New NCO Promotion Regulations

[Private Investigator]

No, they may just want officers with degrees.  If you want to be an officer.... if you don't....

If they want officers to hold degrees the org can pay for it.  Having a degree does not make someone a better leader or officer.

You have a better ideal than the "good ole boy network"? Now if the guy/gal is a leader, I take it to mean they are a Squadron Commander but how many CAP officers have never been a Commander much less a "satisfactory" Commander.   

[Private Investigator]

... I would like warrant officer grades to be reinstated (the Air Force does not have them, so there would be no confusion) for those (like me) who are job-specific and have no desire/ability to run the show.  However, that will not happen.

What is wrong with NCOs. The downside to WO is a third to half the SQ will be WOs. For those upset with college degree requirements, anyone who is a pilot should be a officer just like lawyers, doctors and chaplains. The only other CAP officers should be Commanders and former Commanders.

[Eclipse]

What is wrong with NCOs.

In a CAP context, the paradigm and caste system of the NCO/Officer relationship doesn't exist, CAN'T exist,
and will be detrimental to good order and discipline to try and force the division between volunteers.
As it exists, grade confers no authority whatsoever, yet those espousing an NCO program in CAP contend
that NCOs would be the backbone of CAP and are critical to its longterm success.

This despite no studies, demographics data or any information made public about the pool of new members
who are not available to CAP today unless they can wear stripes and function in an actual NCO role.  Everyone
reading this >knows< this is not the case today.

Absent authority, this is an exercise in wasting time and making people feel good, to zero benefit and significant risk.
it also sets up a class of members who feel their grade somehow trumps other vounteers, yet with no authority to excercise.
>With< authority, it is a timebomb waiting to happen.  I want to be a fly on the wall the first time a New 2nd Lt with
wet bars tells a Chief to take out the garbage, or sweep the floors.  Think that won't happen?  It happens today
between Lt Cols, ALL THE TIME.   Good luck with that.

Is CAP's plan to light up OTS' and NCOAs all over the country and hold all members to a year of training
before they get to do anything in CAP? Great.  In the meantime the organization is shrinking and
there's been no pool of people identified who are just waiting to go to school for CAP so they
can give their time for free.

Further, anything which gives license for one class of membership to feel empowered to specialize while
another class is expected to generalize, makes things worse, reduces the total manpower, and again
will create move division in ranks then we have today.

CAP is 30-50% or more under-manned to even consider the idea of dividing the members between officers and NCOs
beyond the nod to other service it given today.

The downside to WO is a third to half the SQ will be WOs. For those upset with college degree requirements, anyone who is a pilot should be a officer just like lawyers, doctors and chaplains. The only other CAP officers should be Commanders and former Commanders.

No matter what title you give the rank and file, 1/3rd to 1/2 half or more of the membership will be that "thing".
Pilots are the very definition of specialists (if that is all they do), and therefore would also be the definition of
either WOs or FOs.

[Private Investigator]

What is wrong with NCOs.

In a CAP context, the paradigm and caste system of the NCO/Officer relationship doesn't exist, CAN'T exist,
and will be detrimental to good order and discipline to try and force the division between volunteers.
As it exists, grade confers no authority whatsoever, yet those espousing an NCO program in CAP contend
that NCOs would be the backbone of CAP and are critical to its longterm success.

This despite no studies, demographics data or any information made public about the pool of new members
who are not available to CAP today unless they can wear stripes and function in an actual NCO role.  Everyone
reading this >knows< this is not the case today.

Absent authority, this is an exercise in wasting time and making people feel good, to zero benefit and significant risk.
it also sets up a class of members who feel their grade somehow trumps other vounteers, yet with no authority to excercise.
>With< authority, it is a timebomb waiting to happen.  I want to be a fly on the wall the first time a New 2nd Lt with
wet bars tells a Chief to take out the garbage, or sweep the floors.  Think that won't happen?  It happens today
between Lt Cols, ALL THE TIME.   Good luck with that.

Is CAP's plan to light up OTS' and NCOAs all over the country and hold all members to a year of training
before they get to do anything in CAP? Great.  In the meantime the organization is shrinking and
there's been no pool of people identified who are just waiting to go to school for CAP so they
can give their time for free.

Further, anything which gives license for one class of membership to feel empowered to specialize while
another class is expected to generalize, makes things worse, reduces the total manpower, and again
will create move division in ranks then we have today.

CAP is 30-50% or more under-manned to even consider the idea of dividing the members between officers and NCOs
beyond the nod to other service it given today.

The downside to WO is a third to half the SQ will be WOs. For those upset with college degree requirements, anyone who is a pilot should be a officer just like lawyers, doctors and chaplains. The only other CAP officers should be Commanders and former Commanders.

No matter what title you give the rank and file, 1/3rd to 1/2 half or more of the membership will be that "thing".
Pilots are the very definition of specialists (if that is all they do), and therefore would also be the definition of
either WOs or FOs.

Well I guess you support the status quo? Neverless nothing is wrong with brainstorming an ideal.   

[Eclipse]

Well I guess you support the status quo? Neverless nothing is wrong with brainstorming an ideal.   

No, absolutely not, but you can't do this piecemeal when you don't have members to shed.

End-to-end reboot?  Let's talk, because the attrition is ultimately worth the risk, but in this case there is
no demonstrable benefit, nor even an indicated purpose.

[catrulz]

Under Phase I - Recruitment would have been smoother if there had been a conversion matrix based on the former NCO's prior military service + their training and advancement to date in CAP.  Especially in light of the fact, that you won't allow them to wear their former grade until after 6 months, because they need experience in CAP.   Many former NCOs that might have been interested, may not be without credit for what they have already achieved in CAP.

You bring up a good point.  Do you have any ideas of what that matrix would look like?

Lordmonar,

I created a matrix as a starting point, with the idea of crediting the former enlisted person with their accumulated CAP service and training.    Unfortunately, can't attach it to this message.  If you PM me I would be willing to e-mail it to you.

In the former case of Cyborg with his years of service, and holding the rank of CAPT as a former E4, he should convert as a minimum of TSGT.

[catrulz]

What is wrong with NCOs.

In a CAP context, the paradigm and caste system of the NCO/Officer relationship doesn't exist, CAN'T exist,
and will be detrimental to good order and discipline to try and force the division between volunteers.
As it exists, grade confers no authority whatsoever, yet those espousing an NCO program in CAP contend
that NCOs would be the backbone of CAP and are critical to its longterm success.

This despite no studies, demographics data or any information made public about the pool of new members
who are not available to CAP today unless they can wear stripes and function in an actual NCO role.  Everyone
reading this >knows< this is not the case today.

Absent authority, this is an exercise in wasting time and making people feel good, to zero benefit and significant risk.
it also sets up a class of members who feel their grade somehow trumps other vounteers, yet with no authority to excercise.
>With< authority, it is a timebomb waiting to happen.  I want to be a fly on the wall the first time a New 2nd Lt with
wet bars tells a Chief to take out the garbage, or sweep the floors.  Think that won't happen?  It happens today
between Lt Cols, ALL THE TIME.   Good luck with that.

Is CAP's plan to light up OTS' and NCOAs all over the country and hold all members to a year of training
before they get to do anything in CAP? Great.  In the meantime the organization is shrinking and
there's been no pool of people identified who are just waiting to go to school for CAP so they
can give their time for free.

Further, anything which gives license for one class of membership to feel empowered to specialize while
another class is expected to generalize, makes things worse, reduces the total manpower, and again
will create move division in ranks then we have today.

CAP is 30-50% or more under-manned to even consider the idea of dividing the members between officers and NCOs
beyond the nod to other service it given today.

The downside to WO is a third to half the SQ will be WOs. For those upset with college degree requirements, anyone who is a pilot should be a officer just like lawyers, doctors and chaplains. The only other CAP officers should be Commanders and former Commanders.

No matter what title you give the rank and file, 1/3rd to 1/2 half or more of the membership will be that "thing".
Pilots are the very definition of specialists (if that is all they do), and therefore would also be the definition of
either WOs or FOs.

A well functioning CAP unit is a team.  The grade worn by the member shouldn't matter, as long as there is a spirit of respect between the membership.  NCO's are leaders without being commanders.  Okay, so there is no exact niche for them yet, even though they have been among us all along.  I served my first year as an NCO, and only gave up the stripes to command a unit.  We have a CAP NCO on the west side of the state, that has been a honored and respected member for as long as I can remember.

I think we get overly distracted by rank and uniforms, and underwhelmed by operations and performance.  Does an NCO Corps help CAP?  Possibly, if you correct some mistakes in creating the officer Corps, and I'm not saying they will, but the opportunity is there with a clean starting slate.

[Cliff_Chambliss]

Deleted, original post as a very dark thought as to the pending death of CAP as traditional ties to the USAF are severed and CAP moves further to the corporate model, and too many failed policies and programs.

[jimmydeanno]

The org should pay for everything they want the members to have?  Really?

So if they want their legal officers to hold JDs they should pay for those?  If they want their personnel who drive vans to hold driver's licenses they should pay for that?  I've never been in a job where they didn't expect me to come to the table with the skill set they require.  You don't get hired at an architectural firm and then they send you to school for structural engineering.  They expect you to show up on your first day able to design buildings that won't fall down.

CAP can't provide or pay for every skill set they need in their organization, but it doesn't mean that they can't require that if you want to hold a position that you have the training necessary to hold the job.  Certainly, there internal procedures and such that need to be learned that you won't find anywhere else that they need to provide.

Would having our officers hold degrees help?  Maybe, in the sense that if the degree was applicable to the job they were holding they would have more general knowledge of how to do the job effectively than someone walking in off the street without a degree in the field.  I don't necessarily think that those people working at the unit level have a need for holding a degree, but to assume that the folks operating at our strategic levels wouldn't is somewhat absurd. 

So, I assume the solution would be that something like company grade officers would not be required to have a degree, but field grade and above would.  Then cap the promotions of the folks that work at lower levels.  But I digress, my point is that nobody is forcing you to volunteer for CAP, and if you have a burning desire to be the CFO, CAP shouldn't have to pay for your accounting degree.

[Eclipse]

Apples and hand grenades.  I am talking about leadership development, not specialized skills.

And as we've said before, if you want grade or privilege for those special skills, you have to
demonstrate you're using them for CAP. 

Lawyers, yes if they are appointed as JA.  MOs - no, since they can't so anything in CAP specific to
their skill set.  Pilots, yes if they are flying for CAP, etc., etc.

But in terms of commanders?  No.  Absolutely not.  That should be developed fully in-house.

Having a major in ceramics with a minor in romance languages isn't going to help you be a Wing CC.

[jimmydeanno]

Why is there an expectation that we are going to/can develop leadership skills from within?  We always say how 2.5 hours a week is not enough time to do "x" or really change "x" so what makes us think that we can throw a few courses at people and voila, they're leaders?  It's unrealistic, especially in something that is a part-time gig.  Leadership development is going to happen outside of our walls, and our job is to recruit people who have that discipline and ability and teach them how it applies to CAP.

Leadership is a "special skill" that it appears that many/most of our members don't actually have, considering that the exit surveys cite local leadership as one of the major factors of their leaving.  Having a corps of our leadership with specialized skills like "non-profit organizational leadership", "marketing", "journalism", "aviation safety", etc., which are all degrees (besides degrees like liberal arts are going to at least teach someone how to think), at the national, region, and wing levels with a degree which applies to their role is far better than having someone without formal specialized training in that area.  For commanders, at those levels, they need a strategic skill set which doesn't necessarily translate to "Bachelor's in CAP Wing Command", but a directorate level staff officer who has been extremely successful and has leadership abilities (which were probably developed outside of CAP) is going to be a fine candidate for command or our upper levels.

[Ned]

I certainly gave this topic a great deal of thought while we were drafting the minimum requirements for our CEO / National Commander and creating the hiring process.

The BoG was keenly aware that the kinds of things we were looking for as part of the "CEO skillset" were unlikely to be the product of the CAP professional development program.  We even spent some time looking at the NSC & RSC curriculum with an eye towards some suggested improvements.

But ultimately we concluded that without a drastic redesign of the system (to include adding multiple additional tiers requiring months of additional education), our senior leaders would be gaining the majority of the necessary training and experience from outside of CAP.

Just to add some additional data to the converstation, take a look at the Air Force Demographic Information concerning education levels for senior NCOs and officers.

Over 82% of AF senior NCOs have an associate degree or higher.

Half of all AF officers have master's degrees or higher.

Certainly interesting.

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

I have an Associate in Applied Science degree with Honours (3.735 GPA) and almost enough credits for a Bachelor's in Psychology/Social Work.

I have been on the Dean's List several times.

I do not see how it has helped me in CAP.

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

Leadership is a "special skill" that it appears that many/most of our members don't actually have, considering that the exit surveys cite local leadership as one of the major factors of their leaving.

I don't have it and am not afraid to admit it.

[CAP_truth]

CAP needs an enlisted program open to new members who are not college graduates. An officer's corp. of professionally  educated like RM and a transition program for enlisted to become officers. Years ago we had a membership category as General Membership which is like patron members. We could use that as an enlisted membership with a lower membership dues and different training that current officers. My 2 cents.

[Eclipse]

I certainly gave this topic a great deal of thought while we were drafting the minimum requirements for our CEO / National Commander and creating the hiring process.

Since any or all of the "minimum qualifications" can be waived by the BOG, they aren't really "requirements", any more then
there have ever been "requirements" for Wing and Region Commanders.  They do make for a convenient disqualification point for
those the BOG may not be interested in entertaining for the job.

Just to add some additional data to the converstation, take a look at the Air Force Demographic Information concerning education levels for senior NCOs and officers.

Over 82% of AF senior NCOs have an associate degree or higher.

Half of all AF officers have master's degrees or higher.

Certainly interesting.

Certainly not relevent, unless CAP is intending to pay for that schooling, which the USAF most certainly does.

Also, I would hazard that a significant number of those with degrees, perhaps even the majority of the NCOs,
are undertaking that education as preparation for post-military employment.

[Eclipse]

I agree that you can't teach "leadership" in the Teddy Roosevelt sense of the word, but you can teach
"management" fairly easily, not to mention the day-to-day administration of running a squadron, Group, or wing.

The latter should be implemented internally in lieu of the generalized seminars that make up SLS/CLC & UCC.

That training should be required BEFORE you are even considered for a command or staff slot, but again,
CAP is undermanned by 30-50% to even consider that idea.

Someone with a relevent degree should be able to move into that space easily (in the same way we expect
an Army Ranger to still demonstrate the GTM tasks), but someone without a degree, but good general aptitude
can also achieve a high level of competence (we know that because of the anecdotal successes we see in pockets today).

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

^^I went through both SLS and CLC back in 1994, within just a few months of joining.

I do not remember anything but very general concepts about them.

I would guess that the curricula have changed since then.

[Storm Chaser]

Why doesn't CAP ever reach for the affectation of the parts of the military that would actually benefit it
or the membership?

Raise the bar on who can serve as staff and commanders?  I'm there with you, let's do it today, by
holding people to expectations of performance and training them INTERNALLY >BEFORE< they
get the prime job.

Anything CAP expects of the membership in terms of training or education, it should be providing to
its members, otherwise you break the entirety of the ROI, not to mention shrink your membership
pool  even further.

Bingo.  If my employer requires me to have something to do my job they provide it no ifs, ands, or butts.

While I don't necessarily agree with this "requirement" for CAP, your statement makes no sense. My job required me to have a degree. Without the degree, I wouldn't have been hired. The same is true for certain promotions. Companies can and do require certain employees to hold degrees or other special qualifications.

Now, getting back to CAP. I doubt a degree will ever be required. That said, it wouldn't be unprecedented. CAP requires the National Commander, also a volunteer, to hold a bachelor's degree. CAP also requires legal officers to hold a law degree, etc. They could do the same for region and wing commanders or certain staff officers.

While I'm not advocating that CAP add education requirements for the general membership, they could very well do so for certain command or staff positions. In fact, they already do. The reason the military requires officers to hold a degree is because they want officers to have a minimum level of education, just like the private sector do with certain employees. The degree doesn't make the officers better, but ensures there's a baseline in which to further that education.

That said, CAP is different and should not be held to the same standard as the military. Should we require CAP officers to hold degrees? Probably not. Do we need all members to be officers? Definitely not. In fact, I don't know of any other organization in which 90% of members are officers.

[PHall]

Just to add some additional data to the converstation, take a look at the Air Force Demographic Information concerning education levels for senior NCOs and officers.

Over 82% of AF senior NCOs have an associate degree or higher.

Half of all AF officers have master's degrees or higher.

Certainly interesting.

Having your CCAF Associate degree is pretty much required if you want to make MSgt in the Air Force.
In some career fields where the compretition is especially tight you might even need it to make TSgt.
A BS/BA is pretty much a prerequesite for SMSgt and CMSgt.

On the officer side a Master's is needed to make Major these days.