IT Officer

[pppatacki]

I am considering the IT track for PD and possibly as a staff position. Who out in CAPTALK land has done this, either the PD training and/or as a staff position? Did you enjoy it? Even if you haven't gone this route any thoughts would be apprieciated.

[gistek]

I've done some IT work and have earned Technician level in the IT track. The parts I find most difficult are remembering to actually jot down something for a monthly report, and staying involved with the CAP IT forum. Since it's such a new specialty track there isn't much activity in the forum yet. Hopefully that will change as more people discover it and start doing IT for CAP.

[pppatacki]

Thanks gistek. Anyone else?

[Thom]

Unless you are going to be a Wing IT officer or assistant, I'd plan on having another job in addition to IT Officer.  Heck, I have three in total!

In the typical Squadron your IT Officer duties will be very limited.  If your wing collects the Web Security Administrator duties at the wing level, then you'll have even less to do.

Essentially, you keep the Squadron's IT resources up to date and secure, and maintain a Squadron website, if you have one, and you prepare reports for the Squadron Commander.  You can expand it a little, but that's about it.

I spent my first 3 months in CAP getting our Squadrons 10 PCs up to snuff, and now I have little to do but make sure that updates are done, Anti-Virus software is current, and helping folks with access to WMIRS or eServices if they have an issue.

The monthly report is now pretty static, and the National IT Forum is almost a ghost town.

If you are a coder, or if you want to try and move your Squadron onto SIMS, there are some more tasks there, but otherwise the Squadron level IT Officer role is pretty limited.  Not a bad thing, the job still needs to be done.

I don't regret choosing IT Officer, it's what I do in the real world (albeit my day job is at a significantly higher level), but you'll probably want to also have another job track, in addition to any ES specialties.

I'm currently working IT, Administration, and Personnel, and I get a lot more work out of the two non-IT jobs.

Good Luck!

Thom Hamilton

[pppatacki]

Thom - Yep that's kind of what I figured. Thanks.