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Air Force to begin civilian leadership program

The Air Force is launching a leadership program for junior civilian employees as part of an increased focus on career development for civilians, who make up more than 20 percent of the total force.

The first class of 25 students begins the two-week course at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., on Oct. 27, and a total of 100 students in fiscal 2009 will go through Civilian Acculturation and Leadership Training.

But the program could become much larger because the service’s force development team at the Pentagon is working on plans to send as many as 320 civilians per year to the training.

The course is intended to give civilians leadership training more in line with what new uniformed officers receive, said Joseph McDade, the force development director.

“We have an [Officer Training School] program and [Air and Space Basic Course] for officers,” he said. “We get the officers together in one place for acculturation and a common experience. There was no equivalent for the civilians. ... The idea was to give the kind of experience that young civilians need in order to ... hit the ground running.”

Admittance to the course is selective, and candidates must have worked with the Air Force as a civilian for two to three years; be enrolled in the Copper Cap internship program for contract specialists or the Palace Acquire internship for other career fields; or be graduates of the Student Career Experience Program.

Most of the students will come from support function career fields, such as communications, acquisition, personnel and logistics — areas in which the uniformed cadre has taken large personnel cuts because of force shaping.

The course is modeled after Basic Officer Training, the officer candidate program for recent college graduates without military experience. Sixty percent of the course will focus on leadership development with the remainder on Air Force core values, Air Force history and a war game.

The students will live and eat on base so they can be exposed to the young officers with whom they’ll be working.

The course is part of a larger focus, begun by former Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and then-Secretary Michael W. Wynne, on improving career development for civilians. Acting Secretary Michael Donley codified that emphasis Aug. 27 in a policy directive ordering the Air Force to take a harder look at force development.

“We knew how to take a lieutenant and grow a general, and we know how to take an airman basic and grow a chief,” said Col. Lynn Connett, chief of the personnel directorate’s learning division. “There was less deliberate thought in how to take a young civilian and grow a [senior civilian leader]. ... This is to be more in line with what we’re doing in our officer and enlisted populations.”