Arkad wrote:The number of IDC Officers that are part of the Acquisition Corps (AC) is rather small and people seem to do it on their own initiative (I think tht is to your point). How do IDC Officers balance pursuit of such a thing with operational milestones, CO/XO, advanced education, and joint? If I remember correctly, the IW Community had to make sure one person screened for O6 Command who was part of the AC for the NCWDG CO job. So now it is not necessarily "best and brightest", but "best and brightest of those with the right AQD"? I didn't mean to imply that anyone was defaulting to "outsourcing" without doing any deep analysis. As many know, I am a big fan of specialization, but I wouldn't know where to begin to create an AC specialization track within the IDC.
The sub force has an interesting way of developing its acquisition pros - they allow folks to have acquisition tours as part of their development, but makes them still hit all the milestones to O5 command. After that, they select some to compete for acquisition assignments that support the Sub force. That includes selection for flag every few years (I believe the commander of SPAWAR (and IDC command) is a submarine officer.
And I said outsource because the IDC is resourcing most of the billets, just not filling them.