Air Force to restructure IT career paths

The Air Force's recent decision to postpone plans for the launch of a new Cyber Command has complicated the service’s effort to cut its headcount to mandated levels while expanding the mission of its information technology specialists.

The Air Force's IT ranks will shrink by 8,200, said Maj. Gen. John Maluda, director of cyberspace transformation and strategy, secretary of the Air Force’s Office of Warfighting Integration and chief information officer, at the Air Force IT Conference in August.

The challenge is to accommodate the 40,000-person reduction in force mandated by Program Budget Decision 720 – a December 2005 decision by the Air Force to reduce acquisition and maintenance of what it deemed to be aging or less-strategic aircraft to leave more room in the budget for the F-22 Raptor.

During the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, Bush administration officials approved the acquisition of only 179 F-22s rather than the 381 the Air Force had requested.

To make up for the shortfall and extend its acquisition plan from 2008 into 2010, when a new administration will be making the spending decisions, the Air Force agreed to cut 40,000 personnel and reduce its fleet of aircraft by taking U-2 spy planes out of service, halting the purchase of F-117 strike fighters in 2008 rather than 2011, and reducing the number of B-52s and C-21A executive transports in operation, among other things.

Former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said at the time that 13 percent of officer job categories and 20 percent of enlisted categories were underfilled, and the Air Force would make the necessary reductions over the course of four years, at a rate of 6,700 or so per year.

The service intended to make up for the reduction in staff by increasing the efficiency of the technology for which IT specialists are responsible, Wynne said.

But automation can only go so far. The workers who remain and civilian and industry resources must bear the rest of the technology load, Maluda said.

That will ultimately mean a significant shift in the career paths of enlisted technical specialists to more closely align with new categories and implementations of technology, such as increasing the number of security specialists who play cyberwarfare roles rather than secure the information and networks of individual bases, he said.

It will also mean an increasing reliance on the expertise of longtime civilian employees and contractors whose technical and management skills can fill in the gaps, especially in the officer ranks.

Many officers designated under the 33S military communications and information classification can be shifted to the new 17D cyberspace warfare classification, which is under review along with the rest of the cyberspace program, Maluda said.

"On the enlisted side, there's a solid track for folks who want to stick to the technical side of things," he said. "And we need that. We need folks who can think outside the box. I don't have that on the officer side."

Officer job descriptions require administration and leadership skills that don’t fit well with technical advancement, so those who are more interested in technology than management tend to change their focus or leave the service.

Therefore, the Air Force is dependent on civilians and contractors for technically savvy managers.

"We'll end up with some of those civilian employees as leaders," Maluda said. "They haven't had the opportunity for leadership before, but some of those folks [who] have been working garrisoned at the same base 10, 12, 15 years and haven't had the opportunity for advancement are going to have more of an opportunity."

"We're going to use [contractor employees], too,” he added. “We've done a good job of using them up until now, and there are contractors doing things no one ever thought of using them for a few years ago. "

However, civilian jobs are not altogether safe. The Air Force announced this week it is outsourcing 180 civil engineering jobs – most currently filled by civilian employees – to New Jersey-based Defense Support Services. The American Federation of Government Employees is protesting the decision on procedural grounds. Competition for the outsourcing contract has been going on, with a number of breaks, since 1999.

Enlisted career categories will shift significantly toward new cyberspace priorities and adding cyberspace or new technology responsibilities to existing functions, Maluda said. No decisions on those categories have been finalized and probably won't be until the plan for the Cyber Command is clearer.

Maluda said new Air Force CIO Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson is also pushing forward with updates on career paths, categorizations and reassignments. Peterson was unable to attend the conference because he was meeting with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz to discuss larger organizational changes to the service.

"We are painfully aware of situations where we have individuals' lives on hold," Maluda said. "And we will get things straightened out for those 500-plus people whose lives are messed up because of some of these issues."

The cutbacks are having a similarly disruptive impact on other areas of the Air Force as well.

For example, Peterson announced Aug. 28 that troops responsible for arming and maintaining fighters, bombers and rescue aircraft would not become the responsibility of individual squadron commanders, as had been ordered by outgoing Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley.

Moseley said squadron commanders were responsible for the condition and flying time of aircraft under their command and therefore should have oversight of the crews maintaining those aircraft.

Schwartz disagreed. "Independent maintenance groups produce professionals with the highest level of maintenance and logistics competency, and that translates to mission effectiveness," according to a statement from his office.

Not making a major shift will also "reduce organizational turmoil as we focus on winning today's fight," the announcement states.