What CAP RANK counts for and possibly should be used as...

[ddelaney103]

Smoozing with Congresscritters and State Houses is great, so we give big bling for it.

what bling is that? Cause I'd like mine.

You just need to do it full time.

From CAPR 35-5:

14. Wing Legislative Liaison Officers. Wing commanders may advance a senior member to the grade of lieutenant colonel concurrent with the member's appointment as the Wing Legislative Liaison Officer.

21+Lv1+Wing LLO=Go directly to Lt Col, do not pass GO.

Officer bling carries extra weight because it makes you look like a real officer.  If we changed to an NCO or FO system your place in the pecking order wouldn't change, but you wouldn't be an officer, and a lot of people get cranky about that.

That's true, but everything being discussed on that subject involves keeping officers but reducing their numbers while putting everyone else in the enlisted end. That makes the officer status more meaningful, if nothing else then cause everyone wants in the place with the line out front, not the one you have free access too. The AF, who knows our standards for officer grades & progression, doesn't see it as meaningful, may even take offense to it at times, and that effects our ability to get work, cause even the truly deserving people aren't recognized thru the fog of everyone else. Would people grubble, well not so much if you grandfather them. Would people quit? You know I don't care. If FEMA proceeds with plans to credential people for meeting NIMS resource typing standards then it's forced down on us & sufddenly you gotta be the real deal & a whole lotta members can't live up to that so they'll be gone & we'll be rebuilding anyway, if you gotta face that enormous process, might as well lay this membership quality control program over the top of it & coe out the end in bad azz shape. No need to torture ourselves twice.

As a DoD civilian, I was in charge of soldiers. I went overseas and wore a uniform.  I wasn't an officer, but I did get respect for what I was and what I did.

The way to get respect from Big Blue is to be what we are: motivated volunteers who can bring a lot to the table.  Trying to dress up like daddy and being a "sorta officer" is just not the right path.  Let's give CAP grade to most of us, save AF grade for those holding a position of command responsibility, and march on.

That view would be fine, except that DoD civilians have a serious progression program that demands professional standards also, and they take many of the same professional development courses the military does. They then at the end of the day earn individual respect by proving it to the people they work with everyday. The folks in that unit know THEM so they jusdge THEM. The CGAux has the same thing, we don't. We get judged as an org by the worst among us. Airman sees CAP Major that can't lead a girl scout troop, suddenly that's all CAP Majors, and there's no way around that. We desperately need quality control & serious professional standards at each level. We go out & do jobs real similiar to the AF, not dropping bombs, but an ops officer is an ops officer, same as an IC is an IC, and they have training for that. All we have to do it pick quality leadership/mgmt candidates into a training program, exactly how any corporation in the country does it, and create leaders using the programs already sitting there for us to use. Why would you want to re-invent the wheel or spread your resources so thin or categorize your top people with the ones you don't trust to watch your lunch much less the border. I think you're going to find that as rough as some of this stuff sounds, people love structure & they respond to high standards. It's true that some people will leave if you make it hard work, but then a lot of other people are going to come in just as fast who are looking for that challenge & chance to contribute & be part of something really important. We can't just stagnate & sink lower & lower as the real world gets more professional. We have to get in the game & bring some serious folks ready to do serious work.

People need to learn that paragraphs are your friend....

First, while DoD Civilians have access to PME, it's not required.  I've been able to move up w/o ACSC, though the Masters Degree version is on my list of things to do.

Second, I'm not getting the point of your last section.  As I see it, CAP needs to do two things:

Figure out what it's going to do.

and

Shape the org around that.

We need to get away from "Missions for America" and move into "We can put an airborne sensor/photo platform over anyplace in CONUS within two hours for less than $100/hr."  Our recruiting and training should be structured with a mission end goal in mind.

[SAR-EMT1]

Here again- We need a REVISED and PUBLISHED vision statement from our NHQ staff (and as I said in an earlier thread- this vision statement would be authored not only by our own MG but also by CC/ CAP-USAF)

[Dragoon]

We need high standards for our leaders.

But unless our standards are the same as those for USAF officers (and not just the schools, either, but the experience, level of responsiblity, etc), we will always face comparisons.  And we'll always come out on the short end of the stick.

Selecting and training high quality CAP leaders? Essential.  No one would argue.

Making them look like USAF officers?  Not essential.  It helps in some cases, and hurts in others.

CAP needs to be good at what it does, and present a professional appearance.

But WHAT exactly we need to be good at, and what is our professional appearance should be are worthy of some serious analysis.  Starting the missions we need to perform, the resources available (training time, money, equipment), and the level of skill and knowledge of our recruits.  Then pick the best answer that accomplishes the mission within those resource constaints.

If we did this, I think we'd come up with a very different set up than the one we have today.  And it might not look much like active duty military....


And yeah, a joint vision statement - with some real "meaty" details in it (no more "missions for america") would really help focus any transformation efforts.

[sparks]

Dragoon, you are correct.
Rank is a hot button topic but not the primary issue CAP leadership should be considering. First they need to figure out what the organization should be (the 20-1 is being rewritten so I assume it's changing). Then make the decision public via a vision statement, funding  and regulations. Once it's decided what CAP is the argument over rank or lack of it can start again. Who knows, the mission may support only ES and a rank structure for it or abandon military rank. We could use position descriptions only. If the title of Commander in Chief is good enough for the president maybe Incident Commander or Mission Pilot would also be enough for CAP.
I can feel the flames already.

[SAR-EMT1]

I can feel the flames already.

IS that why you chose "sparks" for your ID tag?   

[sparks]

No, sparks like in antique radio communication equipment or electronics behaving badly.

I suspect there will be sparks at the board meeting in a few months so maybe the moniker will be adopted by the upper echelon too.

[ZigZag911]

I suspect there will be sparks at the board meeting in a few months

Why??

[Dragoon]

Dragoon, you are correct.
Rank is a hot button topic but not the primary issue CAP leadership should be considering. First they need to figure out what the organization should be (the 20-1 is being rewritten so I assume it's changing). Then make the decision public via a vision statement, funding  and regulations. Once it's decided what CAP is the argument over rank or lack of it can start again. Who knows, the mission may support only ES and a rank structure for it or abandon military rank. We could use position descriptions only. If the title of Commander in Chief is good enough for the president maybe Incident Commander or Mission Pilot would also be enough for CAP.
I can feel the flames already.

That may be the most intelligent single post I've read on this forum.  (not the line about agreeing with me,  but the thought process in your second paragraph.  Figure out what you want to DO first, and then build the organization that best gets that done.)