 Okay, good morning. Thanks for joining us for our panel on Sailor 2025, which is about preparing our sailors for today, tomorrow, and beyond. And it's absolutely great to be here. And this is my second panel here at Sea Airspace discussing our people. And it's just great to have the opportunity to talk about what we're doing on the personnel front and get the chance to talk about the fact that without our people, all the wonderful and amazing technology that we see here at Sea Airspace, frankly, wouldn't do much for us. We talk a lot in the design for maintaining maritime superiority about the Navy's asymmetric advantage being people. And today, we have a panel of leaders here who are going to discuss what we've been doing to take care of our people, how we're manning our fleet today, and what we're doing to modernize our personnel system to take advantage of that asymmetric advantage. Before I let the panelists introduce themselves, though, I'd like to take a few minutes and just talk a little bit about Sailor 2025 and the transformation of our manpower personnel training and education enterprise, which is really the engine under the hood that is going to make Sailor 2025 run. And it is sort of the magic beneath everything that we're doing. And I'd start by telling you that today we're in very good shape in terms of fleet manning, at least in terms of the ships that are deploying. In fact, in better shape than we've been in a long time. And we're doing well in terms of recruiting and retention as well. But we know that there's increasing competition for talent. We're seeing it. We're beginning to see a little bit of fraying at the edges in terms of our recruiting mission. We just made our 120th consecutive month of meeting our recruiting mission, but we're starting to see individual recruiting districts miss individual goals, although we're meeting the goals in the aggregate. Retentions continuing to creep up despite an overall low unemployment rate, although we're missing retention goals in individual communities, and we're having problems in those individual communities. And like the other services, though, we're all competing for a very, very small segment of talent, and that segment's getting even smaller. When you look at the segment of the U.S. population that's of the right age and has the right qualifications is eligible to serve, and then you skin it down even further to those who are willing to serve. It's less than 2% of the U.S. population that we're competing for. And it's not just the services that are competing for that talent. It's industry. It's everyone. And that segment's getting smaller every day. So we have to be ready for that. All of the services are looking for that increasingly competitive talent market. So we're positioning ourselves to do that. And Sailor 2025 is about positioning ourselves for that. So we're looking to improve and modernize every aspect of our personnel management and our training systems, because we want to be able to more effectively recruit folks. We want to be able to develop them more effectively and manage them throughout their careers. We want to more effectively reward them so that we can retain a leaner, more effective force going forward. So the basic tenets of what we're trying to do is empower our Sailors, and we're updating our policies and our procedures and our operating systems to do that. And it's really about giving them transparent processes that they can have faith in. They understand the rules. They can see what the mechanisms are. It's about giving them career flexibility and choices and options going forward, recognizing that the Navy has needs, and those needs are dictated by a changing world and adversaries out there that we're going to have to be able to overmatch in many cases. So keeping that in mind, as the Chief Enable Personnel, I really have two customers. I've got our Sailors who we want to attract to join the Navy and then have them choose to stay Navy and make Navy career. And then we've got the fleet. I've got to man the fleet fully with the best that we can recruit, and then I've got to keep it manned, and not only manned with the right numbers, but of Sailors with the right skill sets in the right places at the right times. So again, as I mentioned for the Sailors, it's about exactly that. It's about changing our systems to add transparency, flexibility, and choice. For the fleet, though, it's that readiness aspect, the fully manned with the right Sailors and the right jobs. So as I think about those two challenges, and I think about the long haul, and I look at the mechanisms that we have in place in our personnel system today, we are very stressed to continue to produce at today's levels. And when you really stop and think about it, what we're doing today is fairly expensive and it gets to be unsustainable going forward. And when you look at why that is, fundamentally we haven't changed the way we've approached our personnel business since we shifted to an all volunteer force in the early 70s. Our underlying principles and assumptions of having an unlimited supply of people coming in the front door have not changed in our personnel system. And that's, you know, even if we could afford that today, which we can't, it just simply isn't true today. So we're taking a look at that. You know, even in today's relatively small Navy, as compared to the size it was in World War II, and even in the 1970s, we're bringing in about 40,000 people a year when we look at just enlisted force active and reserve component. And we're sending about 40,000 people home every year. And then we do about 90,000 permanent change of station moves every year. That's just operational and rotational moves. That's not, you know, bringing people in and sending people home every year. So there's no big corporation on the planet that does business that way. Why are we doing it that way? Can we do something differently that takes that people pyramid and makes the base of the pyramid a little bit smaller? Maybe a little bit taller and allows people to, you know, change skill sets, change career paths midway through and recognizes the fact that we don't necessarily, you know, die and fall off the planet at age 40, like the underlying assumptions of a personnel system in 1947. You know, as the rules were written today, as they exist today, assume. So we're kind of looking at everything. A lot of the stuff on the enlisted personnel system, we've got tremendous flexibility to make those adjustments. Those things are generally codified in Department of Defense policy so we can engage and, you know, relatively easily staff those things through and get adjustments. On the officer side, much of it's codified in law. So we have far less flexibility and, you know, we've had good luck working with our sister services at, you know, getting some latitude in small areas on a trial basis to work some of these things. So we're just getting started on this. The other services are looking at various aspects of this, you know, through the lens of, you know, the forces that they need as well. And, you know, we're all moving in various aspects of this project, you know, to suit our various needs. But, you know, the efforts, you know, there in various stages for each of the services. For us, though, Sailor 2025 and, you know, the customer side of this for the Sailors is what they'll see. And there's three main approaches. I'll refer to them as pillars that we'll talk about up here. The first effort is just sort of a wholesale modernization of our personnel system. It's about empowering the Sailors, giving them flexibility and career choices. And we'll talk about a lot of examples of what that means to them. The second pillar is about changing the way we do training for our career enlisted force. And we'll talk about how we do that. And it's really restructuring it into a career continuum of training. And it's about leveraging the technology and the science of learning to optimize that training rather than making it classroom and PowerPoint, chalkboard type of oriented training. And then the last pillar is about career readiness. And that's everything from life work balance to health and wellness to leader development and training our uniform Navy leaders how to lead the other part of our Navy team, our Navy civilians and developing career paths for our Navy civilians. And also working on family issues, the other part of our Navy team. So there's a whole host of initiatives in there, 45 or so initiatives in play today. And it's a living breathing group of initiatives that continue to grow and mature. And Sailors are sometimes the source of a lot of these ideas and give us some of the best ideas. But as I mentioned earlier at the foundation of all this is a transformation within our organization, which is geographically dispersed, many, many different organizations. And I've got the commanders and directors of a lot of those organizations here with us today. And we've just gone through a process to optimize the internal processes in advance of bringing a brand new streamlined information technology system to bear that's going to make now optimized processes go faster, make them accessible through mobile devices. Change the way we do everything from pay to detailing or assignments for our sailors. And it'll be cloud based and ultimately help us get data driven predictive analytics to get us to things even like tailored compensation and things of that nature as we go forward. So we're still at the, you know, doing what we can in advance of the technology getting here to get ourselves as lean and fast as we can. We're changing as much as we can with the authorities that we have while we work to change other legislative and policies, legislative authorities and policies that we don't have changed. And we're advancing as much of those causes as we can. But frankly, it's been baby steps so far, but we roll things out as fast as we can. We spiral, improve them and rapidly revise the products when we get them out there. So I'd like to turn it over now to our panel members, ask them to introduce themselves, talk briefly about their organizations and the sailors, how they're seeing the sailors leverage the benefits of what their organizations are doing and maybe the way ahead and how they'll leverage technology and some of the transformational efforts of the manpower personnel training and education organization and sailor 2025 going forward. So with that, I'd like to start with Vice Admiral McCollum, Chief of Navy Reserve. Sir, thank you. Thank you. Well, good morning, everybody. So as the Chief of Navy Reserve, you know, we are very focused on what most reservists want to do. They want to serve. And they, in this case, they have made their choice to transition from the active component but still maintain that sense of service while they pursue a civilian career or family obligation. So from that perspective, when we look at the broader transformation, we sort of focus on three specific things. One is predictability. And predictability is important for a reservist to be able to plan not only for the integration point with the active component but also with the civilian employers. Second one is when we look at access, how does a Navy Reserve individual have access to the tools they need to generate their own personal readiness and their own personal requirements? So we've been looking at and have implemented some technology enhancement capability in their workspace and also in support of mobility that if the questions support it, we can go into more detail later. And then in the spirit of mobility itself, we know that there have been some restrictions on a reservist's ability wherever they may be geographically in the world and own demand be able to go to the fight, so to speak, or to with their gaining command. So what are those tools, whether it's how orders are generated, whether it's how a policy that may, how they route their travel to make, to on station as fast as possible. So when we look at these initiatives and then blended into the broader transformation, the Sailor 2025 continuing service, then we see expanded opportunities for reservists to go to active duty, full time or part time for a two or three year segment. And this is what we refer to as permeability or on ramp or off ramp programs. And so we're really excited about the momentum and the progress we've made in these areas and certainly I look forward to talking about it in more detail. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Go to Rear Admiral White, Commander Navy Education and Training Command. All right. Thanks, CMP. Well, good morning. I'm Mike White. I've got the Commander of Naval Education and Training Command down in Pensacola, Florida. And I'm pretty fired up. This is a really exciting time to be in training. CMP kind of alluded to the fact that we're in a 1970s model in the personnel system, the way we bring them in and out. And if you think about it in training, we're still very much in that model. We're very brick and mortar centric and we're very much focused at the start of a career to try and inject all the training the Sailor might need to get them through a career, whatever type of specialty they might have. And as you look around here and see her in space, the complexity of the systems you see, you probably can make the association that that may not be such an effective model anymore. An analogy we like to give is fire pumps. Back in the 1970s, we taught a Sailor how to take apart a pump and perhaps do the PMS and other things on it, very mechanical. Fast forward 10 or 12 years and that pump probably had electronic controller on it that the Sailor now had to maintain. Taking another 20 years forward and that pump has electronic controller that's now networked with other controllers for a centralized system. And you think about how that technology migrated, we need to move our training along that same path. And so what we see or what I see in the future is kind of three new approaches to training. The first one being the simulations that are available out there and the way to bring experience to Sailor that today might use a piece of technical training equipment where one Sailor works and others observe. And they take turns in that process, but we're very limited on how much exposure, how many reps and sets a Sailor might get in that aspect. So as we look at simulation and immersion and the quality of that type of work, we think we can move the Sailors much quicker and with much more fidelity in their training. Another key aspect of that is portability. So today much of our technical training equipment is very hardware based and it's centralized at our school houses. If we can make more portable systems that can go to the waterfront, we can now take a Sailor with some training to get started in the fleet. They garner some context and experience from their first tour and then during that tour they have the ability to go very locally and improve on their skills, learn more and be more productive in their jobs. So the simulation, the portability and then finally moving people beyond the baseline. I would submit to you today that our goal or our job is to train every Sailor that comes in the door to a steady baseline in that particular specialty. We know there are many Sailors out there that bring experience with them to the Navy and many that have the motivation and skills to move quicker than the class might allow them. And so if we have ways to let individuals capitalize on what they already know and move along more quickly, we'll produce a more equipped Sailor to be competitive in our Navy. So why do I believe this is possible? We've been prototyping and doing a lot of experimentation and I'll give you a couple examples. Down at our Explosive Ordinance Disposal School we have brought out tablet devices for the students. Pretty simple on those devices we put a lot of videos and if you think about Explosive Ordinance Disposal there's a lot of practical examinations, practical things they must do to get through school. So they have to demonstrate the instructors, they have the ability to identify a piece of ordinance correctly, determine how to render it safe and those kind of things. And in the past they've been doing it in the books and kind of hang or fly it in their head if you will before they did their practical exam. Well now we have a device that shows them how an instructor might do it professionally, something they can take home every night and study. And it's yielding great results for us. In fact to the point that the attrition is reduced to the point where we're producing an extra platoon every year from the Sailors that come into that particular rating. So pretty simple use of, you know, YouTube, what we all use at home, moved into the classroom that's been very effective for us. We've put in a reconfigurable training system down in Pensacola for the Sailors that work on electric power plants, those carts that drive up to the airplanes and provide them electricity for maintenance. In the past we had plywood type simulations to work on and actual carts. As I said it was one sailor to work and others to observe and now they can each have their own screen to go through all the procedures and checklists on the system. And what we found previously is about 25% of them could go from our current training out to the actual unit and start it up correctly. After we put in these simulations where every student gets reps and sets in the classroom, 95% can go out and start it correctly on the first try. So again a remarkable growth in their ability to learn. We're doing some very simple gaming up at RTC. We've issued some Sailors tablets that have flashcards on how to learn the basics of rank identification and ship identification, aircraft identification. Something more than just pure memorization. It's now a bit of gaming that they can compete with their peers and we're seeing good results from that. And then finally probably still maturing this one but virtual worlds where we can allow students in remote sites to connect to other technology be observed by instructors and do that very effectively at distance. And also avatar based immersive learning. We're seeing great results for that in the littoral combat ship as we move that forward. So a group of examples there and I wouldn't tell you it's all positive. We've had a few swings and misses and foul balls. But these are ones that are working and give me strong belief that we'll take it forward. You've heard ready Robin learning. That's the name of the program if you want to call it that. We've analyzed all of the 800 or so a session pass determine what training we think needs to be done right up front and then what can be moved. And we're doing that under the leadership of United States Fleet Forces Command as our executive agent. So we want to make sure we don't impact fleet readiness but we want to produce a better trained sailor. And it's pretty exciting how that goes forward and we truly think it'll give our sailors the competitive edges that go forward. This team of learning is not designed just for the first sea tour but across the entire career. Again much like today we use a hard copy PQS personal qualification standards. We think there's opportunities to move that to other devices and use technology to grow our sailors faster and leverage all the skills that they bring to us as they get started. So that's probably enough for now. It's a pretty exciting time to be in training. I look forward to the discussion. Thank you. Thanks Mike. Next up by Admiral John now he's the director of personnel plans and policy. Thanks boss. And thanks for being here. You know sometimes the MPT and the discussion is not considered the most sexy when you look across panel rooms. But if you think about our job which is to make sure we have the right person in the right place at the right time. You know last year around this time I was sitting off Korea in command of an amphibious task force about 30 ships 20,000 soldiers sailors and Marines and Kim Jong-un was launching missiles over our head. And so the reason that we could operate with impunity the reason that we could do a show of force landing is because we had the right fire control man you know in the seat on the ages cruiser. That was riding shotgun for a boner or shark. We had the right boats and mates with the right training that knew everything that had to be done to go ahead and get the Marines out of the well deck and ashore to get the V-22s up or to get the Harriers up. And as CMP said the policies and the systems that we have in place right now have been able to do the job and do it quite well. But as we look at a world that's changing as we look at workforce that's changing the issue becomes is it sustainable and will it work and that's why we're in the midst of this transformation. So my job is to make sure that we have the right policies in place as we work across the organizations up here at modernizing the systems that go with. And so we're looking at a number of different changes whether it's tailored compensation whether it's how we do our rating modernization and how we do our detailing and retention. We call that a detailing marketplace. How do we prospect for and test folks to make sure that we put them into the right job where we get a better fit now so that we can keep them for a longer period of time. Adam McCollum talked to the active component and reserve component permeability and that is really important and we need that and we're going to leverage that more in the future. And then how do we advance folks how do we give more flexibility to our command triads. We'll talk about our meritorious advancement program. And then as sailors go through their careers and they earn certifications in the Navy. How do we work that certification and credentialing so that then they can take that to the outside as well. And that's an important recruiting tool as well as the retention piece. So we're looking at the policies that we need to change now as we look at some of those changes that we can affect. We're really waiting with baited breath as we as we look at the transformation that C&P talked about for MPT&E and taking that system taking it into the cloud and allowing us to use big data to really get to predictive analytics. So I'll kind of close if you're a Sunday morning junkie. And you were listening to one of the Sunday morning talk shows you heard Jeff Imel who is the president of GE and he described their digital transformation over the last five years. And he talked about what it had done for them and used an example of a jet engine where using big data predictive analytics it made everything more efficient from buying the parts putting it together to getting it into the plane and the plane out there to then the life cycle support that they were able to provide. And so that's what we're going to do with our sailors using you know what that transformation will bring. So again glad to be here and really look forward to the discussion. Thanks John. Next up Rear Admiral Rich Brown, Commander Navy Personnel Command. Rich. Thanks C&P. So I am Commander Navy Personnel Command and but first off I grew up in Boston so I have two setbacks. First I tend to talk wicked fast and I don't necessarily pronunciate my words good. So you're going to have to keep up with me. John I have to disagree with you. You are a very sexy man. And as setting all the policy for MPT&E you're just the right guy to do that. So as Commander Navy Personnel Command I am in the people business. That's what we do. But I have two primary tasks right now and into the future. The number one task is to man the fleet. The second task is to transform our organization to make sure that we can do the first task. If you ask me I think the team is doing a great job down there in Millink to Tennessee. But what I really want to let you all know is that MPC is the engine room of the N1 organization. We are constantly running but we do a lot more than just detail people and write orders. As C&P said I talked about 110,000 orders that includes orders for those who have resigned their commissions or have ended their enlistment contract or retiring or PCS moves. We do a lot more than that. I own all the Navy Breaks which is an interesting mission that I have. I also own the Pay and Personnel System. We have 43 personnel support detachments and 16 consolidated support detachments located throughout the entire globe. I own the casually assistance program for the United States Navy. MPC does all the personnel information management. We do all the selection boards. We do all the slating. So as you can see MPC is the engine room of the N1 organization and really of the fleet. And what's interesting is the sun literally never sets on Navy personnel command because we have people across the globe. But the team is doing great but we have challenges. If you look at what we do with our ships, our aircraft, our submarines, we do regular periodic maintenance on those weapons systems and those platforms. And we do major overhauls on those weapons systems and platforms and we build new ships and submarines and aircraft. We don't do that with our IT systems in the Navy personnel world. For example my son graduates from the Naval Academy next month. Our current officer detailing system was created the year he was born. And I am going to detail and sign his orders with the same system that was in place the year that he was born. Our enlisted detailing system was created in 1986. So our systems are aging and we need a facelift to them. So Sailor 2025 is designed to help not only sailors navigate their careers and create better systems, but actually create a better personnel system for us to be able to man our fleet. But what's really interesting is we are dealing with people. And C&P has heard me say many times this leadership thing would be a lot easier if I didn't have to deal with people. But we are dealing with people and you really need to look at what the force looks like. We have three generations that are serving in the force right now. We have the baby boomers and we're pretty much the tail end of the baby boomers who have paid their dues. They define their success by the rank in the organization. They stayed with the company and they're loyal to the company. Then we have the generation exers and the generation wise who consider themselves free agents. They keep their resumes polished. They keep their network connections open to other opportunities. And the key for them is to finish. And now we have the millennials that are serving who are team oriented, but work relationships to them are transient. They are focused on tasks, not necessarily people. They have the highest unemployment rate and they expect to change jobs. So why is this important? As we develop our new IT systems, our new personnel systems, we have to keep that in mind and the millennials right now make up 60% of our workforce. What's also interesting in describing those three generations is none of those qualities overlap. So we are working a new personnel management system trying to keep in mind those three generations where none of the qualities overlap. But we are moving out fast and one of the things that I wanted to talk about before I get off the stage here is highlighting one of our main projects, which is the performance evaluation system. Our current performance evaluation system needs improvement to move us ahead and to take care of these new generations that are coming up. Our current fit rep eval process, which uses riskers and traits and rankings, etc. was conceived, developed and executed by a small group of people under a CNO border in just under 15 months in 1996. And so that system has been in place for over 21 years. It's time to refine our requirements and get an updated system that supports our mission and our requirements but also supports the folks that are working for us and helps us to better identify the talent and manage that talent. So some of the aspirational things that we're looking at is developing a system where we rate to a standard by small competitive peer groupings. Performance evaluations that are tailored to pay bands. Does it make sense that an ensign's fit rep looks exactly like a captain's fit rep or an E1's evaluation looks exactly like an E6's evaluation? We are targeting and formalizing counseling as a foundation of the performance evaluation and providing timely, objective and written and graded feedback to our officers and our sailors. We're also seeking out TICOM and designated community injected influenced evaluation competencies so we can not only evaluate performance but we can also evaluate competency and create a system where we can meaningfully data mine cohort traits and competencies and provide a system that requires evaluate or accountability feedback and controls. So as you can see there's a lot going on in the Native Person Out command and I look forward to the questions in today's panel. Thank you. Thanks Rich. Next up Admiral Jeff Hughes, call sign Hughes. I warn you in advance he's an aviator but even for an aviator he uses his hands abnormally a lot. So go ahead Jeff. Thanks boss. I'm sitting on my hands just for that. Very excited to be here with you to talk about the exciting state of Navy recruiting. Everything you've heard to this point it all starts with us. We got to get everybody off on a great start and I will tell you that the state of recruiting is incredibly strong. So the boss mentioned that we just achieved a pretty significant milestone. 120 months of meeting our new contract objective and shipping goals for the enlisted mission both active and reserve. When I first came in we had the 100 month anniversary and that was pretty special and I'm really excited to be celebrating the 10 year anniversary. So we've been doing a lot of things great in the recruiting business for a while and we're continuing to make that happen. 2016 was the strongest officer recruiting performance that we've had all decade and we're off to a great start in 2017 matching that level of performance. And then lastly quality, by every objective measure and standard we're meeting and exceeding every one of our quality benchmarks right now. But I will tell you there are headwinds on the horizon and CMP mentioned that. They're starting to see a little bit of that fraying. So where does it really come across? One of these headwinds, so resources. Obviously we're impacted by degradation of resources and where do we see that? We see that in our ground game and the number of production line recruiters that we have out in the nation. We see it in our marketing and advertising budget which is critical to generate awareness and to help us throughout the course of the entire recruiting process. And we see it in our enlistment bonus which is really important as we start to try to continue to bring in those very high quality candidates who have a lot of options out there. On the requirement side, the standards are getting more and more stringent every year across the board in just about every area. And the requirements that the fleet is putting on us to make sure that we are bringing in that level of quality to support the expansion and the complexity of the systems that we need to maintain our competitive edge is just look on the floor. You can tell that that's a mandate and something that we've got to get after. But really it's the market. The market is constricting and as the boss mentioned 2% of the population out there is qualified and propensed to serve. A lot of that is due in fact that fewer and fewer of them have direct ties to the military. So either they have no family members that are served or some of those key influencers that might help them see what we offer. So it's important for us to be out there in the market and make a difference. But I will tell you this is also a time and a period of great opportunity for Navy recruiting as well as the other services. So whoever best adapts to this environment leveraging both the talents of their people and technology will maintain the competitive advantage and we're going to strive to be that service that does so. Therefore we're transforming to a more modern, agile and mobile enterprise. And here are a couple of the key attributes and very similar and nested with some of the themes that you've already heard. So we're going to spend more time in virtual prospecting and digital processing. It'll repurpose the recruiter time for impactful face-to-face engagement in the most critical phases of the recruiting process. We're going to enable greater recruiting mobility to actively seek the highest quality candidates while also reducing our force protection risk. We can't sit in the station and wait for them to come to us. We've got to get out there in the market and go find them. We amended our organizational structure to improve our market presence driven by predictive analytics. We're going to improve the recruiter experience by organizing around and employing functional specialization that matches the recruiter talents through the distinct recruiting functions. And we're going to enhance the initial rating assignment process that better matches applicant talents and preferences to broader rating options. The work that we do at the very front end, we're already influencing that retention behavior and we need to make sure that we're doing our very best. Because it really comes down to enhancing customer experience and recruiter effectiveness and satisfaction. That's what's going to make NRC more distinctive and more competitive in the market and in this demanding environment. Excited to be here and look forward to taking your questions. Thanks. Thanks, huge. Appreciate it. And last but not least, Master Chief Petty Officer and Navy Steve Giordano. Thanks, CMP. Hey, I'm happy to be here. Glad to be part of the panel. And I got to tell you, I think I probably got the best job here. And if you look to that screen in front of you to your right, I get to go out and just kind of have conversations with all those hundreds of thousands of sailors across the active and reserve component about the decisions that are made and how they impact them. And then bring that information back to this team to kind of figure out what's the next best way ahead. As sailors kind of look for increased visibility in their own personnel systems and how they're operating out there, career flexibility, a little bit of stability in their lives, more predictability in those assignments out there. And I get to also kind of have a conversation with the Chief Naval Operations because I serve as his senior enlisted advisor on behalf of all those sailors as their advocate. And previously I served as the Fleet Mash Chief out at Naval Forces Europe, Africa, and prior to that as the Force Mash Chief for what was then our Navy Information Dominance Forces and our Information Forces. And I grew up as a career cryptologist in our Navy. You know, as I think about where we're at today and we talk about the competitive environment with our near peers, and I blend that with the smart machine age that we think about and how we operate technology today. Our edges are sailors. And as I go out and have conversations and see them operating in the environments that we ask them to operate in, whether at shore or at sea, they are locked in and focused on those operational requirements that we place upon them. But this group here, we have a responsibility to make sure that we mitigate as much as we can the stresses in their lives, both as sailors and as families operating out there to allow them to better focus on those war-fighting efforts. That's what our nation needs. That's what our Navy needs. But I am honored to be here. I look forward to the questions from the group today. So thank you. Thanks, McFawn. So I've got about 30 minutes left in this session here, and I've got a handful of discussion topics. What I thought would do is I'll... We'll start the discussion up here at the panel. And as questions arise, either related to the discussion topic or otherwise, if you want to come up to the microphones and we'll start fielding the questions. So I thought I'll just get the first conversation going here and just talk about for the group here. How do we see technology platforms and missions impacting the way that we train, employ, and retain sailors? In other words, how are the sailors of the future going to have to be different from today, and what are the implications for that in your respective lines of business? Huge. I thought maybe you could start us off with a little bit more detail on the virtual recruiting that you're talking about and how you reorganize around that concept. Happy to, boss. Thanks. So really, as you look at technology and platforms and what you're seeing out there on the floor, the complexity of what it is we're going to do in the future, new operating concepts, manned-unmanned teaming, just incredible leaps in technology in our sensors and our weapon systems and the netting and all the things that... And it was stated on the panel earlier. It really enables, in order for all that to work, we have to have the right people in place to make that happen. So it's incumbent on us to go out there and find those people. And I will tell you, they're out there. It's this digital warrior class. They are in this medium. They're operating in this domain. But I'll also caution that while we want to bring them in and we want to focus them in some of those domains that might lend to alignment with where they're operating, we have to continue to make sure that we're focusing on those key attributes of the sailors that have made us successful for 200-plus years. So I would say that we're looking for that confluence of that digital warrior, but one that embodies and enables the application of those key attributes that we're looking for, their integrity, their accountability, their initiative, their toughness, the things that define a sailor. And they're out there in the economy and we're out there grabbing them so that we can bring them in. And as C&P mentioned, if we want them to be in place to operate and maintain the systems of the Navy of the future, we've got to make sure that we show up in a credible manner with the technology that we bring to fight. So part of that is operating where they are. They're in the virtual domain. So a lot of our process is going to be better enabled through us being there. We're going to use the virtual domain to expand and boost awareness. We're going to be in the virtual domain to help with our prospecting and blueprinting to find those right folks that fit for us and then as part of that value proposition have a conversation with them because we believe we're going to be a good fit for them. And we're also going to make sure that we're doing this in the process itself. This generation does not look for pencil and paper. They're looking to do things online in an online application. If they're going to be doing the Common Act for a college application, they will certainly expect us to be credible with the technology that we bring to the fight. So I will tell you, it's important that we show up. We show up on the iPhone. We show up in a means that we can communicate with apps. We can communicate via text. We can communicate and do a lot of the process that they're going to want to do. This generation, and Admiral Brown mentioned kind of the tail end of the millennials and starting to get into the Gen Zs, that's where they operate and that's where they expect to be. They do their research. That's where they learn. So in a lot of cases, what we're doing is we're modifying everything we do to give them the ability to see who we are. Then we have the conversation, typically at the beginning phases, with them in this medium. But then, and I will tell you, we have data galore that will show they still require human interaction, that personal contact and engagement, the right points in the process. So to really make the biggest decision that they're going to have made in their entire life up into that point. So what we're really trying to do is balance that virtual and physical into all of our processes and using the enablers of technology to allow us to push off in that direction. So we're balancing and really upgrading and enhancing our processes all around the technology to make sure that we're reaching out to them where they want to be reached out to and that our process is supporting what it is we do. And a lot of these process type things that I mentioned in my intro, some of the things are as we can segment the customer service base and customer service really will be the competitive advantage. So in some cases, for example, we may find that we have a fifth generation Navy sailor, boats and mate, families been in the business for hundreds of years. All they want to do is get on the plane and get up to Great Lakes. So in that case, we might be able to do everything virtually with the exception of maybe a couple trips to meps. In some cases where someone might require, you know, we have a very high quality candidate that would require a certain concierge level of service. We want to make sure that we're enabling our best recruiters, those that are going to be responsible for the sails and the closure and the key assessment piece. We want to launch them to be there for that face-to-face interaction because that's where that value proposition, that conversation needs to take place. So that's an example of how technology is going to help us be more effective on that recruiting mission and allow us to basically employ our people in a more deliberate fashion, functional specialization. In a lot of cases, and many might not know this, I didn't know this about 20 months ago, is that we have a career recruiting force, Cadre, as well as rely heavily on the fleet recruiters that come into the recruiting enterprise. So the fleet recruiters are in a perfect position to be out there as our sorcerers or as our onboarding team. So we get them at the front end of the process. They're out there selling the Navy. They're telling their stories, and we basically play to their strengths. They're also the ones that were just at boot camp, maybe four years prior. They're the best people to help us onboard, and onboarding is critical. If we get them off on a good foot, give them a great customer experience, they're more apt to be happy with what they're going to end up doing, and we're already affecting that retention behavior. We then focus that career recruiting force to that critical point of sale, and it really is. It's Jerry McGuire. It's in the living room. It's at the kitchen table. It's not just with the applicant. It's with the applicant's extended family. So it's critical that we, all the way back to the original point of this question, that technology enables the process so that we put the people with the most effect. And frankly, if we use technology to help us give our recruiters more time, they can focus where it matters the most. So technology, we've got to find the people that know how to use it, but we have to use it better to make sure that we can find them. Thanks, boss. Yeah, thanks. A question from the audience. Yeah, thanks for the question and thanks for your comments on the other two points as well. We did submit legislative proposal for the FY17 cycle, and we had support from the Senate side, and we were unable to convince the House side that we were unable to satisfy them that of all their concerns in time, we just ran out of time. So it's in play for the 18th cycle. So we still are in pursuit of it. The conversation is not over, and it's something that we want to get. So the merit and the way the proposal is written on the merit promotion reordering is the way it would work, is that we would take a percentage of a statutory board, predominantly 0405 and 06, and the top, I think 15% was what we asked for in the legislative proposal, would as ranked by the board in order of merit, would promote first, voiced by a lineal number. So again, Senate's on board with that. We just had the Senate staffers over yesterday. They reiterated their general support for the idea. We've got to go back and re-engage. So lots of work to do, probably a couple years before we're going to see some legislative change on that, but we continue to push. We did get a couple of the officer promotion legislative changes we asked for in the 17 NDAA, but not all of them. So we'll continue to push on all of those. And then we're still thinking through, you know, what is it that we would like the end state of a new, you know, what do we want the 2B state to look like for a revised officer system? And all the services are sort of thinking through this. If you read any of the press releases, the bipartisan policy commission earlier, I guess it was about three weeks ago when March released a study, you know, heavily informed by each of the services work, including Sailor 2025 from the Navy on our thoughts on this, you know, had some fairly specific ideas on how we might do that. And we're taking a look at that as well. So we're going to continue to learn and explore this and maybe put together a more consolidated group of proposals for how we might reshape the officer promotion packages. But in general, what we want to do is have a little more flexibility from DOTMA to promote more people sooner. In order to do that, though, you have to have more flexibility to ask people to go home sooner as well. And we don't have that in DOTMA right now for officers like you do on the enlisted side. So we need that tool as well. And we're looking at how we do that fairly and in a measured manner. We have tools to do these, you know, giant, you know, whacking jobs that are not very precise at all and they're very ugly and we don't want to use those tools. But we want some small surgical tools to, you know, incentivize folks to leave and a couple other things like that. And that's about all we're going to need to do the reshaping. The things we got this year were the 40 year for selected career tracks. For the Navy we're looking at, you know, acquisition and a couple of other, you know, things, you know, for the acquisition core that makes a lot of sense because we don't really start full-time acquisition career tracks until post-command in the Navy. So that's a long-time career investment. The other one we got was, well, John, help me out here. The other legislative approval we got this year on the officer, Dottema. The 40 year was the main one that I think I think the other ones were some things about two times failure of select categories that we don't use that often, but they weren't significant for us. But we'll keep pressing on those. So thanks for the question. Boss, can I jump in on that with the idea of being right that you get away to some degree from just sort of a time-based, you know, promotion system right to merit-based. And so if we look at the enlisted force, many of the folks in here grew up with the Command Advancement Program. In 2015 we turned that around and we made it the meritorious, you know, advancement program or MAP. And we started out, and this is where the command triads. So, you know, the commanding officer, the executive officer, the CMC, where we put the power in their hands to say, here's my best and brightest. And, you know, and I think that they should be advanced, okay? So we still do Navy-wide advancement exams. We still have, you know, the spring and the fall cycle. But we wanted to empower those triads to be able to, you know, pluck those front runners and go ahead and move them up faster. And so we started in 2015. It was about 5% of the advancements for the year. We have, you know, opened it up. We started with it being C-centric. We went C to shore. We then opened it up to more commands there. We broadened it. We relaxed some of the rules with respect to the timing aspect and eligibility. And so we're at 10% of the advancement for 2017. We'll be done via MAP of those, about 20% of the E6s that will be advanced will be advanced via MAP. So that kind of gets at the kind of, you know, solution set that you're talking about on the enlisted side. And this year we removed the timing rate requirements as well for the Meritorious Advancement Program. So that'd be another aspect that we're looking for, our relief on the officer's side as well. Yes, ma'am? Hi, Hope. Yeah, positive impacts on the recruiting front. Hope in particular? Okay. Well, I'll just open up generally and let Jeff just kind of jump in with some of the specifics. But again, you know, one of the things that we're looking to do away with is this idea of geographic recruiting districts and the fact that you can artificially draw geographic lines and apply goals that are subsets of national recruiting goals around these geographic lines. The talent doesn't necessarily obey those geographic lines that we arbitrarily drew. So we're seeing districts meet those goals that were drawn according to those lines. So we're ignoring those goals and really this virtual goaling is based around where the talent markets might be based on things like school districts and education centers and things of that nature instead. So had we not shifted to that sort of a model, there would be places making goals. Now we're making it in the aggregate because other districts are producing more. But it is an indicator because what we're watching is that those same districts had been making their goal 16 months ago, 12 months ago, 6 months ago and they're declining. So we do see a decline in production in certain areas in same geographic areas that had been producing before. So we're concerned. The other services are having similar experiences to varying degrees. And as we go look at the economy, I mean historically when unemployment has been less than about six and a half, seven percent, we've had very significant retention and recruiting challenges. The retention and recruiting challenges we're having today are not as significant as we've historically had. So we go look at other things. What is the economy not that strong? And you look at the benefits that are being paid, the wage growth for 18 to 34 year olds. So you start looking at those second and third order factors and what we see is that over the last year, the wage growth for 18 to 34 year olds has been going up exponentially. And now you start to see why maybe those recruiting districts are starting to see their goals go down. So there's indicators that the economy might be getting better even though the overall unemployment rate might not be changing a whole lot. Anything you want to add? Just one quick thing to add, boss. So in some, you can look at this as performance, but in all honesty it's really a function of analytics. Because in a lot of cases as we goal across the 26 districts in the country, we do our very best to try to figure out and how to apportion that goal. But in some cases we're not getting that right. So as we go to more predictive analytics in the future, we're going to be able to determine what our footprint should be based on what the market should yield. And that's how we're going to hold ourselves accountable as to where we place the resources. So we're showing that maybe we didn't have the goal in quite right and that we have to continue to evolve in how we lay our resource footprint down. But honestly, chicken and the egg, the better big data analytics that we have, the better predictability for the market, we will be where we need to be and it's going to allow us to be more effective with the resources where we need them. Thanks, Jeff. Yes, sir? Thanks. Mark Nussle Road from General Dynamics. Kind of struck by the show up here. An example we talked about, reps and sets and portability. And if I notice back to my days as a youngster going on cruise in the way to early 70s, firefighting hasn't changed. We still got plastic pipes and flags. But industry is working on things in this virtual world. So actually for Admiral White and McPon, although everybody hates the word game, game-based technologies are what the millennials want. And from an industry side, I will tell you we keep running into this brick wall, obsidian wall, whatever, trying to deliver and yet as well, we don't want to move too fast or we don't want to rock the boat too much. So how are we going to get the reps and sets and the technologies to the sailors? How can we kind of close that gap, if you will? Because right now, funding and opportunities don't seem to be matching the words. And when you see the pictures, you kind of wonder, but somewhere there's got to be a happy medium and could you address that for us? Sure. I guess I would start to say we are a bit timid in some areas because we want to have a thoughtful application of technology. One of the interesting things in my own personal survey is I talked to the young men and women that are coming into our service. Only about four in ten admit to me that they work with tools growing up. So while we can have some remarkable simulations to give them much more insight into the equipment they're working on, there is a level of training we still have to provide on a torque wrench versus an allen wrench and how they use those. So as we try to balance the foundational classroom based learning with a fleet experience instructor who's a role model and example and what they need to teach him in basic life skills if you will for being a mechanic. And now how can we make that leap to exponentially improve their experience as we've all talked about to be more competitive? I think gaming is one of the really positive solutions and in the immersive environment which the quality of gaming today exists, a sailor in a very close base can feel like or have that experience. I think the challenge we face with gaming is how do we make sure it's not just a game and it's something that in fact delivers quality training that we can measure. There's huge opportunity there because the analytics that a game might bring us tells us where sailors are strong and weak and proficient and how we turn those back in. So the I think you probably said it correctly it is baby steps at this point as we make sure the investment that we go forward is something that truly delivers a game changing capability for our sailors. I ran through a couple of examples that we really see that possibility and now it's how do we capitalize on those, apply them to where there is truly value added for the sailors that come around and take that digital leap and mix handling tools with truly understanding what goes underneath the hood into a very qualified sailor that can operate independently at the limit of their ability. I hope that helps a little bit. I would just I'm sensitive to how we describe education and how we describe training and when we conduct one or the other and the mechanisms that we use to operate in each of those environments and as C&P mentioned in the opening a big part of this is how much of that do we provide up front to a sailor that may only use a small portion of that and this gets to a piece of sailor 2025 that talks about ready relevant learning this modular training piece and I don't necessarily need to give a sailor two years of education and or training that they may only use a just a small percentage of it as they go to that first assignment as to do a specific skill set and if we can better you know educate them up front through a gaming system and then apply that gaming system in the actual physical environment that they're going to be operating in on a platform or in on a shore operational facility somewhere that's the education piece that follows on it that you get to the tool application of it all these moving parts come into play and how we leverage whatever the technology is for the sailors that kind of learn a little differently than we did that's what we're trying to work through to get this thing to get the right sailor at sea with the right education with the application of training on board that makes us continue to be those competitors in this war fighting effort Yes sir Dave Chikata with Sonalist a question for Admiral White I suppose could you provide us some insight on what the roadmap to mid state or end state is for relevant learning to achieve those objectives sure I was told all the questions are going to the personnel guys it's a great question so CFP mentioned this is sailor 2025 so our time horizon is currently eight years away and in very simple terms our process as I alluded to earlier look at all these training paths that we use for our session sailors modularize them as Vic Pond was discussing so what does a sailor need for that first two years on an assignment to be a productive member of the crew and then for those that have the aptitude the context and experience what module to give them so that their next two years on board you know they become more productive and you know embedded in that I mentioned earlier is leadership attributes and those things as they move forward and so we've already broken down we've done the study of all of the session paths and now we're in a phase we're titling knowledge capture where we have a group of kind of science of learning experts that are out there witnessing what our schools do today so what is instructor led what is lab based and trying to capture what we see the future module to be how it's being taught today and now bridge that gap with some of the technology tools we talked about and science of learning techniques and on the out end of that then is a new accession path that incorporates those things into modules that move a sailor along if you want to put a timeline to it you know as you move down knowledge capture and then into investment we expect our first half a dozen or so ratings will have moved to that training formula in probably 18 to 19 and then we kind of have a growth of all the follow on ratings after that and hoping to capitalize on what we learned for so I hope that it gives you a sense of kind of our process and timeline if that helps a little bit yes ma'am go ahead yes I'm Victoria Smith retired civilian and my question is firstly what will be the impacts of the CR on your initiatives and secondly historically there had been a gap between the time that say sailor jones graduated from a school and showed up to the ship and then the ship finally got informed that he had gotten through a school so how has this changed or is this proposed to be changed two good questions let me take your second question first under we've done a lot even in advance of our reorganization with optimizing when a sailor leaves the delayed entry program and goes to recruit training command starts boot camp we control that almost to the day when they get on the bus so that it's almost you know they get on the bus they start boot camp they graduate from boot camp they have a weekend they start a school they get on a bus or airplane they go to their ship there's almost no lost time in between boot camp schools and anything it's all lined up we actually have a team that lines all those schools up continuously so it's very rare that any of that sort of stuff happens new organizational construct Admiral White will actually own everything all of the commands and sub-commands that will be involved in getting a civilian from the street to that first operational assignment street to fleet we'll call it but it'll be force development we don't have a name for it yet but he's gonna own recruit training command he's gonna own recruiting command he's gonna own all the schools and then all the distribution functions and the functions that align all those schools together so that we have single ownership and accountability for making that run flawlessly the way we're doing it today is through gentlemanly agreements and it's working today but it's through force of personality we want to make the organization keep it running going forward so that's the plan for the future on that needs to continue to run like a swiss watch on the CR thing in terms of how it can impact sailor 2025 probably little to no impact on sailor 2025 what I lose sleep over is on the day-to-day running of the personnel world has the potential to have a large impact on the day-to-day running of everything we do in terms of just daily personnel moves the biggest accounts that have financial accounts in the manpower world that have any fungibility to them they're sort of the money surge tanks for the Navy and the ones that get impacted the biggest any time there's cash flow issues which is what continuing resolution does to all of the services it's a permanent change it's just station money so money to do moves and it's money to pay bonuses so SRBs and any officer bonuses and to answer the specifics of how badly we would be impacted by a CR depends on exactly how the CR gets written at this point there's a lot of debate going on the hill as to what the reference point for a continuing resolution would be normally it's the last year's budget and if they write it according to what FY16's budget baseline would be I will be in dire straits we will be stopping most moves sometime in June we will be stopping bonuses going forward sometime in June it will be fairly catastrophic and we've told lawmakers that there's a large discussion that the baseline would be something higher than that so there's a very big possibility it would not be that bad we'll see where it goes and then there's a high probability that there will be a budget passed and this won't need to be a conversation at all so a lot of folks engage on it we'll see where it lands and then I was on the hill last week and we talked about these impacts a lot of concerned folks on both sides I was on the hill and both the House and the Senate gave us their commitment not to put this on the backs of our service members so we'll go back to them and ask for their help if we need to but thanks for the question if I might leverage your question to tell you something exciting we started just a few weeks ago for our logistic specialist we are now issuing their orders all the way to their fleet unit the third week second day of boot camp and we want to expand that to many more ratings but now a sailor before they leave boot camp has a set of orders that takes them to their A school and then to their ultimate unit and we think that does a lot of things for us for the individual sailor they now are motivated they know they need to be on the bone home or shard to serve Admiral now in their future it pressurizes the school to get them in and out on time to make sure they make that date on the ship they get to and it gives the ship visibility how many A schools are going to pretty easy for LS because it's one A school in route a little more complicated for an ages fire controlman who has five schools in route so it'll take us a while to get there but the organization that CMP described is going to help us and we really want to push as many orders back to boot camp part of that proposition and a value that Admiral Hughes talks about so young man or woman that comes in and gets started on the right foot with us to contribute to the Navy and the nation that's a big game changer for us at the very front end with Admiral Hughes's team they have some pilot programs right now but they're fairly mature with some testing that really helps us do talent matching and we can do a pretty good profile of not only what individuals like but what they're going to be good at so we're doing that at the beginning what the recruiter needs on that day in that district like it used to be so we're trying to do that it helps inform where we're going to put them what the training track is going to be downstream and then with modern training we have one online right now with a literal combat ship with their surface forces they leave that trainer fully qualified to do maintenance fully qualified their first watch station before they set foot on that ship that's the goal the long-term goal across the board we've got a ways to go but we're going to get there in bite-sized chunks ladies and gentlemen I think that takes up our time really appreciate your participation and listening to us we'll stick around for a few sidebar questions thank you very much