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High Retention Prompts Officer Selective Early Retirement Board
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- To help offset high retention and low attrition among active duty captains and commanders in the unrestricted line communities, the Navy will conduct a selective early retirement (SER) board in July 2011.
"In order to balance the force and ensure sufficient senior officers are available at the right time in their careers to serve in critical billets in the fleet, we will conduct a selective early retirement board for active duty captains and commanders in the unrestricted line (URL)," explained Vice Adm. Mark Ferguson, chief of naval personnel. "The board will look closely at leadership, integrity and proven and sustained superior performance in critical billets."
The SER board will consider the records of all active duty URL captains with at least four years time-in-grade as of July 1, 2011, and commanders who have twice failed for promotion to O-6. Captains and commanders whose name is on a list of officers recommended for promotion will not be reviewed for early retirement. Furthermore, staff and restricted line officers will not be considered by the SER board.
Officers who wish to be exempted from consideration by the SER board may submit a voluntary retirement request no later than April 1, 2011, with a requested retirement date of Sept. 1, 2012, or earlier. Once the voluntary retirement request is approved, the officer will be removed for consideration by the board. For those officers selected for early retirement, they must, by law, retire no later than the first day of the seventh month following secretary of the Navy approval of the board recommendations. The target date for this approval is Sept. 1, 2011.
Current projections indicate the SER board will select approximately 100 captains and 100 commanders for early retirement. These numbers may be adjusted based on the volume of voluntary retirement requests received prior to the board.
A separate NAVADMIN identifying the senior and junior in zone officers eligible will be released 30 days prior to the convening of the July 2011 SER board.
To listen to a podcast regarding the officer SER boards, visit http://www.navy.mil/media/audio/cnp/CNP%20Selective%20Early%20Retirement%20Podcast.mp3.
To learn more about this board, visit http://www.npc.navy.mil/NR/rdonlyres/549098BE-C476-4C1B-90F5-C60AFB0205B3/0/NAV11006.txt.
For more information from the chief of naval personnel, visit www.cnp.navy.mil.
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For more news from Chief of Naval Personnel, visit www.navy.mil/local/cnp/.
Don't get your knickers twisted... no one is suggesting that it's ok to have continuation boards for enlisted but not for officers. Besides, look at the numbers of senior enlisted not selected for continuation in the recent board - it amounts to 3 percent of eligible E-7 and above (active and Reserve). The proposed reduction in flag billets alone is a larger percentage than that, and I suspect that early retirement board results will be close to that number as well.
It is difficult to understand force reduction in any form or fashion during a time of war. "History is philosophy teaching by examples." Look to ancient Athens and Sparta as a case study.
Oh, I see! It's perfectly acceptable to push enlisted Sailors out and have service boards for them, but not the officers? Sacred cows in a time of budget cuts and reductions everywhere? Wake up. The Navy is doing the right thing here.
I find it interesting that in addition to the SERB, there will be more than 100 flag and general officers cut military-wide. This is some serious cost cutting. And as we saw a few months ago in Navy Times, we have more flag officers than ships these days.
Perfect. Too many proven, talented leaders that the Navy has spent millions of dollars training and educating are deciding to continue to serve to their full retirement window. So just can them and all the experience and capability they posses. It'll only take another decade to get those savings back...
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The navy will lose the experience and training of those officers selected for early retirement, but if they were not selected for promotion, they may not be the officers that are utilizing the training that they have received to their fullest. It may be time for them to retire. On the other hand, being selected for promotion can sometimes not be more than an admin dog and pony show, but it atleast saves you from the chopping block!