FY10 SelRes Community Officer Brief

[FlyinSpy]

Attached is a useful brief from Navy Personnel Command. For the more junior folks, the 2nd slide in the brief gives a nice career flow/summary of the different "gates" that would be expected during your career. The last slide lays out the "Community Values" that identify what is valued in the 163x world, and the things you should be aiming to accomplish as you work your way forward.

Most interesting to me is the growing gap in the O-4 inventory. The number show that the other ranks (O-3, -5, and -6) are tracking nicely between authorized ("OPA") and on-hand ("Inventory"), but O-4 land is widely out of whack, with 537 authorized, but only 289 on-hand. This is something that is unrecoverable, too - there's no way to magically go out and "find" a ton of O-4s. The source of the shortfall is unambiguous, too - not enough active duty 1630s are transitioning to the Reserves. Why not? Because they see how much the rented mules that are the 1635 community are getting whipped (mobilized), and they're saying "no thank you."

I saw a NAVADMIN earlier this month that was offering a $10K bonus for affiliation for 1635 O-4s. Clearly this is a reaction to the situation unfolding above, but I would be very surprised if there were a lot of takers - I believe it to be too little, too late. As a 1635 O-4, I have a front-row seat to this whole situation, so it will be interesting to see how it develops over the next several years.

 

[Jim123]

Just out of curiosity (and I don't even know enough to know what I don't know) but I remember reading that FTS Intel/1637 got folded back into active duty/1630, so my curiosity is what the scuttlebutt and reaction to that decision is in the 1635 world. Good, bad, ambivalent?

I'm a new 1317 so it's apples and oranges, not to mention I don't think the 13xx reserves have ever had a train wreck like 50% undermanning across an entire rank-designator combination. Of course I have a few friends who are 1630s.

 

[Flash]

Okay FlyinSpy, I have been wondering about a related question for a while about promotions. With them doing away with the 'running mate' system and only promoting those they have slots for, are they going to start clearing out the O-5/O-6's that stick around forever, taking up slots and possibly impeding promotions for a large number of people? I see a lot of USNR O-5/6 types sticking around forever, often past HYT, and I see it impeding promotions of those who come behind them with the doing away of the running mate system. I see it working itself out but I think it will take a few years to do so on its own, in the meantime it might screw guys like you and I.

Is this going to be an issue? Is USNR leadership aware of this? Is there any plan/mitigation?

 

[FlyinSpy]

Okay FlyinSpy, I have been wondering about a related question for a while about promotions. With them doing away with the 'running mate' system and only promoting those they have slots for, are they going to start clearing out the O-5/O-6's that stick around forever, taking up slots and possibly impeding promotions for a large number of people? I see a lot of USNR O-5/6 types sticking around forever, often past HYT, and I see it impeding promotions of those who come behind them with the doing away of the running mate system. I see it working itself out but I think it will take a few years to do so on its own, in the meantime it might screw guys like you and I.

Is this going to be an issue? Is USNR leadership aware of this? Is there any plan/mitigation?

From where I stand (and it's soda-straw perspective on "The Big Picture"...), the whole decoupling of the running-mate concept was presented not as a "force shaping measure" but as a tool to manage it once the shaping has occurred. Now what the deuce does that mean? Instead of continuing to promote to O-5 and O-6 at the active duty rates - and end up with situations like 144 O-6s competing for 86 billets, they'll only promote at the rate they can reasonably employ them. (This should also end the ridiculous situations of surplus O-6s filling billets that not-too-squared away 3rd class POs could do; there are a number of ridiculously ender-employed CAPTs out there...)

Now, this doesn't get rid of the surplus you have now - only time will take care of that. But in a few years, the situation should settle down somewhat. In certain communities, yes there will be a screw-job effect (and the 13xx world may be one of those in play); in intel, it will probably be the opposite - at the rate we're going, in a few years it will be me and another guy competing for the 86 billets. Of course, promotion rates will still only be 50%...

For Jim123: I am so decoupled from Intel FTS life that I have to say "No opinion" - you'd think there might be more interaction between 1635 and 1637, but so far in my career I have had minimal contact with the FTS side of the house - the CAG-20 spy was an FTS, but I never really had much to say other than "Hi how are ya's" at the CAG conferences.