 So good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I'll go ahead and kick it off. I'm Commander Matt Myers. I'm the Foreign Area Officer Community Manager. Thank you, Ms. Caballero, for your help in getting this set up. And thanks everybody for your time today joining us for this lecture of opportunity. Really wish I could be there in person. I was, I did have the opportunity to stop by and about a year and a half ago during the Naval Strategy Forum right before they canceled it about halfway through the event, but I was still there on the ground. So I'm looking forward to them resuming that activity. All right, so we're here to talk about the Navy Fail Community and what that is and what we do to contribute to our, to our naval objectives and how we fit in with the rest of the fleet. And so, but before I get into that, I'll just give you a little bit of introduction of myself. So I am a Foreign Area Officer myself and like all of us, we come from somewhere else. We all lateral transfer into the Fail Community from another community. So I started out as an aviator. I went to college at Oregon State University, did ROTC there, and then I selected for aviation. So I went into the helicopter pipeline there, did my fleet, my JO tour out at HC-8, transitioned to HSC-28, transitioning from Frog to at 60 Sierras. And then for my short tour, I did the Olnstead Scholar Program. Not related to the Fail Community, you're probably familiar to it. Typically URLs will do that, but it did result in getting me the training that set me up for success as a Fail. So I got Korean language training at the DLI in Monterey and then over to Seoul where I attended Yonsei University, got my master's degree in international relations there. Then back to the fleet and my Dissociated Sea Tour on the USS George HW Bush as an Air Ops guy. And then selected for Operational Department Head, went out to HSC-12 in Japan. Then my Department Head Tour out there, part of CAG-5, that was great. So it was kind of at the end of my Department Head Tour there where I was finally ready to take the step into the Fail Community. I had considered it at several points along the way, but I wasn't quite ready to give up flying and operational being a pilot and being an aviator just wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to that. But finally upon completion of the Department Head Tour I said, okay, it's time lateral transfer to Fail. So pretty late career transition, very few people will change designators. That late in their career, I was a very senior Lieutenant Commander, but I did it, it was accepted. It kind of worked for me because I had done Olstead and had all the training stuff that I think if I hadn't had that under my belt already it would have been pretty tough to make that successful of a career transition but everybody that passed a little bit different. So since I joined the Fail Community, I went back to Korea, attended the Korean War College. They are kind of equivalent to what you all are doing at they're in Newport. And then over to Seventh Fleet Staff where I did my Fail Milestone Tour in the N5 as the Deputy Director there. So that's Seventh Fleet Staff it's a great place to be a Fail because it's very in touch with what we're doing operationally and but also still able to inform what we're doing out there and ensure that's tied to our strategy objective. So that's me now I'm here in Millington as the Officer Community Manager very much eager and looking forward to getting back overseas which is where Fail really belongs. So before we go into the rest of it we'll turn it over to my co-presenter Lieutenant Commander Lindsey Fatt. Hi, good morning, good afternoon everybody. So I came to Fail a little bit differently. I was an Intelligence Officer before I was a Foreign Area Officer. I commissioned via Officer Candidate School and then did Intel School at Damdack for six months before going out to Whidbey Island where I was stationed with VQ-1 for a couple of years and did a few debts around the world with them and then went to the Naval Postgraduate School to get my degree, my master's degree in Middle East Regional Security Studies as an Intelligence Officer. From there I went to the Joint Intel Operations Center in Hawaii for four years focusing on South Asia. Spent a lot of time both studying and traveling in South Asia and had the opportunity to do a debt with SOC-PAC in Kathmandu and the embassy there worked with the Nepal Army on disaster risk reduction for seven months. And so got just a lot of experience working with a partner nation, working in an embassy and realized that I just love the work. So when I got back to Hawaii I applied via the LAT transfer board and was accepted as a Middle East Fail and from there went to DLI. I learned Arabic at DLI in Monterey and then did a tour at NavSent in Bahrain. I was the Country Engagement Officer for Egypt and Jordan and then moved over to the Bahrain Desk Officer job. From there I was selected to come here to Millington and I'm the Junior Detailer for 03 and 04 Foreign Area Officers. All right, okay. That's us, Matt Meyers, Lindsay Fatt, here we go. Okay, so I'm sure you all are in deep on all of this stuff there in your curriculum. So I won't belabor it, but I think it's worthy to point out that the first line of the National Defense Strategy is that the NDS acknowledges an increasingly complex global security environment characterized by over challenges to the free and open international order and the reemergence of long-term strategic competition between nations, which of course goes on to discuss great power competition. As you know, there are three distinct lines of effort in the National Defense Strategy, rebuilding military readiness, reforming DOD business practices, but where we get most involved is strengthening alliances as we attract new partners. And you would see this theme over and over again in strategy document after strategy document. So as I'm sure you're aware, Tri-Service Maritime Strategy just published in December, doubles down on strengthening alliances and partnerships, saying that the Naval Service will foster a global unity of effort to secure unfettered access to the maritime domain. Strong worldwide network of maritime partnerships united in common purpose, common purpose serves as an enduring advantage over our rivals. Furthermore, CNO's NAP plan published just last month states that our naval power is amplified by sailing and integrating with like-minded navies. We must continue to strengthen our alliances and partnerships to ensure our success across the continuum of day-to-day competition, crisis and conflict. We must continue operating interchangeably with key allies to expand the reach and lethality of our collective forces across the globe. Our robust constellation of allies and partners remains a critical strategic advantage over our competitors. So all that stuff doesn't just happen by itself. It takes active engagement, cooperation and really forcing the issue to ensure that we can talk to each other on the radios. We can see each other's contacts on our platform. And then really that relationship piece, not just at the upper echelon levels of government leadership, of course that's important, but really sometimes the day-to-day relationships are also important for knowing who to call to get that last-minute access, to get that aircraft in for refueling and those things and exercising those relationships and ensuring that we know how to exercise the contacts and use that access that we have and use it regularly to ensure that it's always there for us. So within the national defense strategy, looking at a foreign air officer, a common question we receive is who are you? And so probably the number one key aspect of a foreign air officer, we're globally embedded. We are working inside the foreign countries with our foreign partners and occasionally even embedded in their fleets, riding on their ships, operating right alongside those naval partners. We're persistently forward. Two thirds of our billets are overseas. Majority of a FAO's career will be spent downrange, whether it a staff in an embassy or stationed with the foreign partner. Our job is foreign, it's always forward. And even those jobs that we do have that are back in CONUS, the mindset is still forward, looking at still thinking about who our international partners are engaging with them and then also continuing to advance that national defense strategy. We're strategic operators. And so this really means that we're on the front lines of that great power competition within the framework of the national defense strategy. We're developing those desired strategic outcomes and then we're tying them to those tactical execution engagements and events that are happening down at the more tactical level. And we're also, we're leaders, but not in the typical sense that you see in the fleet. We're leading interagency teams, we're leading joint teams inside of embassies. We're leading multinational teams with our international partners. And this is all to advance Navy and Joint Force objectives. Next slide, please. When it comes to what we do, we, everything that foreign air officers are doing is to advance the global objectives that are laid out in the national defense strategy and the CNOs building allies and partners line of effort. We do this in a couple of different ways. One is assuring global access and posture in working overseas and assuring that our fleets have the access-facing and overflight privileges that they need, working with our international partners to make sure that this happens respecting sovereignty, but also being able to cooperate. The FAOs are the ones who are making all this happen so that our ships can move where they need to, the forces can move where they need to and that we can move logistics as required to achieve our mission objectives. Interoperability with our partners is also incredibly important. As Commander Meyers has already mentioned, being able to talk on the same radios, being able to see each other, being able to coordinate different types of missions and preserve those mission objectives. Interoperability with our partners is incredibly important. This can be done through foreign military sales, international military education and training. I'm sure that you see that you have international students from other navies there at the Naval War College. This is important to help our international partners understand US naval operational planning. And then also doing that middle to middle cooperation to build familiarity between our navies. FAOs are also doing information and influence type of operations. This can be done. Human intelligence, strategic messaging, strategic engagements and dialogue. Sometimes these can be at a more operational level with military commanders and sometimes it's even at the secretarial or ministerial level. And this is all in advance of combined lethality because when we develop our allies and partners to be capable and willing partners, this advances both of our objectives. Next slide, please. And so then it comes down to how are we doing all of these different things? How are we achieving it? And it's through three main lines of work. So it's security cooperation, human intelligence and influence operations and then strategy plans and policy. Security cooperation can be done via the fleet headquarters, combat command headquarters. Most often through our offices, defense cooperation or security cooperation, they go by different names in the embassy. And then the defense attaché service is that second line of work for human intelligence and influence operations. And then they are acting as the secretary of the Navy's direct liaison, direct representative to that naval fleet. And they keep important lines of communication open that are critical with both partners and in our international hosts. With strategy plans and policy, this goes back to working towards that national defense strategy objectives. And this can be done at Navy, joint and interagency staffs like the State Department and the defense security cooperation agency. Sorry. Next slide, please. So this slide here goes into some real life examples of some of those things Commander Fass was just talking about along our three lines of work. So these are all things that our FAOs were doing just last fall. So in Canada, for example, one of our FAO commanders oversees a complex portfolio of 35 foreign military sales programs valued at $935 million. This has resulted directly into some upgrades like their F-18 aircraft for IFF mode five and then an option on their future fighter capability aircraft up to $12 billion for 2025. So I mean, that kind of huge impact is both a big investment in our defense industry but also builds up an ally, their capability both to be stronger as a partner for us and to work with us, allow us to operate better with them. And then in Greece, you can see Captain Ketter there in white oversaw the first visit between both the Greek Prime Minister and the US Secretary of State to Naval Security Activity, Suda Bay. It's really able to double down on the importance of that facility as a location for as an access point for us, for our ships and our aircraft in that critical theater of operations. Down in Cabo Verde, one of our junior AFRICOM FAOs, Lieutenant Commander Cain, coordinated the diplomatic and logistics support for about a two-month Coast Guard-Cutter deployment. As I'm sure you're aware out in the fleet, we don't have a huge number of service combatants that can regularly train with all of our allies and partners, but being able to work with the Coast Guard and leverage one of those ships to get in there and operate together with the Cabo Verde Navy really showed our commitment to them as a partner in the face of GPC adversaries operating in the region. All right, so now this, we're gonna drill down a little bit on the FAO community itself. So we are very small communities, designator 1710. We're one of the smallest communities in the Navy, about 400 strong. We'll be growing to about 425 by FY 22, but still this is, compared to other communities, aviation, for example, has about 13,000 officers. SWO community has about 8,000 officers. So our 400 is very small, but we are elite. We're highly trained, we're efficient, and we're professional in what we do. You can see the pie chart on the left, five, we're assigned to one of five AORs. They correspond to the geographic combatant commands. As Commander Fats mentioned, she's a sent-con FAO. I am an Indo-Pay-con FAO, and that's then also we have, of course, SouthCon, UConn, and AfroCon. But typically we do our training, both language and regionally focused master's degree, focuses around the assigned AOR, and we typically will spend, do most of our tours in the AOR, but also sometimes go outside of the AOR when needed by the community and when those opportunities are available. So as small as we are, and very closely aligned one-for-one billets to bodies, we're not always able to plug in an officer in their region. Sometimes they do have to go out of their region, but that can be, that can, those can be some good opportunity too. So our billets, 402 in FY21, as I said, grow into 425 by FY22 range from 03 up to the flag ranks. We're in 79 different countries. So Commander Fats mentioned those three broad lines of work, Attache, SCO, and then staff. So SCO, security cooperation, as you can see in the green pie chart. So those are usually in the embassies, are located in the capitals, working this, the foreign military sales portfolios and often the directs training and mill-to-mill engagement with the host nation. Attache service, more of a representational role. You can see them at about 15% of our billets. And then other staff billets, such as Fleet Staffs and Agency Assignments, OSB, State Department, et cetera. You can see how those are kind of spread out. PEP, you'll see that personal exchange program. I'm sure you're familiar with that. Lindsay's gonna talk about that a little bit more. Most of these are overseas, a lot of joint billets. We have no problems getting anybody their joint credit. We've got lots and lots of joint. And most of these do have training requirements and often you will have to learn a second language depending on your specific follow-on assignment beyond the one that you initially qualified in. So we're a pretty young and new community. We stood up only in 2006. First crop of New Faos was 32 and we have grown steadily since just hitting our FOC 400 just a couple of months ago. So we've come a long way, but we still will take a lot of people in via lateral transfer on every board just to offset. We still have to grow about 20 people. So due to some recent growth and then even just replacing the retiring officers that we have, we still need to bring in around 15 officers per lateral transfer board. So opportunities have not diminished to join the FAO community. If you're interested or you know somebody who wins just because we've reached FOC now. So we mentioned that we have billets in 79 different countries. These are our embassy billets that are overseas. Between SCO and Naval Attache, we have roughly 130 billets all over the world divided up into our different regions. About 81 SCO and 49 Attache billets. 95% of the Navy SCO billets are filled by FAOs. The only three that are not are, we have one in Japan, one in Pakistan and one in Jamaica that are filled by non 1710s. And then about 50% of our Attache billets are coded for 1710 and the others are a mere at between 1310, a thousand coded and what have you. Two of our Attache billets are considered flying FAO billets. And those are opportunities for prior 1310s who are still in good standing to, to fly the C12 that's on station but Commander Myers will mention that in a little more detail. Next slide please. When it comes to our staff billets there's definitely a more concentration in the US but still worldwide between the different naval component commands and the fleet headquarters. We also have seven PEP assignments. There's roughly 80 PEP billets in the Navy, seven of which are coded for 1710. Most of these are English instructors at our foreign naval academies. And these in our foreign war colleges are great opportunities for our junior FAOs specifically because one they offer that opportunity to get your in region experience but also because out of foreign war college or out of PEP assignment it gives you the opportunity to really create those relationships with your international partner at a more junior level so that as you both grow and mature and promote in your own service you still have those relationships to be able to have those lines of communication and work with each other. For example, in Chile if you go to the war college there and then we have an 04 and a milestone 05 billet at the embassy and then also the SDO.is filled by us 1710. So there's this opportunity to develop these relationships early on in your career and be able to carry those as you promote and become more senior. Next slide please. Okay, so how to join? If you're interested in making learning more about this possible career transition you do have to have a minimum of five years of commission service or one of the very few communities that has such a late entry point. So of course anyone in this crowd anyone at the war college probably is you're all lieutenant commanders for vast majority. So that's not an issue. So really it's open to lateral transfer anywhere between five up to really up to 15, 20 years of service. I mean you could lateral transfer as a commander if you've got that senior if you've got some of the most of the qualification items already under your belt and you've got a strong operational record. So first and foremost we're looking for we're looking for warfare qualified officers with a record of sustained superior performance. We're not, it is highly competitive to get into the FAO community. So we're not, we're not taking the washouts from other communities where we're taking those people who are just looking to do something different feel like perhaps this line of work is more suitable with their interests. So lateral transfer board happens every six months here in Millington basically where every, everybody in every community who's looking to change designators applies and then can be selected depending on the number of quotas available. So as I mentioned, sustained superior performance warfare qualified your GPA matters because both to show that your academic aptitude in general and as a usually a good indicator for your writing and communication skills and your work ethic. So that is important, but for those of you already getting your master's degree there, it's, you know, that you're gonna have that under your belt. So I'm sure that's not too much of an issue for you. The D lab is an aptitude test that you're required to take before you apply for lateral transfer. And this is a test which measures your ability to, your ability to learn a foreign language. It basically makes up, it invents a language, teaches you the rules to that language and then plays you some passages and asks you to identify some patterns. So it's pretty effective at identifying whether you're going to struggle in learning a foreign language or not. So a lot of people already apply, already having a foreign language under their belt and that's great. That shows that you've learned to learn that language but very often you will need you to learn another language for a different assignment or we may need to assign you to a different AOR. So that's why the D lab is still important and required. So you can generally take that at any kind of DOD testing facility, it's not a Navy specific test and that score never expires. So a 110 is the minimum, but higher is better just to demonstrate that you're not going to have any issues learning a foreign language. So the FAO community certainly values people with overseas experience already. Perhaps maybe you've done a staff tour, seven fleet, six fleet, et cetera, something like that. That's valued even just an overseas assignment like a Yacosco based ship or squadron. You can get some good overseas experience well that will help prepare you for the FAO community. As I mentioned, if you have a foreign language ready that's great. If you don't, it's not necessarily required. We will teach you a language, the language that you need to know. So it's fine if you don't have one. And then having a regionally focused graduate education, particularly if you graduate from the National Security Studies program there at Naval War College, which most people out there are probably, that's what you're enrolled in. That will generally meet your regionally focused master's degree requirement. So that gets you ahead and able to get you fully qualified and employed out in the fleet sooner as a foreign area officer. So definitely everybody has a very different path into the FAO community. And really it can be viable at a lot of different times in your career. So everybody's an individual case. So really encourage you to reach out to me or Commander Fats offline later with your specific situation if you're interested. And we can talk through what kind of, what your timeline would look like, what your qualification path would look like, how viable you may or may not be for continued promotion in the FAO community. And happy to talk through that because it's almost always a case by case individual basis. So talking about the specific training pipeline, it really is a bespoke process because while there are three main qualification requirements set by the DOD for joint FAOs, that being the regionally focused political military master's degree, language proficiency at two, two or above and two of the three modalities and one year of in theater duty experience, every FAO brings a little something different to the table. Some are a clean slate and we refer to them as a full build FAO. I need to take you from having no qualification requirements to full qualification. And the timeline for that depending on your region could be 18 months or it could be as long as four years for some of our regions. And so we're just gonna, my priority as the junior detailer is really looking at how we're going to get you to full qualification in the most expedient but complete manner. And so if you're a student at the Naval War College that's fantastic because you've got that master's complete but maybe you're a student there and you're getting a master's in operational research. That does not fit the requirement. And so we're gonna talk about, okay, what are the other options? You're still eligible to LAT transfer. We're still gonna get you trained and get you the requirements but maybe it's gonna look a little different. Maybe we're gonna do a foreign war college because then we're gonna get you that language, send you to the war college with your international partners which is gonna dual count as both a one year of in theater experience as well as that regionally focused degree. So a lot of different ways. A lot of our officers do go through the Naval Postgraduate School. We have two new FAOs who are students at the Naval War College. And then some of our officers do cool mill masters or did Olmsted while they are a URL. And so we're able to use those degrees to meet the requirements. Most languages are taught at DLI in Monterey but the lower density languages are taught there in Washington, DC. And then we occasionally have heritage speakers that we're able to match up with the region and maximize that. However, sometimes we'll get officers and they may bring a heritage language for a region that there's not a need in their year group but they have a high D lab or they have other experience that makes them better suited for another AOR. And so we'll have that conversation and we get them fully trained. Like Commander Myers said, sometimes our FAOs will learn one, two, three languages depending on the billet and where we need them and their aptitude to be able to do that. Following graduate and language education then our FAOs can expect to do their first tour in region to get that in-bitter duty experience. This can be an APAP assignment. It could be at a foreign war college. It could be at a perhaps a staff if sixthly or fifthly or seventhly. And then some of our FAOs will go direct to the embassies to do security cooperation. So it really is a little bit of a different path for every FAO based on both their background and the region they're assigned. Next slide, please. So this is a slide that depicts the nominal FAO career path. And really it begins with the source community. We, as Commander Myers mentioned, we are lateral transfer only. That can start as early as five years commission service but it can extend if you were an Olmsted scholar or you went to give FAOs who are later accessions and did a foreign war college with their parent community. So they're bringing over all of those skills, all of those qualification requirements and a lot of great experience. So we do see FAOs that come in at that 10, 12, 14 year mark and they really aren't disadvantaged. Our board analysis shows that despite when you come into the community as long as you're getting qualified and you have that record of sustained superior performance, that is really what's gonna matter most. Then as a FAO, again, it just like everything else, it's all a little bit different and it that really depends on your region and then the timing. Typically we'll see a staff tour or a SCO tour and we try to mix those up as much as possible but the region dynamics will impact that. But big things that we're looking for is getting those competitive breakouts whether as in a group of peers or even against your reporting seniors, community average. Our folks in Southcom, AFRICOM and UCOM if they're serving in a SCO tour on the continent, they are all considered one pool. So those are actually still competitive assignments for those FAOs. So just a lot of different options as you go through trying to get to those Adache assignments. Our milestone board is after the O5 selection board. And then at that point, you can see that you can still expect to do different types of training and that training can include JPME2, it can include the joint military Adache school which is about 12 weeks. If you're going to a SCO billet, you can expect to spend about five weeks at Wright Pat Air Force Base, DSC University. And occasionally you're gonna get one, two more languages. Additionally, FAOs are offered resources to be able to maintain their language and occasionally they're able to get enhancement or sustainment training in between their different tours. Next slide, please. All right, talk a little bit about money. Those aviators or submariners in the group, you're probably enjoying your flight pay or your subpay. We got that too, up to $1,000 per month for foreign language proficiency bonus is pretty, is a pretty welcome boost to the paycheck. Also things like CPAY, my last tour on seventh fleet staff, I think the whole two years, we were underway about a month, but I collected CPAY the whole time, about 400 bucks a month. So that's a nice boost as well. Of course, hazardous duty incentive pay, imminent danger pay, depending on the specific location for those flying attache billets for the aviators in the crowd that you, of course, you'll get flight pay when you're in those billets, but not all the time like aviators get now. And then COLA is no joke. That is a pretty significant boost to your paycheck as well. It's typically calculated to truly capture those additional costs you have for being overseas. And generally, I always felt a lot more wealthy with living overseas than I do back in the States here in Tennessee, where I no longer get that COLA, felt like a pretty big drop in the paycheck. And then of course, a lot of tax-free locations too, which can be nice. Okay, so enable aviation qualified FAO. So of the 400 of us FAOs, there's about 50 of us who have this designation. You have to come from the 1310 aviator. And what it means, and you can't have ball-termed or you've given up your wings or anything like that. You've got to be in good standing with the aviation community when you leave. And then once you are aeronautically designated, you're eligible for our aviation FAO billets. Those are 1712 coated billets. But also there's pilot-designated flying at SSA billets as well. So there's 13 total naval flying at SSA billets ranging in rank from 04 to 06. Two of them are coated for FAO, but that's just a manning coating. The reality is that we fill each other's billets between FAO and aviation all the time. I think about a year ago, they were filling all of ours and we were filling two or three of theirs. So it just kind of, those opportunities are out there. The only catch is you have to do it. You can't be out of the cockpit for more than 10 years or you turn into a pumpkin. So I just keep that in mind as you pick your choices. So your naval at SSA is your primary duty, but they have C-12s on station as Lindsay mentioned, which you will fly to maintain your NAETOPs. And then it's also, it's flown as part of your mission in some cases to get you or other people that you need to access two different parts of the country and different people. And so there's some good payoff for doing those. Okay, so that is our last prepared slide. I'm gonna take this slide down in a minute, but do make a note. If you're interested and we have time for Q and A and we'll definitely take anyone's questions, but if you wanna talk about your specific situation and whether or not there might be a path for you or if you just have more questions in general, please take note of our phone numbers and email addresses and feel free to reach out later to have a more direct conversation. You're welcome to just cold call me. That number rings through to my cell phone when I'm teleworking, I'd be happy to talk. So I'll take this down in a moment, but before we go into Q and A, I just wanna make a couple of introductions of folks on the call. So first of all, Commander Greg Adams is there on the Naval War College staff. He's an operational planner in international programs and there he is, hi Greg. So he, all right. So Greg is an Indo-Paycom fail like me, but it's such a diverse, even someone from the same region. He was at BTF 73 doing great things there in Singapore and then just came from at attache duty in Indonesia and then on to, he went out of region after that over to Naples on our staff there. So that's a good example of someone going outside the region, but he's there a great, a real superstar fail and is a great person to kind of get with offline too and ask questions. And then I think our, as Lindsay mentioned, two student fails going through the curriculum there that you could kind of talk to. They don't exactly have experience as fail out in the field yet, but at least they have recently navigated the treacherous path of the lateral transfer board. And so they can give you some tips for how you get released from your community and find your way through the board. So that's Lieutenant Commander Muhammad Furqan and then Lieutenant Commander Warren Brooks. So I think I see both of them on this call. I just wanted to point them out. So you can connect with any of those gents offline, but I will stop there and turn it, and we'll open it up for questions. And then Laura, whenever we're out of time and you need to shut us off, just go ahead and call. Thank you.