CHIPS Articles: Shaping the IP Community’s Future Vision

As a leader in the Navy’s Informational Professional (IP) community, the time has come to call for a needed paradigm shift to balance human capital and technology training with the goal of better supporting current mission capable areas while increasing readiness to respond to future anticipated needs, especially in the cyber domain. This balancing act is no easy task, but will pay huge dividends if care is taken to assess and shape the way ahead for systems and career path alignment within the IP community.

The traditional Personnel Qualification Standard (PQS), or on-the-job training, no longer satisfies the professional training requirement. IPs are unique and bring a lot to the Navy mission. Leadership needs to create training resources that combine cyber operations, infrastructure development, and maintenance needs to allow the strategic thinker the opportunity to develop and focus on the mission at hand instead of juggling the competing tasks of trying to receive training while work is being accomplished.

This synergy will allow experts to focus on leading and will strategically guide the IP officer anywhere assigned and needed to fulfill the mission. Train to fight, not train as you fight. To obtain this type of leader, a training framework must be built that matches the service member’s career path because, as noted by Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Walter “Ted” Carter in a recent address to Naval Academy plebs, there is an increasingly significant demand in the cyber domain for this type of leader.

The cyber domain is a new battlefield and IPs design, acquire, manage, maintain, protect, and defend this front. In other words, the infrastructure in which cyber exists is the IP's platform, while "NETCENTRIC/C2” (also known as network operations) is, in essence, the IP's warfighting domain. IPs are enablers to all warfare areas and operators within their own right! The cyber realm is today’s new war front. This realm also includes the radio frequency (RF) spectrum, which includes frequencies, space, infrastructure, and network operations. Information Professionals are also the cyber defenders and operators of the cyber battleground ashore and afloat.

The IP is the glue, the line between the dots, a supporting operator that allows the kinetic operator to succeed in any mission. In order to create a true Information Professional with the ability to succeed, lead and contribute to the mission there must be an investment and aligned resources to create a baseline training pipeline or an embedded one within the career path. (See Figure 1.)

Training is the foundation for readiness: a high rate of readiness also equates to mission success. This is a fact that is displayed every time a new Naval aviator lands an aircraft on a moving aircraft carrier, or a Navy SEAL completes a mission.

From my observation, one of the main reasons ship’s crew attend firefighting schools and practice fire drills repeatedly is to pass the final evaluation problem. Currently, all IP officers dedicate more than half of their time seeking certifications, academic classes, and non-government or other-military training to be competitive within the community. This time could be better utilized for the performance of duties in assigned billets. In addition, there is no alignment between an assigned billet and training. IP officers are assigned to billets in which they do not have the skills nor the training required to be effective. Leadership should provide the resources to create an IP training path with embedded training into the career path to include Information Dominance Corps (IDC) cross-billeting, and leverage the unrestricted line officers, U.S. Marine Corps, and the other services (joint) community training resources.

IP officers have a tremendous amount of information to master. Currently IP officers are expected to meet Defense Department cybersecurity force certifications, in accordance with the Information Assurance Workforce Improvement Program, DoD Manual 8570.01-M. In addition, these certifications are required to pass Cyber Security Inspections (CSI). Also, to stay competitive and to be efficient in the acquisition force IPs need DoD acquisition certifications. Not to mention, to be proficient at any tactical level, an IP must know and understand Department of the Navy (DON) communications systems, as per systems installed in our ships and communications facilities.

Traditionally, these certifications and required training are acquired during the performance of routine operations and maintenance. End state: this self-guided training is purposed to give IPs enough proficiency to maintain their professional readiness qualifications in accordance with COMNAVIDFORINST 1520.1, which they are expected to complete within specific timeframes.

In addition, most of this required training is inspected by DoD and DON, at the Type Commander (TYCOM) level. Although the Navy has implemented the use of vouchers to gain certifications, and also provides online resources, such as the Defense Acquisition University, Navy Knowledge Online and National Defense University, to accomplish these requirements, service members have to commit their personal time and time during normal work hours to complete this training. In other words, this task is conducted at the expense of members’ current jobs and personal time demands.

In my opinion, to meet these TYCOM requirements, a training path needs to be provided with the resources to achieve the necessary knowledge prior to arriving to a command billet, instead of expecting the member to meet a requirement while on the job. This will allow for those officers to be more competitive in their jobs, enhancing the readiness of the command, as well as creating a baseline to measure an IP’s personal skillset value for Fitness Reporting. This will also assist in shaping an environment that will measure members’ skillset value within and outside of the community. This creates mission-oriented, strategic thinking, and an efficient IP officer community, which would be of value to any warfare community.

Some recommendations to consider are:

• Create a mandated phased-based career training path provided in major fleet concentration training areas. Suggestions include: institutionalized basic, mid-term and advance courses aligning the completion of the Qualifications Program and Cyber Qualification requirements as the end state. (See Figure 2.)
• Allocate the phased-based career path training in fleet concentration areas via the Center for Information Dominance s, Afloat Training Group, and Expeditionary Warfare Training Group, to provide lodgings savings.
• Match the curriculum to current Information Systems Technician/Electronics Technician/Cryptologic Technician (IT/ET/CT) training in a concentrated manner. Add to the Information and Communication Manager Course (ICMC) curriculum or modify those rates current curriculum to provide the overall picture of the systems.
• Provide training to billet match, just like the unrestricted line community does for its communities. Before IPs move to a billet they will know how to operate in the billet.
• Leverage the other services’ joint cyber resources for cybersecurity, spectrum planning, and systems training.
• Leverage the leadership schools that the unrestricted line officer community utilizes to create a foundation of leaders within the IP community, for example, the Naval War College, Joint Forces Staff College, and others.
• Continue to peruse the Naval Academy, Officer Training Command and Reserve Officers Training Corps sources for IP manning.
• Ensure lateral transfers do not exceed the O3-grade lieutenant rank at the career eight-year mark, pass the IP core knowledge and experience, or/and allow the lateral transferred O3 officer to integrate by going into a back-to-back training core development courses.
• Ensure the SWO/IP career path guarantees those future IPs are assigned to IP billets. This can be done by the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Manpower, Personnel, Training Education/N1) and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance (OPNAV N2/N6) combined policy. (See Figure 3 and 4.)
• Incorporate the Reserve components into the path.

These recommendations are achievable. Nevertheless they will require leadership to consider:

• The community manager and head detailer to revamp the current business rules and funding for process realignment.
• Accept that there is no easy path to accomplish this training transition, but it can be reachable and the return on investment is higher than the implementation cost.
• An upfront funding investment may be required to realign current resources and human capital may decrease from the civilian sector, as well as military forces will have billets that will align to the deployment rotation to complement and maintain their professional in rate/billet skills. Nevertheless, this sacrifice will provide efficiencies and a higher return of investment in the future. (See Figure 5.)
• IP leadership supporting a realistic return on investment: Understand and acknowledge the ROI will take six to eight years to show major results.

The aforementioned recommendations and consideration require collaboration analysis and commitment prior to being implemented. Nevertheless, this type of approach has been done before in other very successful communities. The unrestricted line officer, Surface, Air, SEAL, Subsurface, and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) communities invested time and resources to create their current training and education environment, IPs need to do the same, or be able to leverage other communities’ resources. A “no cost” plan does not exist. To avoid new expenses, any projected plan, needs to take advantage of training opportunities that already exist within the DoD.

Bottom line: the Information Professional is very similar to the EOD and SEAL operator communities, in the sense that the IP platform is a volatile environment in which IPs operate. These communities consider their operators the platform. In this sense, these communities do not man a platform; they equip the man to operate. Leadership needs to make a short-term assessment on current billets, systems and career path training alignment to develop a training path that creates an IP officer ready to operate.

The challenge to create a training plan that combines cyber operations, infrastructure development, and maintenance to allow the strategic thinker the opportunity to develop and focus on the mission at hand is achievable, and the IP community can achieve a higher level of readiness by committing to equip the IP officer for success!

Lt. Cmdr. Santiago Martinez is currently the Amphibious Ready Group and Marine Expeditionary Unit, CTF-51 N6 Deputy under Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT).