National Headquarters

[TankerT]

It seems that a lot of people are complaining these days about National HQ these days.

I wanted to point a few things out.

1 - NHQ is actually (in my opinion) fairly short staffed for the amount of work they have to do.  (Why isn't X posted so soon on the Website?  Well... maybe the department that produces X is only running with about 5 people, and is months behind.  And, the IT shop is very small considering the load they have.)

2- So many people call NHQ to ask questions... questions that if they took up the chain of command, could be answered without bothering NHQ.  NHQ gets so many questions, especially after a new reg and whatnot... that it slows them down even more.

3- With more regulations/paperwork, etc... NHQ staff has been cut even further over the last year or so due to budget cuts.

I've worked with several folks at NHQ over the last few years.   (The caller-ID says it's me calling and the run for the hills.... er... do they have hills in Alabama?)  They want to help, and work hard for us.  Try to consider that the next time you want to say "National Sucks."

I really don't think they do.  They're hard working people dedicating to serving us.  We may not always like what happens there.  But, that doesn't mean that they do either.  They're just trying to help us out the best that they can.  And, I think that they do a darn good job of it.

:clap:

[dwb]

My experiences with the paid staffers at NHQ have always been good.

I think when people say "NHQ", they may be referring specifically to "CAP/CC", who is not a paid staffer.

Also, when they are complaining about the paid staffers, the complaining often needs to be directed at Wing HQ, not NHQ.  The most egregious paperwork delays and mishaps I've experienced have always, always been at Wing.

[TankerT]

Well.  I realize a lot of the "NHQ" complaints are directed toward non-paid NHQ volunteers. 

I can't speak to that.  But, I have noticed a large number of complaints for items that can only fall to the paid staffers.  (Most of those complaints I think are petty, or due to unrealistic expectations... but... that's just me.)

[DNall]

Well yes that's a two parter. First, the un-paid National staff members, be they leadership or staff, are frankly a product fo the system that produced them and so are not capable of the leadership & management skills required at that level. A senior executive in a company of our size would be making a couple mil, and that's not jsut cause they can, it's cause there are just a couple thousand people in the country capable of doing anything remotely similiar to their job at that level successfully, and even at that they live 24hrs a day under the gun from inside & out. The military has a good system for building such people. Becuase its merit based all the way down, it weeds people out at progressive levels & advances only those that can actually do the things associated with the next grade. When we're literally teaching entery level officer content straight out of AF OTS at RSC for teh major & LtCol level, why is it suprising that we're covered in political BS & the people that emerge at the top aren't qualified or competent to do the job - hey neither am I, the difference is I know that.

Now the paid staff I don't have issues with personally. Everyone I've dealt with has been consciencious & as helpful as they could. On the other hand I think there are far too many employees there. I grant that they are covered up & many times behind, and that's not their fault, but what the need isn't more people or more money, it's better management. They're covered up cause they're working a ridiculously convoluted system of cobbled together crap that when working perfectly still sucks. They need to spend some of that money on efficiency engineering & TQM to reduce the staff load & clean up the mess. What they're doing now is like spilling a coke on the carpet so you just lay a new layer of carpet on top rather than fix it; you get a few layers on there & doors don't open & close anymore. That's not a smart approach. And by the way, when you get a budget from congress that details less for staff & more for operations, that's a signal that you need to clean up the mess you're asking your staff o work with.

[RiverAux]

Just for comparison, the CG Aux has no national paid staff at all.  All the programs are run and staffed by volunteers.  However, in CG Aux, a lot of the admin is pushed down to over a dozen CG District offices which each have a small number of Coast Guardsmen assigned to handle Aux affairs.

Frankly, I would say both methods produce about the same results from my point of view.   

[pixelwonk]

Just for comparison, the CG Aux has no national paid staff at all.  All the programs are run and staffed by volunteers.  However, in CG Aux, a lot of the admin is pushed down to over a dozen CG District offices which each have a small number of Coast Guardsmen assigned to handle Aux affairs.

Frankly, I would say both methods produce about the same results from my point of view.   

Oh, I beg to differ.  When I was offered my NatStaff Branch Chief position I was paid with the "privilege" of wearing a target ...er Badge that only costs $9. 

[AlaskanCFI]

I believe, at least here in Alaska, that the Coast Guard Aux folks benefit from the fact that the active Coast Guard is a mission oriented outfit that hands out help when and where needed.   The Coast Guard AUX directly supports their mission and many of them (active duty) are smart enough to appreciate it..

The Air Force on the other hand, is often baffled about their own State-Side mission and figuring out ways to help the CAP is way down their list of things they would rather be doing.
Some of my old friends who are still active duty A.F. acted like they had just been told to clean out the cat litter box when they were assigned as CAP liasons....

[mikeylikey]

Now the paid staff I don't have issues with personally. Everyone I've dealt with has been consciencious & as helpful as they could. On the other hand I think there are far too many employees there. I grant that they are covered up & many times behind, and that's not their fault, but what the need isn't more people or more money, it's better management. They're covered up cause they're working a ridiculously convoluted system of cobbled together crap that when working perfectly still sucks. They need to spend some of that money on efficiency engineering & TQM to reduce the staff load & clean up the mess. What they're doing now is like spilling a coke on the carpet so you just lay a new layer of carpet on top rather than fix it; you get a few layers on there & doors don't open & close anymore. That's not a smart approach. And by the way, when you get a budget from congress that details less for staff & more for operations, that's a signal that you need to clean up the mess you're asking your staff o work with.

Are you KIDDING me?  NHQ does not have enough paid staffers.  The workload is huge and there is no way to assign those activities to volunteers.  If you remember correctly, the Air force said "every Wing HQ, needs a paid staffer".  That could only mean that they saw the Wing HQ (Volunteers) as not adequate enough to handle the workloads.  ALSO, Congress did not say do more operations and cut back on paid staff.  The Air Force tried to say "less money for CAP this year, we will keep a cut of CAP appropriated money".  The Paid Staff went to Congress and got the Air Force to give back the money.  After NHQ fired the paid guys, they got money back, but did not rehire those people because they had already reorganized.  SO that money went to operations, which should have gone to those fired employees. 
  Even then MOST wings did not even come close to using operations money for FY 06.

[DNall]

I was talking about the new budget actually, and what business does a paid employee have going to congress cause they're displeased with an AF decision? I'd fire them for that right there & for sure would not rehire that person if the funding were restored.

I agree each wing should have a paid glorified secretary to be in an office during regular hours & keep up with paperwork more than a couple nights a week. That has nothing to do with NHQ staff or the ability of volunteers.

Have you looked at the national directory? Do you realize how many people work for CAP? Excluding CAP-USAF & their support staff, AND excluding everyone at Reg or Wg level, just the NHQ paid staff is well over a hundred people. They have 14 people in the membership dept, 16 in financial mgmt, 17 in logistics, 11 in IT including 5 software engineers who I imagine sit around all day everyday figuring out how to make eServices more frustrating for our members.... Are you kidding me? You know what our members accomplish on the ground one night a week for no pay with 3 people running a local organization that needs 20 to fill the critical staff jobs... forgive me if I expect over a hundred paid staff members to be able to keep up.

Don't bother by the way looking at similiarly sized or even much larger volunteer based organzations with equal sized budgets & scale of operations. You'll find they get the job very adequately done with half the staff, and with that extra money are able to directly support field units with visits to actually help, not just train or inspect.

[mikeylikey]

Wow!  I know a few Wing Administrators and they would be offended to be called glorified secretaries.  They are much more and do much more than is generally known.  Some Wings have placed more responsibilities in their assigned administrators than the entire Wing volunteer staff has. 
 
Why should the paid staffers not go to Congress about budget issues.  That is their job, to make sure CAP is not screwed out of much needed appropriated money.  Let me say that the 14 staffers in the membership department is entirely too low.  For the amount of inquiries received each day they need to hire 10 more people to answer questions that should have been addressed up the chain of command to begin with.  Logistics also does not have enough people.  Feel free to get volunteers together that will invest 40 hours per week networking with government agencies, securing bids and making purchases.  It takes an entire day alone of paperwork to clear up a Wing's trip to the DRMO.  Show me volunteers that will take on these tasks.  YOU CANT!  That is why there is a paid staff.  They perform the duties and work that can't be asked of volunteers. 

Most people look at NHQ and are upset because there are paid employees.  I believe that this happens because they are only viewing the organization from the local Squadron level.  The local and even the Wing level is easy to manage with an all volunteer force.  That is because NHQ takes the burden off those levels by way of paid employees.  The big picture is the work is tremendous, and sometimes there may be a delay getting something on the knowledgebase.  Guess what, I predict that the delays may actually be caused because the paid workers have to wait for approvals from the volunteers in most issues.  It takes time to update e-services.  If you are not satisfied, perhaps we can just shut it down and pretend it was never there and go back to typing orders in triplicate and waiting 6 months for promotions. 

Don't bother by the way looking at similarly sized or even much larger volunteer based organizations with equal sized budgets & scale of operations. You'll find they get the job very adequately done with half the staff, and with that extra money are able to directly support field units with visits to actually help, not just train or inspect.

I don't understand your statement.  What organizations get the job done better than CAP?  Why can't we look and make comparisons?  How do these organizations get extra money?  How do they support the local units?  Sounds to me that either these "other volunteer organizations" do not account for money in the same manner and are able to move it around better than CAP, or they are not scrutinized by Congress each year as CAP is.

Let's not forget that every paid position at NHQ has been approved by the AF, and Congress respectively.  The CAP volunteer Commander says "we need a paid guy to make coffee all day at Maxwell", the AF says "we agree", they submit their approval to the Congress, and Congress says "OK, we will increase CAP's budget next fiscal year so a person can make coffee all day".  Each and every paid position had to have AF approval and was approved by the Congress by an increase in appropriated money, or by a madate to reorganize internally to allow for another person to be paid.

To me this is a dead discussion, without the NHQ staffers, the organization would surely collapse because of how it has changed in the past 60 years.

[KRCopes]

>>> The paid staffers are underpaid and overworked.  However, it does not have to be this way.  The problem lies with guidance and direction, not with product.  The staffers are working on exactly what NHQ (read: CC, NEC, and NB)  are directing them to work on . . . uniform changes and cease and desist letters due to copyright.  Oh, and let us not forget the fact that the staffers have had to process no less than 60,000 applications with a 104% turnover rate in the past 5 years.

>>> There has been a gradual trend in the past few years that is concerning me.  NHQ has made several changes that seem to be taking us away from the Air Force, not towards.  I feel as if I am a kid in the back of the van blindfolded being told that we're going to Disney World yet I feel like we're traveling north.  NHQ has not made the plan for the future clear in any way, shape, or form.

>>> What we need to see are positive changes that are more directly related to operations.  Set up the infomatics so that it works on all levels of the organization, thus easing the administrative burden on both the volunteer and staffer.  Build a culture of accountablility that encourages professionalism, teamwork, and responsibility.  Have leadership that actually follows the lessons that we are teaching the cadets out of our own books.  Having a logistic system that actually equips the front line volunteers to keep planes in the air and vehicles rolling has an obvious impact on operations.

>>> Uniform changes do not increase our operational capabilities. (Save the recent addition of the gortex parka to the uniform, but that was more due to the efforts of CAP/USAF, not NHQ.)  Making sure that members don't buy their uniform items from "unlicensed" sources and having them charged into the poor house to participate does not help.  Spreading oursevles to be all things to everyone is only serving to weaken our core skills.  Recruiting every person with a pulse and slapping some useless rank on them to make them feel like a little general weakens our image.

>>> I am not saying that CAP is completely broken, but we are sure has hell are breaking it piece-by-piece.  Until the members speak out against it, this trend will continue.  Someone once suggested that we can vote with our feet by leaving.  With a 104% turnover in the past 5 years, the vote fell on deaf ears.  I refuse to vote with my feet, except to dig them in and work for positive change.

[BillB]

I agree but think that your comment that the members should speak out to improve the organization. Members of CAP have very little influence on policy of CAP, so it's useless to even consider it. Granted a suggestion up the chain may bring a change, but most suggestions have been on uniforms. The power of CAP rests with the National Commander, National Executive Committee and the National Board. None of which members have any say in selecting. The CC, NEC, NB are not responsive to the membership, and haven't been for the past 15-20 years.
In all my dealings with National Staff, all I've had was great support. The problems with CAP are not National paid staff, but rather the corporate officers, each of whom appears has their own agenda which is not spelled out for the membership. 104% turnover should tell the National Board something, but it doesn't appear that the corporate officers care about the membership. If a corporate officer sees a problem, the politics of CAP takes over and the problem is ignored. Any hope for change in the CAP organization will have to come from the Board of Governors, and they seem ignorant of the problems, basing their actions on the corporate provided information.
Look at suggestions for improving the Officer Corp of CAP. They are valid to a great extent, but are 180 degrees from the National Boards actions. It's still complete level 1 and CPPT, wait six months with no further training and you become an officer. What increases the problems are the Commanders under Wing level that are incompetent but rather than cause waves, Wing Commanders gloss over the problem. There is no existing minimum requirements to be a Commander at any level of CAP, and that causes many of the problems of the organization.

[DNall]

What is placed on wing administrators is more than glorified secretary work, but the full-time position that's needed isn't that big a deal. Read the sentece before you get defensive about it.

Why should an AF mechanic not take some leave & go parade around congress begging congressmen to restore funding for spare parts? IT's his job afterall to use those spare parts to fix airplanes, so that must mean it's also his job to jump the chain of command & tell congressmen how to do their job. Let me just tell you how that's going to go over. They have a union rep & a set chain to follow before anyone is allowed to talk to congress.

I don't think you're getting the picture here when I say it's not the people but the process that's the problem. In CAP we are absolutely unmattched at making things more complicated than they need to be & shooting ourselves in the foot by doing so. What you have to do is decomplicate the process, & cut the non-critical functions that have attached themselves to critical items.No one is upset there are paid employees & few if ever are bothered by their quality. The people are fine, but the operation is not being run with the efficiency of a volunteer organization that lives & dies on every penny, it's not even being run as well as things on the AF side.

I worked as a congressional staffer until just a few months ago, and no that is not how the process works at all. If CAP wants a new stapler, it asks the AF who decides if that should be in the budget request. That request goes directly to Congress & to the President. The President makes changes which often do involve CAP, and sends his budget to Congress. Then Congress looks at the two, has hearings, then does some made up third thing, which again often involves modification of the CAP portions of the requests. Never do they consider individual staff positions.

You should spend some time looking at how the AF is run, and how the many other successful volunteer based orgs in the country are run. CAP & the challenges it faces are not special in that regard. I've served on the board of trustees for such an organization with twice the members & maybe 30% of the employees at peak. We didn't answer to congress, but we did answer to 60-some-odd private foundations, accountants, lawyers... They weren't flying airplanes now or putting people in uniform, but they dealt with their own unique headaches. CAP is not making the most of its resources, which if it did would cause the staff to reduce while being able to do the same job.

Now, that said, I don't know that they need to reduce staff in teh longrun. I think they need to do that TQM efficiency house cleaning, Then I think National leadership needs to step up to the plate to better nationalize the program rather than having 52 seperate semi-independent orgs. I'd also as I said use some of that moeny for consultants that do helping hand visits to every unit every year.

Let me be clear though when complaints are discussed involving NHQ not doing their job NEVER are they talking about the paid staff & ALWAYS are they talking about the utter & complete failure of volunteers holding those positions. We absolutely have to find a way to make the corporate leadership accountable in every way to either or both the membership or the AF, right now the ADCON is with no one but themselves & with no oversight at all. That's shameful & has produced shameful results. The BoG should do what Congress wanted & step in to make changes or get ready for Congress to do it themselves in a less than nice way.

[mikeylikey]

I say place Air Force Officers in Command of every Region and Wing, and replace the paid staffers at NHQ with Air Force Civilians.  That will realign CAP with the Air Force and will help to speed up processes.  That should make everyone happy except the Region and Wing Commanders who are part of the "club".  The organization would get alot more done.   

Every paid position at NHQ had to have AF approval for creation.  Don't believe me call NHQ and ask.  The problem if it exists is that the CORPORATION has created a system that circumvents what was originally intended in the beginning of CAP.

[DNall]

I say place Air Force Officers in Command of every Region and Wing, and replace the paid staffers at NHQ with Air Force Civilians.  That will realign CAP with the Air Force and will help to speed up processes.  That should make everyone happy except the Region and Wing Commanders who are part of the "club".  The organization would get alot more done.

The funny thing being there that the Board of Governors is the governing body of CAP & the NB & NEC are meaningless except to speak the will of the members, which is why the BoG defers to them at all. That being the case, the NB really should be elected, and the members really should not be Wg CCs. That never has worked well.

I tell ya what I'd do if I were suddenyl president or something...
Lay down a reserve system sort of like Iowa did. Set some standards for which is which w/ some latitude for local commanders. Inactive gets transfered to the wing reserve holding pool. Semi-active are designated reserve, but can stay attached to the unit if the local commander wants, but don't count toward the unit size. Local units designated detachments or flights based on size. 3-5 of these together regionally equal a Sq, where much of the admin load is handled & all the subordinate units work together to staff it. Wgs are unattached from states. Wg & Gp are determined by a formula based on numbers, geography, resources (planes, vehicles, radios, etc) so units are the same responsibility level at each location.

Then second half, detach NB member & Wg CC to seperate posts. National board memebrs become elected at the new wing level, which is now more per capita/resource/size related. Big states may have a couple Wgs, each with a rep, small ones (like DC) may be a Gp HQ with one Sq, and they get a one rep too. So at minimum every state gets one elected rep.

BoG appointed by SecAF, they appoint Nat CC. Nat CC nominates national officers & Wg CCs (and single Gp state CCs), both confirmed by NB. Wg CCs appoint sub Wg CCs. Then lay over a 1Sgt system that functions like an adult side CAC. Those would be elected positions also & would not be a local unit position, but rather at the Sq/Gp/Wg/Nat level.

That'd fix you up nicely. But then that's dream world, so what's the point.

Every paid position at NHQ had to have AF approval for creation.  Don't believe me call NHQ and ask.  The problem if it exists is that the CORPORATION has created a system that circumvents what was originally intended in the beginning of CAP.

That's correct. CAP proposes things to AF - uniform changes, paid positions, etc - AF accepts or doesn't. Then puts it in the budget request or doesn't. That budget request has no force whatever & generally is just a starting point from which policy is made. Don't assume because AF is including items in the budget request for CAP that they've spent any time studying if NHQ is run at peak efficiency or if there are ways clean it up & do a better job with govt money.

I certainly agree though that CAP has a tradition of waiving the corporation flag as it runs off in its own direction. I look forward to that being reeled back in & hope AF & CAP will come together to do that before Congress breaks it more fixes it for us.

[captrncap]

104% turnover should tell the National Board something, but it doesn't appear that the corporate officers care about the membership.

If this was a "regular" corporation with shareholders, heads would roll

[shorning]

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