Linking Professional Development to ES qualifications

[FW]

I think a better question is: How do we improve the rise through ES qualifications as professional volunteers?  As we progress from GES to IC, maybe we should insure some "Professional Development".  During Katrina, there seemed to be a breakdown in many facets of the system; both ICS and our own command structure. Did we improve during the Fositt mission?  Are we learning and developing better ways to perform?  It may be a very good idea to insure our ES leaders/managers have the management and leadership skills necessary to be successful.  IMHO, we are addressing the management issues thru NIMS training, etc.  We could use more guided leadership training exercises written into our SAREXs.  With well experienced and qualified mentors, our members will get a better understanding and appreciation of what needs to be done and how to be successful.  However, we could also argue our PD program gives the members some of the leadership tools necessary to be successful in ES;  a more complete understanding of the workings and culture of CAP leads to a better understanding of working with CAP members.  
Then again, we could make the ES specialty tracks (communications, flight ops, ops, es) more tied to ES Qualifications.  There are many ways we can improve our training and abilities.  

[arajca]

Which tracks and what is the link to ES Ops Quals?  Sources please.  The closest specific requirement I have found is the Master rating in the ES track requires completion of the National SAR Planners Course.  It does not require any specific achievement in ES - just a ES qualification.  MSA counts - maybe even just GES - put no requirement to progress in ES - just hold an ES qualification.

According to the CAPP 200 series pubs I D/L'd 3/28/08, the only ES requirements for any PD rating are for Emergency Services, 213. The Tech rating requires GES, and be continuously qualified in an ES specialty for one year. Senior and Master ratings require longer periods of qualification (3 yrs, and 5 yrs, respectively).

Comm requires MRO for Tech and CUL for Senior.

[SarDragon]

Which tracks and what is the link to ES Ops Quals?  Sources please.  The closest specific requirement I have found is the Master rating in the ES track requires completion of the National SAR Planners Course.  It does not require any specific achievement in ES - just a ES qualification.  MSA counts - maybe even just GES - put no requirement to progress in ES - just hold an ES qualification.

According to the CAPP 200 series pubs I D/L'd 3/28/08, the only ES requirements for any PD rating are for Emergency Services, 213. The Tech rating requires GES, and be continuously qualified in an ES specialty for one year. Senior and Master ratings require longer periods of qualification (3 yrs, and 5 yrs, respectively).

Comm requires MRO for Tech and CUL for Senior.

Disagree. MRO and CUL do not appear in CAPP 214, neither as initialisms nor spelled out.

Tech requires CAP Form 43, Technician Level Communicator's Test, and Senior requires CAP Form 44, Senior Communicator Test, neither of which are listed on the respective SQTRs above.

Tech requires an ROA. MRO requires BCUT. CUL requires ACUT. I see no other specific cross-over requirements.

YMMV.

[arajca]

Which tracks and what is the link to ES Ops Quals?  Sources please.  The closest specific requirement I have found is the Master rating in the ES track requires completion of the National SAR Planners Course.  It does not require any specific achievement in ES - just a ES qualification.  MSA counts - maybe even just GES - put no requirement to progress in ES - just hold an ES qualification.

According to the CAPP 200 series pubs I D/L'd 3/28/08, the only ES requirements for any PD rating are for Emergency Services, 213. The Tech rating requires GES, and be continuously qualified in an ES specialty for one year. Senior and Master ratings require longer periods of qualification (3 yrs, and 5 yrs, respectively).

Comm requires MRO for Tech and CUL for Senior.

Disagree. MRO and CUL do not appear in CAPP 214, neither as initialisms nor spelled out.

Tech requires CAP Form 43, Technician Level Communicator's Test, and Senior requires CAP Form 44, Senior Communicator Test, neither of which are listed on the respective SQTRs above.

Tech requires an ROA. MRO requires BCUT. CUL requires ACUT. I see no other specific cross-over requirements.

YMMV.

My misstatement. Participation in ES is required for Tech rating, just not spelled out as MRO. Ref. CAPP 214, Technician Rating, Para 3b, line 3:

(3) Participation in one mission in any communications capacity.

For the senior rating, though CUL is required, ref CAPP 214 Senior Rating, Para 3c, line 2:

(2) Participation in at least three operations missions in a communications capacity with at least one as communicator office.

Old Communications Officer = current Communications Unit Leader.

[DNall]

...It may be a very good idea to insure our ES leaders/managers have the management and leadership skills necessary to be successful.  IMHO, we are addressing the management issues thru NIMS training, etc. ... However, we could also argue our PD program gives the members some of the leadership tools necessary to be successful in ES;  a more complete understanding of the workings and culture of CAP leads to a better understanding of working with CAP members. 

NIMS doesn't teach leadership or mgmt in really any way at all. To degree it teaches how to manage operations in terms of the job skill, but it doesn't really teach how to lead or manage people/personalities, how to create the RIGHT team for the situation, how to get the most out of that team, etc. Those are aspects of more generalized leadership & management that we are lacking on a much wider (than ES) scale within CAP. That's what CAP needs to be addressing in PD on a progressive scale that really challenges members & makes them better. I personally believe it should be on a scale that makes them more successful & marketable within the civilian world as well - that's the scale it should be on, not some lolli-gaggin BS.

The other side of the coin - vis-a-vie your comments about the breakdowns in Katrina, and many of our experiences on other missions & within CAP in general - is followership/discipline. If I'm GBD on a mission & one of my GTLs isn't happy with my answer, wants to talk to the IC, but the IC is on with AFRCC at the time, they don't need to hang up on me & call the IC directly. If this were the Army, we'd be having a serious heart to heart when they got back. But CAP we have to deal with volunteer civilian personalities - all bad words for professional responders, which is a limiting factor for CAP. I don't mean to say we need some kind of boot camp for adults. Just that we need to instill a degree of operational discipline not unlike you see in any real emergency service agency. That's also something that should be part of the entry level PD & reinforced throughout progression.

[FW]

^D., I think you're on the right track.  My thoughts may have been an oversimplification of the issue.  But in a forum like this, IMHO, it usually helps.

[arajca]

The other side of the coin - vis-a-vie your comments about the breakdowns in Katrina, and many of our experiences on other missions & within CAP in general - is followership/discipline. If I'm GBD on a mission & one of my GTLs isn't happy with my answer, wants to talk to the IC, but the IC is on with AFRCC at the time, they don't need to hang up on me & call the IC directly. If this were the Army, we'd be having a serious heart to heart when they got back. But CAP we have to deal with volunteer civilian personalities - all bad words for professional responders, which is a limiting factor for CAP. I don't mean to say we need some kind of boot camp for adults. Just that we need to instill a degree of operational discipline not unlike you see in any real emergency service agency. That's also something that should be part of the entry level PD & reinforced throughout progression.

From what I've read, many of the problems CAP had was getting the right folks dispatched. I don't mean ranger vs nonranger or age issues. One of the issues was repeated requests for logistics section chiefs. National kept sending IC's who had not concept of logistics because LSC is not part of the progression to IC.

I defintely agree that CAP needs some sort of real leadership training program. Nowadays, alot of service issues come down to "What's in it for me?" A leadership program that has real world recognition and application would be a great help in recruiting seniors, especially younger ones.

[DNall]

I think they just didn't have qualified people to send. The few people qual'd in those areas are not the ones that tend to have a tent in their trunk or willing to sleep on any kind of floor.

The problem with things like FASC & LSC is they aren't sexy jobs. I've said before I think those, as well as safety need to be integrated into the specialty tracks. That increases the pool of people we have to draw from. LSC & FASC in particular are things that don't get much credit in CAP because our activities tend to be SO poorly planned. In a normal military operating environment, those folks would have a whole lot of sway in in what's allowed to happen, because it ultimately can't happen unless those people can get their end of it done. When you're on a 3-day mission & can pull over for gas/food, and the paperwork can be cleaned up a couple days after, then it's not such a big deal.

[O-Rex]

I'm a big PD advocate, but I have problems with the prospect of mixing PD and ES requirements.

In the Military, Technical training and PME are usually kept separate.

Getting an ES rating is usually not a quick process: why gum it up even more?

[DNall]

I'm a big PD advocate, but I have problems with the prospect of mixing PD and ES requirements.

In the Military, Technical training and PME are usually kept separate.

Getting an ES rating is usually not a quick process: why gum it up even more?

That's true. However, operational command positions would be based on rank, which is directly related to PME among other requirements. And, technical training in for those positions would be limited to the people selected to them, thereby the ones that meet the grade requirements. Meaning they are indirectly related thru a common link that we don't have in CAP, and it's causing us issues.

[O-Rex]

I'm a big PD advocate, but I have problems with the prospect of mixing PD and ES requirements.

In the Military, Technical training and PME are usually kept separate.

Getting an ES rating is usually not a quick process: why gum it up even more?

That's true. However, operational command positions would be based on rank, which is directly related to PME among other requirements. And, technical training in for those positions would be limited to the people selected to them, thereby the ones that meet the grade requirements. Meaning they are indirectly related thru a common link that we don't have in CAP, and it's causing us issues.

I think at least unofficially, works that way now (?) 

Typically, your IC's aren't Second-Lieutenants: mostly Lt Cols, Majors and an occasional Captain.

[DNall]

I'm a big PD advocate, but I have problems with the prospect of mixing PD and ES requirements.

In the Military, Technical training and PME are usually kept separate.

Getting an ES rating is usually not a quick process: why gum it up even more?

That's true. However, operational command positions would be based on rank, which is directly related to PME among other requirements. And, technical training in for those positions would be limited to the people selected to them, thereby the ones that meet the grade requirements. Meaning they are indirectly related thru a common link that we don't have in CAP, and it's causing us issues.

I think at least unofficially, works that way now (?) 

Typically, your IC's aren't Second-Lieutenants: mostly Lt Cols, Majors and an occasional Captain.

I'm glad someone understood what I was saying, cause re-reading it, it didn't seem too clear.

This is where we get the breakdown on the CAP side though. You do actually have a serious disconnect btwn grade & position across the board & within operational missions. You do see lower ranking ICs & higher ranking folks in the field. I don't mean to make a big deal about the grade or even outward appearance. What I'm talking about is more what it means.

What we do is sort of a free for all. People can just train in anything they feel like, then come the mission it's whoever has the necessary checklist signed off gets the job. That doesn't say anything about fitness for command - leader/mgr skills to actually execute the position.

In any other SaR/ES/first responder/etc agency it wouldn't work like that. The leader/mgr skills would be the FIRST thing looked at. From that you'd cherry pick people into appropriate positions & put them thru the technical skills training to do the job. By doing it backwards, we never reach that same capability.

Internally we can get by with that, but not in an inter-agency environment. That's a huge limiting factor for CAP that we can't play on even terms with the rest of the world, and no amount of IC100-800 courses is going to fix that.

Even if you dismiss that. I do understand there has to be some compromise from the way a paid agency does things to the way you deal with volunteers, but there's a tipping point. There's some point of moral obligation where we can't allow our capabilities to slip lower & still step into these operations where people's lives are on the line. I think that, a lot more than things like insurance/liability, is the reason you don't see us front & center in the middle of big time disaster or HLS ops. There's no reason we can't or shouldn't be there, but it takes a bit of a paradigm shift to make that move. I think we have a moral obligation to get on that level.

[ZigZag911]

Back in the dark ages, WIWAC, Mission Coordinators (former title of today's ICs) tended top be group CCs, CDs, DOs, or wing staff officers in Ops or ES. Sometimes (rarely) you'd find a squadron level commander or field grade officer (usually a past group CC or wing staff officer) in that role.

When did that change? And more importantly, WHY?

Are our most experienced officers dodging mission responsibility?

Has there been a disconnect between command and operation?

In part I think this is the fruits of requiring our corporate officers to become bogged down in trivia (e.g., who can wear what hat in the field!)

But that alone does not explain the situation.

Both command and ES are certainly more complex than they were 30 years ago....but even that in itself doesn't explain why, in some instances, senior personnel are leaving the tough jobs to less experienced members.

[RiverAux]

All of the current ICs in our Wing are wing staff members of one type or another.  There are a few non-Wing people in the pipeline to get there. 

I think that those in command roles probably think they're already doing their bit for CAP and that being an IC on top of that would be too much of a strain.  I think this would probably apply more in the states that are over-run with ELTs than most of the rest of the country. 

[O-Rex]

All of the current ICs in our Wing are wing staff members of one type or another.  There are a few non-Wing people in the pipeline to get there. 

I think that those in command roles probably think they're already doing their bit for CAP and that being an IC on top of that would be too much of a strain.  I think this would probably apply more in the states that are over-run with ELTs than most of the rest of the country. 

As a Group CC in a large metropolitan area, I say yes, it is. 

[ZigZag911]

I was a Group C in a large metropolitan area for over six years; during that time I trained for IC, qualified,  and began handling missions.

My group, by the way, had seven squadrons and nearly 500 members (bigger than some wings!)

It can be done....I'm not saying everyone should or must....but there is an example to be set by wing & group DO, DOS staffs...and, at least at group level, the command element.

[RiverAux]

Oh, I agree with you that it would be good to have various commanders also being the ones leading the missions. 

[Hawk200]

Reqiring ES for PD is a bad idea, IMO.

Now, if you wanted to allow substitutions of ICS or ES courses for some of the PD requirements, I'd be Okay with it.

ES is not the be-all, end-all of CAP. No issues with accomodating it, but I don't think it should be required.

[RiverAux]

Hawk, you've got it 180 degrees backward.  What I proposed was basically that PD would be required to do ES, not the other way around.

[Hawk200]

Hawk, you've got it 180 degrees backward.  What I proposed was basically that PD would be required to do ES, not the other way around.

Oh. Oops. That I would be on board with, easy. Would probably eliminate some of the complainers that I've seen that gripe about "not enough time" to do PD when they've been spending all their time on ES work.

It would whittle down some of the ranks that would be active in ES, but I don't necessarily think that would be a bad thing. Not to mention, people would get motivated to move up through.