Incident Commander Requirements

[JeffDG]

That experience, training, knowledge, skills, trust, and confidence needed to be an IC can't be gained in two exercise participations, but over an extended period of time.

Well, it's not "two", ever (except in the rare occasion someone is appointed directly based on outside quals).

What did we find when we did the math, it's more like 18-20+, depending on which ladder you climb, over a 5-10 year period (for most),
and you're highly visible during that time, so there's no hiding in the back of the van and getting a ticket punched with everyone else.

Once you get to the "Branch Director" level, the hiding in back gets pretty tough.

[Storm Chaser]

That experience, training, knowledge, skills, trust, and confidence needed to be an IC can't be gained in two exercise participations, but over an extended period of time.

Well, it's not "two", ever (except in the rare occasion someone is appointed directly based on outside quals).

What did we find when we did the math, it's more like 18-20+, depending on which ladder you climb, over a 5-10 year period (for most),
and you're highly visible during that time, so there's no hiding in the back of the van and getting a ticket punched with everyone else.

I wasn't counting all the other exercise participation, sorties, missions, etc. required for the other qualifications because, while they contribute to the overall training and experience needed to be an IC, they're not as an IC3 trainee. My point is that two exercise participation as an IC3 trainee are not enough in most cases. Ideally, you want to expose the IC3 trainee to a variety of missions, which can't be done effectively over two operational periods.

[Eclipse]

You can't discount the cumulative training experience, because really, that's all there is.

As an IC you're supposed to function as a "manager of managers", not turn the wrenches yourself, so the SQTR
is pretty much about shuffling paperwork other people submit (at the 1-team overnight level you're more a Branch Dir then an IC,
from a functional perspective).

So at the IC3 level, which is really scoped towards overnight table tops, I don't see the issue.  With experience, more is always better,
however in this case, not required.

The problem is that we have IC3s trying to run multi-state activities, that takes a lot more experience, a lot more "managerifyin",
and exceeds the scope of the entry level IC.

[Storm Chaser]

I'm not discounting ANY experience or training. But in MY experience as an IC2, most members will need more than two exercise participation as an IC trainee to really learn how to be an IC and complete their qualification. Are they exceptions? You bet. But in MY experience, most members will need more rather than less. Believe me, it's very easy to tell the level of training and experience an IC has based on their performance (or lack of) during a mission.