GREAT LAKES, Ill. (NNS) — Naval Service Training Command (NSTC) and the United States Naval Academy (USNA) are still accepting ideas and suggestions from the entire Navy Officer Corps and Chief's Mess regarding the core competencies of future Navy and Marine Corps officers and will continue accepting ideas and proposals until May 7.
In an initiative by Rear Adm. Rich Brown, NSTC commander, and in partnership with Vice Adm. Walter E. "Ted" Carter Jr., United States Naval Academy (USNA) superintendent, the crowd-sourcing interactive website, Massive Multi-player Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI), was launched, April 27, to get input on the curriculum for all naval officer accession commands.
As of the morning of May 4, more than 550 players were registered online and 2,006 idea cards were played. The players are located around the country and overseas including officers and senior enlisted Sailors in: Hawaii, Philippines, Japan, Bahrain, Qatar, United Kingdom, Italy, Djibouti, Germany, and Lithuania.
"I am pleasantly surprised by not only the amount of players and ideas we have so far, but more so by what people are actually saying," said Lt. Cmdr. Michael Keppen, NSTC's director of training (N7). "It is obvious that naval officers and senior enlisted Sailors from around the fleet have a lot to say about the professional core competencies that drive curricula for our midshipmen and officer candidates."
"Many players believe that we should be training our future leaders with more of a focus on leadership and management and less on technical information. A player named 'Jaffa' summed it up by saying, 'the technical skill most needed by JOs is how to lead. They will get the PQS of whatever when they hit the fleet,'" said Keppen.
Numerous topics have been trending throughout the game: fitness/wellness standards; hands-on training versus course work; naval warfare strategies; innovation strategies (SECNAV's innovation vision); future IT/IW competency; and character/integrity.
"From these trending topics, seven 'Action Plans' have been created to dive deeper into the ideas that were brought up in the game," said Keppen. '"Action Plans' provide players an opportunity to build the 'who, what, when, where and why' of a specific topic and enriches discussion and collaboration."
The MMOWGLI website portal will close to the fleet May 8. However, a private session for the Officer Board of Advisors will open on May 11, which will give a select and diverse group of senior officers the opportunity to comment and discuss the ideas. After this game is closed, academic experts from USNA and NSTC will compile the data and begin preparing a draft manual for an executive steering committee. For now all officers and senior enlisted from every community can still contribute at https://portal.mmowgli.nps.edu/pcc.
NSTC is overseen by Brown and his staff headquartered in Building 1, the historic clock tower building on Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois. NSTC oversees 98 percent of initial officer and enlisted accessions training for the Navy. This includes Recruit Training Command (RTC), the Navy's only boot camp also at Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois, Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) at more than 160 colleges and universities, Officer Training Command (OTC) at Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island, and the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) and Navy National Defense Cadet Corps (NNDCC) citizenship development programs at more than 600 high schools worldwide.
For more information about NSTC, visit http://www.netc.navy.mil/nstc/ or visit the NSTC Facebook pages at https://www.facebook.com/NavalServiceTraining/.
For more news from Naval Service Training Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/greatlakes/.