Service Looks to Recruit and Retain Technical Expertise

The U.S. Air Force has not had warrant officers since it dissolved their ranks in 1958 but that is about to change with the opening of its new Warrant Officer Training School. 

The school was activated in an assumption of command ceremony at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, on June 28.

Warrant officers in other branches fill technical roles rather than leadership, and that will be the case with the reintroduction of Air Force warrant officers. To progress through the ranks, enlisted and commissioned officers often have to put their normal duties on hold and step away to attend months-long leadership and development courses.

The Air Force is seeking to enhance its capabilities and expertise in two specific areas: information technology and cybersecurity. Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force has said that in recent years, about 100 of the service’s members in those roles have left to join other branches to become warrant officers in those two specialties.

With the rapid pace of advances in those fields, skills are perishable and in constant need of updating in the latest technical changes and innovations. Personnel filling those roles can ill-afford lengthy periods of time away from those duties.

Alex Wagner, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs said, “With perishable skills, like cyber, like IT, where the technology is moving so rapidly, folks who are experts in that can’t afford to be sent off to a leadership course for eight or nine months.”

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