west point officer retention rate
Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Army has had a far more difficult time in its recruiting than the other services because the ground forces are carrying the heaviest burden of deployments -- and injuries and deaths -- in the war. On September 9, 2016, West Point broke ground in order to begin construction of the new 31,000 square foot Malek West Point Visitors Center. The United States Military Academy is a federal service academy with an acceptance rate of 10.3%. Junior officers also perceive that many leaders outrank them, not due to greater capability or potential, but simply due to longevity and the high promotion rates of the last 10 years. Graduation, Commissioning, and Retention Rates. "It has exceeded how I thought the class would respond.". It would be easy to dismiss Nagl’s story, except you hear it almost every time you talk to a vet. And that to hold on to its best officers, to retain future leaders like John Nagl, it will need to undergo some truly radical reforms—not just in its policies and culture, but in the way it thinks about its officers. Instead, the all-volunteer force served as the beginning of a renaissance in the ranks, across all the services, and paved the way for a newly professional military. Super Moderator. The military has reinvented itself in this manner before. The program was begun this year to counter pressures on junior officers to leave active duty, including the draw of high-paying jobs in the private sector; the desires of a spouse for a calmer civilian quality of life at a time when the officers can be expected to be starting their families; and, for the past two years, the concerns over repeated tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. Each commander would have sole hiring authority over the people in his unit. Kitfield chronicles a revolution in that era in how the Army treated, organized, and trained its soldiers. But that’s exactly the point: 65 percent of the graduates agreed that the exit rate of the best officers leads to a less competent general-officer corps. The key was instead a new emphasis on stability and development, inspired in large part by ideas laid out in Nagl’s book. Across the globe, officers send in their job requests. Formal training programs and military doctrine also got good marks. One Silicon Valley executive I spoke with, whom I’ll call Captain Smith, contrasted his time as a Marine company commander with his current job leading hundreds of employees, from software engineers to sales managers. That doesn’t mean more officers who invent new weapons, but rather a new web of incentives rewarding creative leadership. As of 2014, the U.S. Army noted that a 2nd lieutenant with less than two years experience earned $34,862.40, while 2nd lieutenants with four years experience made $43,866. Being a Reserve Officer does not mean the officer is serving in the Reserves. By 2002, the number of those junior officers leaving at their first opportunity dropped to 7.1 percent, and in 2003, only 6.3 percent opted out. "They want to have graduate schooling.". being at west point, and our minimal exposure to the real army, there is one thing we learn: west point produces the same quality officers as any other comissioning process. All of this might be hard to do while maintaining centralized management of rank and job assignments, but three-quarters of the panel favored ditching that system entirely in favor of an internal job market. Unlike industrial-era firms, and unlike the military, successful companies in the knowledge economy understand that nearly all value is embedded in their human capital. After interviewing veterans who work at some of the most dynamic and innovative companies in the country, I’m convinced that the military has failed to learn the most fundamental lessons of the knowledge economy. The biggest difference between me and my peers is my outlook in my future. So what did they think would help? The old West Point Visitor's Center was housed in the now-demolished Ladycliff College library building. From the naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose insights on sea power transformed warfare at the beginning of the 20th century, to General Billy Mitchell, the godfather of the Air Force, to General Petraeus, who’s now implementing his counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, the U.S. military has a long and proud tradition of innovative thought. The Army started paying better and, more important, making investments in its human capital. More often than not, such bonuses go to any officer in the “critical” career fields of the moment, regardless of performance evaluations. President. A former Rhodes Scholar and tank-battalion operations officer in Iraq, Nagl helped General David Petraeus write the Army’s new counterinsurgency field manual, which is credited with bringing Iraq’s insurgency under control. A veteran of three tours in Iraq, Yingling articulated a common frustration among the troops: that a failure of generalship was losing the war. Why does the American military produce the most innovative and entrepreneurial leaders in the country, then waste that talent in a risk-averse bureaucracy? you can tell yourself that's not true, but any enlisted soldier or officer will tell you differently. So did the American people who believe West Point is turning out quality Army officers as efficiently as possible. It would take only one branch to lead the way by adopting the best practices of corporate America—where firms manage vast workforces by emphasizing flexibility, respect for individual talent, and executive responsibility. But the surge was more than just the 30,000 or so additional soldiers and marines who were deployed. The Army needs even more company-level officers today, as it expands the number of its deployable brigade combat teams. Facebook. (Officers who were commissioned between 1998 and 2005, and who agree to an extra three years of active duty in exchange for graduate schooling, will be subject to the $13,000 annual cap. West Point Treasurer's Office. In a recent survey I conducted of 250 West Point graduates (sent to the classes of 1989, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2001, and 2004), an astonishing 93 percent believed that half or more of “the best officers leave the military early rather than serving a full career.” By design, I left the definitions of best and early up to the respondents. And for the class of 2000, the retention rate fell to 65.8 percent, meaning that last year the Army lost more than a third -- 34. The hundreds of officers assigned full-time to the personnel center strive to match open requirements with available officers (each within strictly defined career fields, like infantry, intelligence, or personnel itself), balancing individual requests with the needs of the service, while also trying to develop careers and project future trends, all with constantly changing technological tools. Usually, rebels in uniform suffer at the expense of their ideas. The U.S. military claims to support independent thinking and entrepreneurship among officers, but a survey of 250 West Point graduates suggests that conformity, not merit, is rewarded. Graduation Rate. The hedges frequently channeled American units into German ambushes, and they were too thick to cut or drive through. 49%. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 96%. She loves praise. "One of the salient issues in this information age is that if they are going to be competitive when they leave the Army -- whether at the 4-year mark, the 10-year mark or after 20 -- they have to maintain critical skills," General Hagenbeck said. "The Army has a wonderful relationship with some of the top-tier graduate schools, especially in the Ivy League. Creativity of this sort is increasingly celebrated by economists who study growth, many of whom now believe that innovation is essentially the only factor that drives long-term increases in per capita income. "It is an amazing response," said Lt. Gen. William J. Lennox Jr., the West Point superintendent. Is this so terrible? The security accreditation level of this site is UNCLASSIFIED and below. From officer evaluations to promotions to job assignments, all branches of the military operate more like a government bureaucracy with a unionized workforce than like a cutting-edge meritocracy. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) $197k. ), Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate. If an officer chose to stay in a job longer than “normal” (“I just want to fly fighter jets, sir”), that would be solely between him and his commander. In a 2007 essay in the Armed Forces Journal, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling offered a compelling explanation for this risk-averse tendency. Joined Jul 13, 2011 Messages 6,782. Chaplain (COL) Keith Goode USMA Chaplain CENTER FOR ENHANCED PERFORMANCE. Panel A. The graduate school program was carefully structured to keep officers in uniform even beyond the extra three-year commitment. being at west point, and our minimal exposure to the real army, there is one thing we learn: west point produces the same quality officers as any other comissioning process. Only that the bell curves of each group would mostly overlap but be slightly offset … Regular Officers . Until the 1980s, this idea was widely accepted in corporate America, and certainly in the defense industry. National. The percentage of … FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Lieutenants, even corporals and privates, are trained to be entrepreneurial in combat. His critique focused not on failures of strategy but on the failures of the general-officer corps making the strategy, and of the anti-entrepreneurial career ladder that produced them: “It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.”. West Point’s class of 2020 will serve as the first users of a new branch assignment system this fall, which the Army hopes will help with the retention of junior officers and better assign talent. This could push some officers beyond an automatic 8 years of service, toward 12 years -- at which point, goes the thinking of the senior officers who devised the program, they may decide to stay in for a full 20. The promotion system got 61 percent. A 2010 monograph by Colonel Casey Wardynski, Major David Lyle, and Michael Colarusso analyzed the retention of officers in the 1996 cohort by commissioning source. United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point Average by Job. Again, welcome to West Point, I trust this will be a fulfilling and enjoyable assignment for you and your family. But Schumpeter’s prediction was upended definitively when the knowledge economy evolved out of the industrial economy, and symbolically when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computer in a California garage. CENTER FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT. “But this is about incentives and control.”. But the analytical mind he uses to devise business models is just as sharp in assessing the military’s inept talent management. With 97.0% of students staying on for a second year, United States Military Academy is one of the best in the country when it comes to freshman retention. A widely circulated 2010 report from the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College said: “Since the late 1980s … prospects for the Officer Corps’ future have been darkened by … plummeting company-grade officer retention rates. (Reuters/Mike Segar)--Shares. Across the entire Army this spring, 3,420 newly commissioned junior officers are expected to enter active duty, according to the Army's personnel office. The cost of the program will depend on how many young officers enter graduate school in a given year, but Army personnel managers say that whatever the individual annual tuition fees, they are far less than the cost of training and preparing a new officer. Thus, it may be that today's West Point will … No. He is now the head of the Center for a New American Security, known in Washington as President Obama’s favorite think tank. That is the highest rate of loss over the past 16 years among West Point officers reaching the five-year mark. Although I may not be the perfect 2400 or all 5s on APs, I do have this ambition to lead and stand out. Instead of staying in for just two years, enlistees now commonly stayed for five years, or 10, or a career. Correction: April 15, 2006, Saturday A front-page article on Monday about efforts by the Army to retain junior officers included an erroneous reference, from an Army spokesman, to tuition incentives. Rather than take an advancement they don’t want, many quit the Army altogether. The West Point graduating class of 2006 responded at levels even higher than anticipated by senior officers at the military academy, with 352 of the 875 seniors -- 40.2 percent -- signing on to the program as they approached the date in late May when they would be commissioned as second lieutenants. Only 30 percent of the full panel agreed that the military personnel system “does a good job promoting the right officers to General,” and a mere 7 percent agreed that it “does a good job retaining the best leaders.”. Dead last was reauthorizing the draft instead of the all-volunteer force, a proposal that drew support from only 14 percent of respondents. When an Army unit in Korea rotates out its executive officer, the commander of that unit is assigned a new executive officer. Do not process, store, or transmit any Personally Identifiable Information (PII), UNCLASSIFIED/FOUO or CLASSIFIED information on … Retention was not a problem. Units with open slots send their requirements for officers. “Virtually none,” says Smith. But make no mistake, moving to a volunteer force was not an incremental reform. Chaos, to economists, is known as the free market, where the invisible hand matches supply with demand. Job. Since innovation relies entirely on people—what economists call human capital— academics are showing more appreciation than ever for Joseph Schumpeter and his pioneering focus on entrepreneurship. "With the rotation of one year overseas, then another year or so back at home, then another overseas rotation -- it does take a toll on you," said Mr. Kuo, who served a year in combat in northern Iraq. For young officers receiving their commissions in 2006, the Army will guarantee slots in the most sought-after branches of the service -- aviation, armor or intelligence, for example -- in exchange for an extra three years in uniform. Even if the commander wants to hire Captain Smart, and Captain Smart wants to work in Korea, the decision is out of their hands—and another captain, who would have preferred a job in Europe, might be assigned there instead. The overall attrition rate is about 25% so the 1,000 lieutenants are what’s left from about 1,300 who were admitted. The Strategic Studies Institute report makes this very point. Military leaders know they face a paradox. Town Hall Hours: Monday - Friday ~ 8:30am to 5:00pm. He pulled James Kitfield’s book Prodigal Soldiers from his bookshelf and encouraged me to read it. Apply to Medical Support Assistant, Industrial Mechanic, Logistics Management Specialist and more! “On average, the best officers got out; the worst officers got out.” There are notable exceptions, he said. thats such a cliche answer. But West Point retention rates have since improved to about 68 percent and may now be approaching 80 percent. critical point in the last few years. Further, recent West Point graduates made one of the highest average salaries of recent graduates in the country. The men and women who volunteer as military officers learn to remain calm and think quickly under intense pressure. But despite the considerable influence Nagl had in the Army, and despite his reputation as a skilled leader, he retired in 2008 having not yet reached the rank of full colonel. West Point’s Jeff Peterson recounted the standard story line of the Army’s soul-searching after Vietnam. War Room. In contrast, the conventional explanation for talent bleed—the high frequency of deployments—was cited by only 63 percent of respondents, and was the fifth-most-common reason. Click the link below to see the characteristics and accomplishments of the West Point Class of XXXX. One member of the West Point class of 2000 who left active duty last year is Stephen Kuo, who took a job with a medical equipment company in Florida. His sudden resignation has been haunting me, and it punctuates an exodus that has been publicly ignored for too long. After the Normandy invasion in 1944, American troops found that their movements were constrained by the thick hedgerows that lined the countryside of northern France. United States Military Academy admissions is more selective with an acceptance rate of 10%. Similarly, if a young officer wants an initial posting to a desired location or an opportunity to earn a master's degree, the Army will guarantee either choice in exchange for three more years of active duty. Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning. Today, Nagl still has the same short haircut he had 24 years ago when we met as cadets—me an Air Force Academy doolie (or freshman), him a visiting West Pointer—but now he presides over a Washington think tank. Promotions can be anticipated almost to the day— regardless of an officer’s competence—so that there is essentially no difference in rank among officers the same age, even after 15 years of service. According to Army statistics, 718 signed up to choose their career track, 289 contracted for the graduate school opportunity -- 257 of them from West Point -- and 117 wanted to pick the location where they, and their families, would be based. The most blatantly anti-entrepreneurial aspect of the Army is the strict time-in-service requirement for various ranks. The security accreditation level of this site is UNCLASSIFIED and below. Sorry if this question seems ignorant. And the Army, in particular, has not changed from its “inefficient industrial era practices,” as a report by the Strategic Studies Institute put it last year. Nowadays, it appears that USMA and ROTC are similar in terms of IQ and that both groups are probably still smarter than OCS as a group. But that’s exactly the point: 65 percent of the graduates agreed that the exit rate of the best officers leads to a less competent general-officer corps. UPDATE: Gates focuses West Point speech on officer retention 0. thats such a cliche answer. This emphasis doesn’t just attract inspirational leaders and efficient managers—it produces revolutionary innovators. Though West Point ultimately lost, the final score was a not unimpressive 10-5. Apr 12, 2015 #2 The four years at West Point do not count for pay or towards retirement. One can argue that every system has flaws and that the military should be judged on its ultimate mission: maintaining national security and winning wars. The Pentagon’s response to such complaints has traditionally been to throw money at the problem, in the form of millions of dollars in talent-blind retention bonuses.