdr. Samuel R. Jordan will relieve Cmdr. Samuel "Duke" Walker, who took command of the Cypress in June 2002. Jordan reports to Cypress after serving at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington D.C., in the Resource Directorate, as the cost management section chief. His most recent shipboard assignment was as the executive officer aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Buttonwood stationed in San Francisco.Walker will depart Cypress for Bahrain where he will serve as maritime interception operations coordinator for U.S. forces in the
Middle East. The presiding official for the ceremony is the Eighth Coast Guard District Commander, Rear Adm. Robert F. Duncan. The 225-foot cutter is the only sea-going buoy tender in the Gulf of Mexico. The crew of 50 personnel is trained to carry out a range of missions including law enforcement, aids to navigation, search and rescue and pollution response. The Cypress recently returned from nearly two months in Haiti in support of Operations Able Sentry and Support Tomorrow.