Tie specialty ranks to position?

[Dragoon]

I have a friend who just retired from a career as a USAF Admin NCO.  In the last 10 years, the field changed greatly.  They really became the local network managers, since most "admin" was electronic.

[afgeo4]

The idea with this program (if adopted) is two fold.  1.  It insures that those who have a particular rating...actually have those sort of skills and in turn are worth of promotion to higher rank.  2.  It encourages/forces those who desire higher rank to stand up and take group/wing/regional positions.

As the program is now....Having a master rating in 90% of the specialy tracks does not require you to do anything outside of the squadron level.  Not saying this is necessarily bad...but to tie in with the "rank does not mean anything" threads it would mean that your Majors and Lt Cols would have to pull some time in group and wing level positions before being promoted.

I have to disagree with your concept that undermanned but competant wing and group staffs will result in a "culture of cometency".  I think it will more likely result in overworked and burned out staff officers.  I am not saying we need to accept the complete screw ups ...but it is often better to have an untrained volunteer holding a job than to allow that job to go unfilled.  YMMV.

Putting someone incompetent in charge doesn't prevent burning out of others, in fact, it is one of the causes. Requires everyone else to "help out" and "fix".  It also degregates everyone below. Perhaps that person is best suited as an assistant?

[lordmonar]

The idea with this program (if adopted) is two fold.  1.  It insures that those who have a particular rating...actually have those sort of skills and in turn are worth of promotion to higher rank.  2.  It encourages/forces those who desire higher rank to stand up and take group/wing/regional positions.

As the program is now....Having a master rating in 90% of the specialy tracks does not require you to do anything outside of the squadron level.  Not saying this is necessarily bad...but to tie in with the "rank does not mean anything" threads it would mean that your Majors and Lt Cols would have to pull some time in group and wing level positions before being promoted.

I have to disagree with your concept that undermanned but competant wing and group staffs will result in a "culture of cometency".  I think it will more likely result in overworked and burned out staff officers.  I am not saying we need to accept the complete screw ups ...but it is often better to have an untrained volunteer holding a job than to allow that job to go unfilled.  YMMV.

Putting someone incompetent in charge doesn't prevent burning out of others, in fact, it is one of the causes. Requires everyone else to "help out" and "fix".  It also degregates everyone below. Perhaps that person is best suited as an assistant?

There is a significant difference between unqualified (i.e. not trained, not enough experince, the wrong rank) and incompetant.  I am not and never have advocated putting or keeping incompetent people in positions of authority.

The only problem with "assistant" is that implies there is a primary.  If there is noone there to do the job in the first place, who is going to do it?

Fill a job with a warm body, with enough common sense not to set the building on fire...does not eliminate the extra work load of the staff...but it reduces it.

[Dragoon]

Bottom line - we are always going to have to fill with the best available, not the perfect candidate.  And some times the "best available" is not that good, but he's the only one that applied.

The simplest way to up the quality of applicants is to make the job more attractive.  More candidates = more chance of a good one.

Since we can't pay people money to do the hard jobs, we need to find some other way to "pay them".

Tying professional development advancement (and therefore promotions) to serving in those tough jobs makes it more likely that we'd get more applicants, and could choose the best one.

And it kind of makes sense, since in the Real Military we expect to seeing higher ranking guys at the higher levels.  And since "mastering" your PD track sort of implies you know the system from top to bottom.  How can that be true if you've only worked at the bottom?

[cnitas]

Tie specialty tracks to Levels/Rank?

I think this is a great idea!  Dave, why don't you write up a proposal and send it up the chain of command?