Region Boundaries

[Turk]

Our regions were established along the lines of the Army Corps Districts, dating back to an act of Congress in 1920.  Eighty eight years on, we really could use some realignment in CAP...

A classic example is SWR - having Arizona in the same region with Louisiana makes no more sense than having Illinois in with New York.

If it was up to me (and it ain't) Alabama. Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee would be the new South Central Region (call it SCR). Arizona and New Mexico would go where they belong - into the Rocky Mountain Region. Also, I'd move West Virginia over to Great Lakes, put Delaware and Maryland into Northeast, and create a new Southeast Region with Virginia and NatCap in the north down the coast to Georgia and Florida in the south.  Puerto Rico, too.  G'bye to the old SWR and MER. There'd be seven regions with boundaries that make sense, vs eight that don't.

"Yeah yeah" you're thinkin', "here's ol' Turk stirrin' things up again!" But I really think our senior leadership should give this some thought.   

[RiverAux]

Personally, I see very little need for Regions in the first place since just about all actual authority that matters resides with either the Wing Commander or NHQ.

[Turk]

Personally, I see very little need for Regions in the first place since just about all actual authority that matters resides with either the Wing Commander or NHQ.

Span of control, brother! And having 52 wings directly under National would far exceed it!   

[RiverAux]

Sure, but what exactly are Regions controlling???  Selection of the Wing Commander, running region cadet competitions (usually actually done by someone in one of the wings from what I've heard), and Region Staff College, unusual promotion requests, and ....

[lordmonar]

Cross wing coordination.

When two wings interact....it is better for someone more local to make the call.

I can see a need for regions...but maybe we need to redefine them.

Hawaii, Alaska, PR and the overseas squadrons should report to a non-CONUS region commander....then we devide the country into four regions North East, South East, Central, and Western. 

[Turk]

Sure, but what exactly are Regions controlling???  Selection of the Wing Commander, running region cadet competitions (usually actually done by someone in one of the wings from what I've heard), and Region Staff College, unusual promotion requests, and ....

You've already made the case for having regions. If you put all 52 wings right under National, sooner or later, they'd they'd establish some sort of intermediate echelon to run all this.  Like, uh, regions.

[RiverAux]

If thats all we need them for, they can safely be dispensed with....everything but picking the Wing commander can be done on an ad hoc basis and there are other ways that could be used to get the Wing Commanders....

But, that is somewhat drifty.....

Leaving aside whether or not we need them and back to the boundaries....if we're going to have them at all, I think that a whole bunch of different ways of organizing them, each of which could probably be justified. 

In looking at the map, I do agree that the Southwest Region is just ridiculous.  All the way from the Mississippi River to the California border is just way too big.  I would probably favor making the 4-corners states their own region and then making TX, OK, LA, AR and maybe MO and KS into their own region. 

The other boundaries are more or less ok.

[Ned]

Before we get all excited trying to re-invent the wheel, exactly what problem are we trying solve here?

Region headquarters tend to be pretty small and efficient operations.  They add value, and don't cost much in overhead.


Move along, nothing to see here. . .

[Turk]

Before we get all excited trying to re-invent the wheel, exactly what problem are we trying solve here?

Region headquarters tend to be pretty small and efficient operations.  They add value, and don't cost much in overhead.


Move along, nothing to see here. . .

I'm not proposing a major wheel reinvention - just a minor tire realignment.  I'm not here to question the existence of regions or what they should or shouldn't do.   

[RiverAux]

I think the issue is that some of them may be too geographically large to really be practical, with SWR being a prime example. 

As to them adding value, I've made my comment on that.  As to not costing much in overhead, I'm not aware of any evidence out there on how much they do cost since CAP keeps its finances so secretive.  If you know of some online region budgets that we can examine, I'd be interested in taking a look. 

[Mustang]

Region headquarters tend to be pretty small and efficient operations.  They add value, and don't cost much in overhead.

And they serve as a convenient storage receptacle for members not wanted at the squadron/group/wing level!  (No, not Ned....)

Just kidding, I agree that region hq is a mostly useless echelon.

[FW]

I think the issue is that some of them may be too geographically large to really be practical, with SWR being a prime example. 

As to them adding value, I've made my comment on that.  As to not costing much in overhead, I'm not aware of any evidence out there on how much they do cost since CAP keeps its finances so secretive.  If you know of some on line region budgets that we can examine, I'd be interested in taking a look. 

River, just because you don't know where to look or how to ask, doesn't mean CAP keeps finances secret.  Regions get about $20K per year for O&M from national. Each region also keeps money from dues and fundraising.  

IMHO, Region Boundaries don't make much sense.  But, with electronic communications, does it matter?  As long as region conferences are held in central locations, transportation should not be a big issue.  And, interwing relocation of aircraft (region responsibility) does not seem to be a problem with the current boundaries.

[TXCAP]

Just as a suggestion, if regional boundry realignment were to be considered why not use the existing federal regions?  That way we are aligned with one of our bigger customers.

See http://www.fema.gov/about/regions/index.shtm

[RRLE]

The FEMA regions are also a close but not exact match to USCG Districts.

[mikeylikey]

 As long as region conferences are held in central locations, transportation should not be a big issue.  

Thats the thing.  Usually the conference, HQ locations, meetings and events are NEVER held in Central locations within Regions.  Take NER for example.  Great that they are having a Region Encampment, but is it practical to send my Cadets there, when they would have to drive 12+ hours?  No Way.  In fact the PAWG ENC in my mind is too far away at 4+ hours, so I am sending them to another wings ENC (which is over $100.00 CHEAPER).

Reorganization into smaller Regions (both geographically and by member totals) would be very economical.  

[Cecil DP]

Looking at the map there is an inconsistatncy in the number of states within each region, ranging from two to six. why would CAP need a seperate commander for just NJ and NY? 

[jimmydeanno]

I think the question comes back to what type of span of control are we looking for?

Are we looking to have an even area of geographical responsibility?

Are we looking to have manpower span of control where each commander would be responsible for a certain number of members?

I don't think our current system really covers either.  We have wings with 250 members and wings with 2K.  We have regions that are geographically small and some that are geographically huge.

What is the intent?  What type of control are we looking for?

[mikeylikey]

Regions are a throwback to the 1940's.  They need adjusted IMO.  When a Region has 1,000 members and another Region has 7,000 members....are both Regions still getting the 20,000 dollars that FW mentioned above??

Also, speaking about Regions, lets also throw in the fact that Some Wings have one State Director, while others get to share a State Director.  Reference, PAWG and NJWG.  They share one SD, one CAP-USAF office and one set of personell.  Other Wings get a single SD.  I would rather have one SD for each of the Larger Wings, and let the Smaller Wings share between maybe two or three. 

[Ned]

I'm not proposing a major wheel reinvention - just a minor tire realignment.  I'm not here to question the existence of regions or what they should or shouldn't do.   

And you want to realign the tires because the current arrangement is aesthetically unpleasant to you?

I agree that CAP regions are primarily to serve as a "span of control" intermediate headquarters, and can only further agree that the boundaries are historically-based and somewhat arbitrary.

We could certainly re-slice the pie in any number of different ways (FEMA boundaries, USCG districts, SMSA distributions, etc).  We could even "re-apportion" every ten years after the Census to make sure that every region commander and SD has exactly the same number of bodies as every other cc and SD.

But again, what's the point? 

Heck, wings are even more arbitrary than regions -- we will never be able to make them all equal as long as the stupid states insist on being differently sized with different populations.  Why not change the wings by breaking the state=wing paradigm and making every command have exactly the same resources in personnel and equipment.


How would we save any resources or improve CAP by redrawing the lines? 

Ned Lee

[MIKE]

What about keeping regions, but axing wings?  The CGAux does it this way with the districts, but they also uses divisions which are like groups.