DTIC ADA449117: Improving the Development and Utilization of Air Force Space and Missile Officers

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Improving the Development and Utilization of Air Force Space and
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Missile Officers
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Improving the
Development and
Utilization of
Air Force Space
and Missile Officers
Georges Vernez, Craig Moore,
Steven Martino, Jeffrey Yuen
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Improving the development and utilization of Air Force space and missile officers /
Georges Vernez ... [et al.].
p. cm.
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ISBN 0-8330-3818-4 (pbk.)
1. United States. Air Force—Officers—Training of. 2. Astronautics, Military.
I. Vernez, Georges.
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Preface
In 2001, the Vice Commander of the Air Force Space Command
(AFSPC/CV) asked the RAND Corporation to review the assignment
and utilization of space and missile officers (Air Force specialty 13S)
and assess whether the career field is sustainable. About the same
time, the Commission to Assess United States National Security
Space Management and Organization issued a report calling for sig-
nificant changes in the development and management of the space
workforce, including officer, enlisted, and civilian personnel (Rums-
feld Space Commission, 2001). Before and at the same time as our
research, the so-called Developing Aerospace Leaders initiative was
formulating ideas for altering professional development of Air Force
officers within and across career fields.
Seeking common ground between somewhat competing initia-
tives (the Developing Aerospace Leaders initiative aimed to counter
the tendency for officers to stay within narrow functional communi-
ties and instead broaden them into other areas to increase their future
effectiveness as Air Force leaders, while the Rumsfeld Space Commis-
sion mandated greater depth for space professionals), we concentrated
first on identifying requirements: the backgrounds that 13S officers
need to perform their jobs successfully—i.e., the demand. At the
same time, we examined the backgrounds that officers had actually
acquired by different stages in their careers—i.e., the supply. Then,
we assessed the gaps in officers’ preparation and, finally, developed
and used an optimization model to assess whether altered patterns of
officer development and utilization could improve the match between
iii
iv Development and Utilization of Air Force Space and Missile Officers
supply and demand and be sustained over time. As we illustrate, the
model can address both current and future sets of requirements.
This research, completed in early 2003, should be of interest to
leaders in the space and missile community for what it says about the
development and utilization of 13S officers, to leaders in other opera-
tional and functional communities and to personnel planners for its
potential methodological applicability to other career fields and even
across career fields, and to personnel, education, and training special-
ists for the kinds of data it uses and the new analytic capability it pre-
sents.
Subsequent to the completion of this research, the Air Force
space and missile community established a Space Professional Devel-
opment Program at AFSPC to oversee the development of officer,
enlisted, and civilian space professionals Air Force–wide and pub-
lished Space Professional Strategy, a strategic plan for developing and
sustaining the officer, enlisted, and civilian space workforce (AFSPC,
2003). With assistance from its contractor, Scitor Corporation, the
program (“Space Pro”) has developed more extensive databases that
parallel those assembled and demonstrated in this preliminary
research: one designates each position’s requirements, another identi-
fies its contribution to an incumbent’s experience portfolio, and a
third describes each member’s accumulated portfolio of experience—
all three in terms of what are called space professional experience codes
(see AFSPC, 2005). In parallel, the Chief of Staff, Gen John Jumper,
and the Secretary of the Air Force, Robert Roche, began “operation-
alizing” the Developing Aerospace Leaders initiative. They adopted a
conceptual framework, chartered development teams to help shape
plans for career fields and guide members’ deliberate development
under the leadership of long-standing functional managers, estab-
lished staffs at the Air Staff and the Air Force Personnel Center to
support the effort, and appointed a Force Development Council of
senior leaders to oversee the overall force development enterprise.
This research was sponsored by the AFSPC/CV and was con-
ducted in the Manpower, Personnel, and Training Program of
RAND Project AIR FORCE. Coauthor (then–Lieutenant Colonel)
Preface v
Jeff Yuen, a 13S officer, spent the 2001–2002 academic year at
RAND in his assignment for Senior Service School.
Project AIR FORCE
RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF), a division of the RAND Corpo-
ration, is the U.S. Air Force’s federally funded research and develop-
ment center for studies and analyses. PAF provides the Air Force with
independent analyses of policy alternatives affecting the development,
employment, combat readiness, and support of current and future
aerospace forces. Research is conducted in four programs: Aerospace
Force Development; Manpower, Personnel, and Training; Resource
Management; and Strategy and Doctrine.
Additional information about PAF is available on our Web site
at http://www.rand.org/paf.

Contents
Preface......................................................................iii
Figures......................................................................xi
Tables......................................................................xiii
Summary.................................................................xvii
Acknowledgments........................................................xxix
Abbreviations ..........................................................xxxiii
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction.................................................................1
The Space and Missile Career Field (13S)...................................1
Concerns About the Evolution of the Career Field..........................4
Research Objectives and Approach..........................................5
Scope and Limitations.......................................................7
Organization of This Report.................................................8
CHAPTER TWO
Backgrounds Required for Space and Missile Jobs: Demand............9
Identifying 13S Jobs’ Required Backgrounds................................9
Focus on Education, Training, and On-the-Job Experience.............9
Experts Identified the Jobs’ Requirements..............................11
Reliability of the Experts’ Ratings of Required Backgrounds...........14
Assessment of the Rating Process and Limitations .....................17
Backgrounds Required for 13S Jobs.......................................18
Backgrounds Demanded................................................19
Demand for Tactical Experience........................................21
vii