The Army Wants To Recruit Cyber Experts By Hiring Civilians At Rank Of Colonel

[AWP]

This is a dumb idea and while many of the suggestions/ solutions in this thread are great they will almost never happen. There's the right way and the gov't way, so guess which on will win?

- Bringing them in at any officer rank is just a bad idea
- I'd love the see the list of requirements to justify an instant O-6 (or any officer rank for that matter). The certs needed would have to be astronomical.
- Growing your own service members is a non-starter unless you cut manpower elsewhere or dump a ton of money and time on the problem. The number of contractors working cyber security is staggering. For example, AFCENT's cyber security group is a bunch of CTR's and a few officers and NCO's. I think a Captain is the chief of cyber security for the whole AOR. We'd drop a Colonel into the mix. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
- "Contractors" is a thread until itself. We need contractors in large numbers but we're cutting their salaries. Once you're in the system it can be difficult to fire one and worse if the company is a pile of crap like "Stockheed Bartin." Unless the military is willing to step in and fire a contractor for performance (it has every right to but rarely does) they are "blood in, blood out."
- There are almost no repercussions in uniform and out for performance failures. CTR, GS, or Mil, you can do almost anything and get away with your garbage.

Those are basics, I can address other points if anyone's interested.

(Contracting since 2004, current IA/ Network Lead for a major C2 project overseas)

 

[104TN]

...
- I'd love the see the list of requirements to justify an instant O-6 (or any officer rank for that matter). The certs needed would have to be astronomical.
...

Speaking solely as a tax-payer, I'd much rather see a focus on recruiting civilian thought leaders with proven track records fostering innovation within their teams and solving rapidly evolving infrastructure challenges than looking for PHBs with oodles of paper certs.

Given the challenges McGee was quoted as saying the Army is trying to solve, I don't know that trying something new is necessarily bad. I get there's a lot of history and ego at stake when you're talking about recruiting a field grade O off the street, but as the title of the Marshall Goldsmith book summarizes, "what got you here won't get you there."

Having the clout of an O6 puts these potential leaders in a position where they can solve a lot of their own problems and potentially disrupt the status quo in the process. Nobody is going to tell a Direct Commission neurosurgeon to get f*cked just because they didn't spend two decades in uniform becoming an O6. Part of that is because said Doc probably spent that same amount of time in school, residency, and fellowships to become the kind of skilled subject matter expert that warranted being commissioned as a Colonel.

I hope the folks the Army targets to bring in at this level to support the Cyber mission will be as equally impressive and just as deserving of that type of deference.

 

[AWP]

Speaking solely as a tax-payer, I'd much rather see a focus on recruiting civilian thought leaders with proven track records fostering innovation within their teams and solving rapidly evolving infrastructure challenges than looking for PHBs with oodles of paper certs.

Given the challenges McGee was quoted as saying the Army is trying to solve, I don't know that trying something new is necessarily bad. I get there's a lot of history and ego at stake when you're talking about recruiting a field grade O off the street, but as the title of the Marshall Goldsmith book summarizes, "what got you here won't get you there."

Having the clout of an O6 puts these potential leaders in a position where they can solve a lot of their own problems and potentially disrupt the status quo in the process. Nobody is going to tell a Direct Commission neurosurgeon to get f*cked just because they didn't spend two decades in uniform becoming an O6. Part of that is because said Doc probably spent that same amount of time in school, residency, and fellowships to become the kind of skilled subject matter expert that warranted being commissioned as a Colonel.

I hope the folks the Army targets to bring in at this level to support the Cyber mission will be as equally impressive and just as deserving of that type of deference.

Which is a great POV, but the problem with an O-6 is one of slots. Take a major command like AFCENT. The A6 is headed by a Colonel as is his Army counterpart. Brining in an O-6 either places them at a major command like CENTCOM or permanently At the Pentagon or a cyberwarfare command. Many of those positions are currently manned by career comm officers providing most of them their only shot at O-6. We'd have two or more O-6's on staff without conflict? If we need their managerial/ technical expertise then they should be GS-15's or something like that for pay.

Something needs to change. Hard, painful changes to be honest, but I think we're back to the right way vs. the gov't way. This is ultimately a problem best solved via money and are we prepared for that battle?

 

[Ranger Psych]

Yep, you're right, that's all officers do.

You know I am being facetious. You guys also drink the lions share of the coffee the E's made for the CSM.

Sending these people straight to WOCS doesn't necessarily mean they have the capacity to work at the level of a WO anyway. They aren't familiar with BN/BDE/Group/Corps/whatever level of function, and may not have the familiarity and contacts built up that your typical WO should have. (It really pays dividends to know the who's who in the IC/Cyber/INSCOM, etc) In my opinion, the solution for this is to hire contractors in the interim while they incentivize senior 35Q/17C/25D MOS and equivalents to attend their services WOCS equivalent.

Never once met a good IT dude in the army, other than our CW2. Not saying there aren't reasonable oned out there, but those that are didn't learn all they know about IT from AIT by a long shot.

Only a Warrant can blow off all the military hyperbole due to the equiv of a shiny bullshit reflector, with black ops sham cloak inserts. Therefore, instead of having to make every stupid mandatory briefing for hours about insert whatever dumb shit other than full spectrum warfare big army dictates we need training on.... they can dissapear into the warrant warren and do fucking work snd mission related training. I skipped so many formations and various stupid shit when I was tasked out with our Warrant due to my own level of IT knowhow, letting him work bigger picture stuff while I did less technical, but totally crucial, tasks that made shit like the TOCs be able to actually do the O and C part.

@compforce will most likely attest that as the pro tier it nerd he is, he could have made real shit happen with a half shiny compared to having to fight his fights at the level he was working, with what...3 plus paygrades below what was intended for that type of position?

We bring in people straight off the street with the credentials right now, for flight warrants, surgeon officers, etc. Surgrons aside, Warrants don't command, they are technical masters. Cyber defense isn't something you can just learn in a condensed AITesque evironment, let alone Cyber offense.

Unless you just want a Battalion of script kiddies that will let the entire army get p0wned as soon as the network connection goes live because the app for defending the system that Rockheed Dynamics LTD made is sctually the primary point to attack, escalate privs off of, then pivot from, because it has over 9000 day0 exploits out the gate.

Without requisite schooling and real, real world experience, to understand the true way that you do things instead of manufacturers designed book methods that barely work in perfect deployment scenarios, and the rank to give that knowledge more push, you won't get proper solutions implemented or purchased.

 

[Isiah6:8]

This might be a dumb question so I apologize in advance:

If you bring in the quality of people you would like to and put them on the GS pay scale, why would they leave for the GS scale or Senior/Executive (would that even be an option?) when it comes to pay? I am missing something since I see that the pay scale caps out at 168k. If I look at the Executive pay scale it is 205k and that seems to be ~ O7-10. IT guys in the financial industry are worth their weight in gold, so that might be skewing my perception.

 

[ThunderHorse]

They could do this, but they'd have to change the Force Structure, and just because HRC has a cool idea, doesn't mean the rank and file Infantry, Armor, Artillery, and SpecOps guys who run the Army would desire this. They'd probably be way cool with just handing out Warrants for WO4 and WO5s to bring them in.

 

[104TN]

They could do this, but they'd have to change the Force Structure, and just because HRC has a cool idea, doesn't mean the rank and file Infantry, Armor, Artillery, and SpecOps guys who run the Army would desire this. They'd probably be way cool with just handing out Warrants for WO4 and WO5s to bring them in.

Except a W5 w/20 years in makes ~$87K. I get that there will be a certain element of altruism/Patriotism at play if this program gets off the ground, but if the Army actually needs experienced technologist...that comp. would probably be an insurmountable hurdle for people that are likely hiring junior members to their teams at that same pay level.

 

[ThunderHorse]

Then I foresee something along the lines of what MDs get, the 25k incentive bonus every year.

 

[AWP]

This might be a dumb question so I apologize in advance:

If you bring in the quality of people you would like to and put them on the GS pay scale, why would they leave for the GS scale or Senior/Executive (would that even be an option?) when it comes to pay? I am missing something since I see that the pay scale caps out at 168k. If I look at the Executive pay scale it is 205k and that seems to be ~ O7-10. IT guys in the financial industry are worth their weight in gold, so that might be skewing my perception.

It goes back to my earlier posts: what credentials are they looking for when hiring for these positions? Depending upon those requirements you can attract people to fill those slots, but you'll never have the best outside of those with a higher sense of purpose than a bank account. What you would see are contractors bailing left and right, now your rank and file are sitting on top of the pile...which goes back to my earlier point about how do you slot these people within the force structure? You can't have a bunch of GS-13+ sitting in a shop unless you want problems. If your CTR's bail for these new officer or GS positions, what talent will fill the CTR ranks...and remember that a fair number of contractors are, and I say this as one, bags of shit.

You have a finite pool of qualified people and a much smaller pool of those worth a damn. If you are to attract those from outside the existing DoD structure you'll need money and lots of it. As mentioned above, you're looking at Warrant Officers with substantial end of the year and retention bonuses.

 

[CDG]

It goes back to my earlier posts: what credentials are they looking for when hiring for these positions? Depending upon those requirements you can attract people to fill those slots, but you'll never have the best outside of those with a higher sense of purpose than a bank account. What you would see are contractors bailing left and right, now your rank and file are sitting on top of the pile...which goes back to my earlier point about how do you slot these people within the force structure? You can't have a bunch of GS-13+ sitting in a shop unless you want problems. If your CTR's bail for these new officer or GS positions, what talent will fill the CTR ranks...and remember that a fair number of contractors are, and I say this as one, bags of shit.

You have a finite pool of qualified people and a much smaller pool of those worth a damn. If you are to attract those from outside the existing DoD structure you'll need money and lots of it. As mentioned above, you're looking at Warrant Officers with substantial end of the year and retention bonuses.

Do they need to affect the force structure though? The Navy has the Limited Duty Officer (LDO) program. That may be a way to bridge the gap between the warrant pay issue that @rick mentioned, and the force structure problems you foresee. These SMEs would still be SMEs, and limited to that field, but with the rank on the collar required to actually get things done. O-3s or contractors are not going to cut it.

 

[Red Flag 1]

Do they need to affect the force structure though? The Navy has the Limited Duty Officer (LDO) program. That may be a way to bridge the gap between the warrant pay issue that @rick mentioned, and the force structure problems you foresee. These SMEs would still be SMEs, and limited to that field, but with the rank on the collar required to actually get things done. O-3s or contractors are not going to cut it.

The rank structure/Force structure really is where things get interesting. There are only so many slots for 0-5, 0-6 and above. Who is going to give up 0-6 slots for a civilian to slide into the force structure, with no command training or authority? It will make competition for rank even tighter, costing retention issues even worse than they are right now.

This waste of rank makes no sense at all.

 

[Isiah6:8]

It goes back to my earlier posts: what credentials are they looking for when hiring for these positions? Depending upon those requirements you can attract people to fill those slots, but you'll never have the best outside of those with a higher sense of purpose than a bank account. What you would see are contractors bailing left and right, now your rank and file are sitting on top of the pile...which goes back to my earlier point about how do you slot these people within the force structure? You can't have a bunch of GS-13+ sitting in a shop unless you want problems. If your CTR's bail for these new officer or GS positions, what talent will fill the CTR ranks...and remember that a fair number of contractors are, and I say this as one, bags of shit.

You have a finite pool of qualified people and a much smaller pool of those worth a damn. If you are to attract those from outside the existing DoD structure you'll need money and lots of it. As mentioned above, you're looking at Warrant Officers with substantial end of the year and retention bonuses.

Thanks for the explanation, really appreciate it. The sense of purpose conversation I tried to steer away from because if someone offered less pay, and different organizational structure they aren't accustomed to, that is a tough conversation to have.

 

[CDG]

The rank structure/Force structure really is where things get interesting. There are only so many slots for 0-5, 0-6 and above. Who is going to give up 0-6 slots for a civilian to slide into the force structure, with no command training or authority? It will make competition for rank even tighter, costing retention issues even worse than they are right now.

This waste of rank makes no sense at all.

What I am saying, is you create a separate structure for these SMEs. So officers from other branches are not competing against them. It's a special position created solely for the purpose of having the expertise available, with the commensurate rank needed to actually get things accomplished.

 

[ThunderHorse]

What I am saying, is you create a separate structure for these SMEs. So officers from other branches are not competing against them. It's a special position created solely for the purpose of having the expertise available, with the commensurate rank needed to actually get things accomplished.

Within the Navy those slots occupied by LDOs are part of the Force Structure for someone within that MOS. They would still be a part of the force structure, you either add end strength to the authorization and then create LDO type slots, but folks tend not to respect folks who haven't held a command of some kind. It's an interesting concept to bring in Civilians and give them rank, it hasn't happened in a very long time.

 

[Il Duce]

I don't mean to add a layer of gossip to this but I think it's germane to add BG(P) Frost has one of the worst reputations of any MI officer I have ever come across. I've heard very open discussion by O-6s about how she ever got selected for GO in the first place. I've never heard an officer who worked for or with her have a positive view of her decision-making or professional competence.

I've never worked for her but trust the people I've heard those things from. With that context this strikes me as a terrible idea that's not going to make it off the ground.

That being said, DCGS-A is still kicking around dominating the MI world so what the fuck do I know about predicting good decisions by MI leadership.

 

[Red Flag 1]

[Q

 

[SpaceshipDoorGunner]

You know I am being facetious. You guys also drink the lions share of the coffee the E's made for the CSM.

Never once met a good IT dude in the army, other than our CW2. Not saying there aren't reasonable oned out there, but those that are didn't learn all they know about IT from AIT by a long shot.

Only a Warrant can blow off all the military hyperbole due to the equiv of a shiny bullshit reflector, with black ops sham cloak inserts. Therefore, instead of having to make every stupid mandatory briefing for hours about insert whatever dumb shit other than full spectrum warfare big army dictates we need training on.... they can dissapear into the warrant warren and do fucking work snd mission related training. I skipped so many formations and various stupid shit when I was tasked out with our Warrant due to my own level of IT knowhow, letting him work bigger picture stuff while I did less technical, but totally crucial, tasks that made shit like the TOCs be able to actually do the O and C part.

@compforce will most likely attest that as the pro tier it nerd he is, he could have made real shit happen with a half shiny compared to having to fight his fights at the level he was working, with what...3 plus paygrades below what was intended for that type of position?

We bring in people straight off the street with the credentials right now, for flight warrants, surgeon officers, etc. Surgrons aside, Warrants don't command, they are technical masters. Cyber defense isn't something you can just learn in a condensed AITesque evironment, let alone Cyber offense.

Unless you just want a Battalion of script kiddies that will let the entire army get p0wned as soon as the network connection goes live because the app for defending the system that Rockheed Dynamics LTD made is sctually the primary point to attack, escalate privs off of, then pivot from, because it has over 9000 day0 exploits out the gate.

Without requisite schooling and real, real world experience, to understand the true way that you do things instead of manufacturers designed book methods that barely work in perfect deployment scenarios, and the rank to give that knowledge more push, you won't get proper solutions implemented or purchased.

That's a fair point. I guess I'm coming from my bias and understanding of how SIGINT WOs should operate. I still think that the talent could be fostered from the inside by people working the related jobs. The aforementioned MOS (s) could do very well in a Cyber/CND WO position. If they catered this position to those with the talent and passion, and made the application process as difficult (i.e. testing, previous experience, degree, certs) as they do the 17C and 35Q application process, then we could really have something here. I think the Army has a lot of the talent already in service. It just needs to do a better job of talent management. (In general, really) Doing a little of both in service "hiring", and off the street hiring for WO, is probably the way to go.

 

[compforce]

@compforce will most likely attest that as the pro tier it nerd he is, he could have made real shit happen with a half shiny compared to having to fight his fights at the level he was working, with what...3 plus paygrades below what was intended for that type of position?

We bring in people straight off the street with the credentials right now, for flight warrants, surgeon officers, etc. Surgrons aside, Warrants don't command, they are technical masters. Cyber defense isn't something you can just learn in a condensed AITesque evironment, let alone Cyber offense.

More than 3, I was an E-4 (promoted to E-5 3 months into the tour) in a CW2/3 slot with theatre level responsibilities. There was also an E-5 Air Force reservist in the same position as I was at our higher. The only thing that made it work for me was that I had an O-4 flying top cover for me. Honestly, I ran out of time, I couldn't have gotten much more done in the time I was there without burning out completely regardless of how shiny my shoulders were. Without the O-4, I would have been performing help desk functions like resetting passwords (which is where they tried to assign me initially).

AIT was crap from an IT perspective. I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to do anything relevant with the training from AIT. The certification courses that are required after AIT would get them to a level of basic knowledge that I would consider for an entry level position. Certainly nothing that would make me trust them for positions around securing a network.

It goes back to my earlier posts: what credentials are they looking for when hiring for these positions? Depending upon those requirements you can attract people to fill those slots, but you'll never have the best outside of those with a higher sense of purpose than a bank account. What you would see are contractors bailing left and right, now your rank and file are sitting on top of the pile...which goes back to my earlier point about how do you slot these people within the force structure? You can't have a bunch of GS-13+ sitting in a shop unless you want problems. If your CTR's bail for these new officer or GS positions, what talent will fill the CTR ranks...and remember that a fair number of contractors are, and I say this as one, bags of shit.

You have a finite pool of qualified people and a much smaller pool of those worth a damn. If you are to attract those from outside the existing DoD structure you'll need money and lots of it. As mentioned above, you're looking at Warrant Officers with substantial end of the year and retention bonuses.

I agree, they would have to be outside the force structure.

Do they need to affect the force structure though? The Navy has the Limited Duty Officer (LDO) program. That may be a way to bridge the gap between the warrant pay issue that @rick mentioned, and the force structure problems you foresee. These SMEs would still be SMEs, and limited to that field, but with the rank on the collar required to actually get things done. O-3s or contractors are not going to cut it.

The Army has some of those technical fields for O's too. The O-4 I mentioned was MOS FA-53 (Functional Area 53). It's a technical officer that cannot hold a command position except for temporary situations such as having all the other field grade O's wiped out and holding the position until replacements can be sent in. Our O-4 reported during the deployment to an Air Force O-3.

Functional Area (FA) / Career Fields

As far as compensation, the total compensation for an O-4/5 is roughly equivalent to the average a senior IT person can expect in the civilian sector. There are outliers that make significantly more, but you aren't going to recruit them on the basis of cash. There would be major prestige in the IT world as a member of a nation state's (the US) offensive cyber capabilities. Quite a few talented geeks would work for less than they could make to have that as a part of their legitimate resume. It would also open a huge field of very well paying jobs in IT security for those people. They would write their own paycheck after 7-10 years experience at that level.

I don't think CWO pay would be enough, but the field grade payroll and benefits might just do it. Hell, it's been 5 years since I got back from the last deployment and I am still paying off the loans I took to get me through the drop in pay. I'd have stayed in and still been doing it if it wouldn't have bankrupted me (and a few other reasons, most of which were results of deployments). Compensation is rarely the primary driver of an employee's work decisions unless it is far outside the norm in either direction.

 

[Marauder06]

What I am saying, is you create a separate structure for these SMEs. So officers from other branches are not competing against them. It's a special position created solely for the purpose of having the expertise available, with the commensurate rank needed to actually get things accomplished.

We have that already, they're called warrant officers. This isn't about competence, it's about prestige.

 

[compforce]

We have that already, they're called warrant officers. This isn't about competence, it's about prestige.

I know that in theory that is how the Warrant Officer program is supposed to work. In the IT field, they aren't delegated enough authority to get the job done. The CW3 that was my counterpart for the first half of the deployment sat on a help desk for at least the first year after his return to CONUS. He wasn't allowed to even reset a password. He was required to answer the phone and start a ticket for the contractors to change the password. That's it, no hands on. What a waste of training. He was pretty solid at the network side of things. I saw that situation quite a few times both inside SOCOM and on the conventional side. If the Warrant Officer program worked like it was supposed to and enlisted training was up to speed, you wouldn't need all of the contractors.

Also, you are certainly correct about already having it. It's the FA program I linked to in my earlier post.