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Cyber Command takes shape

Air Force Cyber Command has established 17 new enlisted and officer Air Force Specialty Codes — creating major changes in the career paths of more than 32,000 airmen.

Just three months from the stand up of the command on Oct. 1, its leaders unveiled a new cyberspace operator badge as well as a detailed career path that those who wear it will soon follow.

All the career plans are not set in stone, but what is known is that the new command will receive an influx of airmen — small at first — that eventually will grow into one of the service’s largest commands.

The job changes will be mandatory.

The command will comprise four types of airmen: operators, specialists, analysts and developers.

Operators will plan, direct and execute offensive/defensive actions; specialists will be adept at cyberspace’s technical aspects; analysts will primarily include intelligence airmen; and developers will design and modify software and hardware packages.

Almost all communications and information airmen can count on making the switch to Cyber Command, but debate continues over how the other career fields will bleed out airmen to fill the new command’s needs, and just how many airmen that will entail, said Maj. Timothy Franz, chief of Cyber Command force development.

Officials will decide later this year if airmen who come from other career fields — such as intelligence and acquisitions — will take on new AFSCs or keep their current ones, Franz said.

It has been decided, though, that airmen in 2E (Communications-Electronics), 3A (Information Management) and 3C (Communications and Computer Systems) specialty codes will take on the new 1B (Cyber Operators/Specialists) code. Those airmen do not yet know, however, which specific job they will receive, Franz said.

Communications and information (33S) officers will become cyber warfare operators or electronic warfare officers, but other potential officer career fields are under consideration — especially for those who will serve as analysts and developers. Electronic warfare officers will be a subset of the 12X combat systems officer community.

No date has been set for when officers will find out what these new career fields might be or when the rest of the enlisted force will get coded under new AFSCs.

Promotions

Airmen often worry about passing their Skills Knowledge Test when switching career fields, but that should not be a problem here.

The command’s deputy chief of force development, Chief Master Sgt. Nicholas Smith, said airmen can get a waiver from taking the Skills Knowledge Test if they come up for promotion at the beginning of the transition.

No timetable has been set for when that waiver will end.

“It’s going to be like cross training into any other new career field,” said Master Sgt. David Roberson, who will transfer into the command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., on July 25 from Peterson’s headquarters’ unit.

Training path

At the onset, specialized training will be minimal until 2010, after funding is approved for new school houses, officials said.

However, plans are in place to set up pipeline courses for cyber operators and specialists by 2010, officials said.

Advanced courses will come after that, including retraining to become enlisted on-net operators or electronic warfare operators. Airmen coded as 1BO (operators) and 1B1 (specialists) will be screened after three to five years on the job to attend Undergraduate Cyberspace Warfare Training and the Cyber 100 professional development course. These schools are also two years away, and it’s not clear what their curricula will look like.

Upon graduation they will be coded 1B4 (operators).

Enlisted airmen will start taking advanced courses when they are senior airmen and continue classes through master sergeant.

Officers will start their cyber careers by taking Undergraduate Cyber Warfare Training and then Cyber 100 after commissioning. They will then move on — at first lieutenant — to formal training designed for the offensive and defensive cyber units to which they will be assigned.

Majors will take Cyber 200, lieutenant colonels will take Cyber 300 and colonels will take Cyber 400, according to the cyberspace training path released by the command. Planning is still in its infant stages, and details on what officers will learn in these classes hasn’t been released.

These advanced courses could be a ways off, though, since the pipeline courses will be the first priority and those won’t start for two years, Franz said.

Until then, Cyber Command will use training that airmen already have received in electrical operations, information management and communications operations, Franz said.

Airmen transferring into the command will get computer-based and technical training at their units for their new jobs so the mission won’t suffer as personnel play catch-up.

For instance, the Network Warfare Operations course taught by the 39th Information Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla., will help fill the gap. Begun in 2007, it teaches airmen network warfare organizations, missions, policy, planning and integration.

“We bring in the pros and legal experts and get into the basics of computers, but also teach a highly technical program,” said Lt. Col. Steven Ranalli, 39th squadron commander.

Roberson said waiting until 2010 to get the formalized training up and running will be a limiting factor unless units can fill that hole.

Command officials haven’t forgotten about training for the more than 30,000 civilian personnel who will join the command, but their training path and courses haven’t been completely defined.

Cyberspace badge

Details about who will wear the new cyberspace badge and when they’ll wear it remain murky, although the badge will not be exclusive to operators, said Karen Petitt, a command spokeswoman.

Maj. Gen. William T. Lord, the command’s provisional commander, released the badge’s design June 18 at the second an-nual Cyberspace Symposium, in Marlborough, Mass.

Designers of the badge drew from Cyber Command’s lineage with electronic warfare officers and navigators, along with its worldwide and space-related mission, to choose symbols found within the badge’s design, such as the globe and lightning bolts.

“I like it,” said Staff Sgt. Justin Cook with 52nd Combat Communications, who will transfer into the command, upon first seeing the badge.

“It’s great that we’ll have a badge that will distinguish us as cyber among the rest.”