Not really a fan of this. There are a lot of
charlatans in tech sector C-Suites, for starters. If they can already join today at O1-O3, what’s stopping them from joining? It’s not the pay. If we really need their skills and they truly refuse to spend any time as a JO, make a civilian auxiliary or bring them in as a part-time contractor.
We just tried an experiment where a tech genius was plucked from industry and placed into a senior govt role straight from the tech sector - he thought it was a good idea to put a rogue Starlink dish on a certain roof and transmit USG data without permission. It wasn’t great.
And if some senior officer is telling me that these private sector execs can’t do what they need to do with “only” two bars instead of a silver oak leaf, then maybe they’re the problem and they should listen to their JOs more often. Heck, there are already a bunch of JOs in the reserves who are executives at tech companies who should automatically jump up to O4 or O5 instantly based on this criteria (I know a few), but once you’re in the system you’re stuck in the wickets with everyone else. And that isn’t a bad thing - it gives you time to learn and grow within the correct system.
Notable exceptions:
-
Doctors, dentists, nurses
- William S Knudson
- Joseph Francis Carroll
They’re the exceptions that prove the rule, though. A top cardiologist at a US hospital is going to follow the same medical training and adhere to the same ethical process as a military cardiologist. The same cannot be said for an executive at Instagram understanding DoD information systems, classification levels, ethical constraints, or cyberspace operations.
