http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2010/11/navy-seal-diversity-110610w/
SAN DIEGO — The Naval Special Warfare Center is embarking on new marketing and awareness campaigns to reach more minority candidates who have the best odds of becoming Navy SEALs in the hope that those efforts will diversity the commando force.
The campaign is the latest move by Naval Special Warfare Command to boost its recruitment of minorities, particularly African-Americans, to attend the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course and follow-on SEAL Qualification Training and join the all-male community of special operators — one that historically has been largely white.
The campaign started Oct. 1, but much of the work is just beginning, said Rosemary Heiss, an NSW Recruiting Directorate spokeswoman in Coronado, Calif.
Naval Special Warfare Command hired three contractors for the diversity initiative, which will renew naval special warfare’s outreach to historically black colleges and universities; develop new marketing strategies that focus awareness, screening and recruiting efforts on minority communities; and develop research that identifies the traits of successful BUD/S candidates to hone recruiting.
“Each initiative has a different approach to get a candidate that we want. When you have a multifaceted approach, you start to mesh the different initiatives together to get more successful candidates,” Cmdr. Brodes Hartley, naval special warfare’s force diversity officer, said in a Navy Compass article.
Navy SEAL training is considered among the toughest in the military, with attrition rates from BUD/S average roughly 75 percent. But efforts in recent years, including an expanded recruitment effort and retooled preparatory course at the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Ill., are showing signs of easing attrition of potential SEAL and special warfare combatant-craft crewman candidates.
However, overall minority numbers still remain short of existing goals, and minority representation within NSW’s officer and enlisted communities remains much lower than what is reflected in the U.S. population.
Roughly 12.5 percent of the U.S. population is black, a number expected to rise to 13 percent by 2040, according to U.S. Census predictions. But only 10 percent of SEAL officers are minorities — with blacks representing 2 percent of officers — and minorities make up less than 20 percent of enlisted special warfare operators, according to a May contract solicitation for the pilot marketing and outreach program.
The latest plan comes as top military leaders — including Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former CNO — have spoken publicly about the importance of diversifying the military for the next generation, with diversity targets set for 2037.
To reach those goals within its senior officer ranks, naval special warfare must boost the number graduating and completing all BUD/S and SEAL Qualification Training by 15 or 16 minority officers and 40 to 50 sailors, the command wrote in the solicitation.
The latest campaign also aims to tackle a long-running and vexing problem: Why aren’t minorities attracted to spec ops as much as white men?
A 1999 Rand study that examined diversity among the military’s spec ops forces found several key “barriers” cited as reasons fewer minority men opt to go into special operations. These included: the lack of minorities as role models within spec ops forces; little support within their own minority communities for choosing spec ops; and poor skills, little access or less experience with swimming, which is critical to spec ops diving missions and a must in meeting physical fitness requirements and completing demanding training.
SAN DIEGO — The Naval Special Warfare Center is embarking on new marketing and awareness campaigns to reach more minority candidates who have the best odds of becoming Navy SEALs in the hope that those efforts will diversity the commando force.
The campaign is the latest move by Naval Special Warfare Command to boost its recruitment of minorities, particularly African-Americans, to attend the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course and follow-on SEAL Qualification Training and join the all-male community of special operators — one that historically has been largely white.
The campaign started Oct. 1, but much of the work is just beginning, said Rosemary Heiss, an NSW Recruiting Directorate spokeswoman in Coronado, Calif.
Naval Special Warfare Command hired three contractors for the diversity initiative, which will renew naval special warfare’s outreach to historically black colleges and universities; develop new marketing strategies that focus awareness, screening and recruiting efforts on minority communities; and develop research that identifies the traits of successful BUD/S candidates to hone recruiting.
“Each initiative has a different approach to get a candidate that we want. When you have a multifaceted approach, you start to mesh the different initiatives together to get more successful candidates,” Cmdr. Brodes Hartley, naval special warfare’s force diversity officer, said in a Navy Compass article.
Navy SEAL training is considered among the toughest in the military, with attrition rates from BUD/S average roughly 75 percent. But efforts in recent years, including an expanded recruitment effort and retooled preparatory course at the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Ill., are showing signs of easing attrition of potential SEAL and special warfare combatant-craft crewman candidates.
However, overall minority numbers still remain short of existing goals, and minority representation within NSW’s officer and enlisted communities remains much lower than what is reflected in the U.S. population.
Roughly 12.5 percent of the U.S. population is black, a number expected to rise to 13 percent by 2040, according to U.S. Census predictions. But only 10 percent of SEAL officers are minorities — with blacks representing 2 percent of officers — and minorities make up less than 20 percent of enlisted special warfare operators, according to a May contract solicitation for the pilot marketing and outreach program.
The latest plan comes as top military leaders — including Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former CNO — have spoken publicly about the importance of diversifying the military for the next generation, with diversity targets set for 2037.
To reach those goals within its senior officer ranks, naval special warfare must boost the number graduating and completing all BUD/S and SEAL Qualification Training by 15 or 16 minority officers and 40 to 50 sailors, the command wrote in the solicitation.
The latest campaign also aims to tackle a long-running and vexing problem: Why aren’t minorities attracted to spec ops as much as white men?
A 1999 Rand study that examined diversity among the military’s spec ops forces found several key “barriers” cited as reasons fewer minority men opt to go into special operations. These included: the lack of minorities as role models within spec ops forces; little support within their own minority communities for choosing spec ops; and poor skills, little access or less experience with swimming, which is critical to spec ops diving missions and a must in meeting physical fitness requirements and completing demanding training.
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