 Hello everyone, my name is Mark Mansfield. I have a question about brand and culture. A comment came up earlier about recruiting in this economy and how important culture is in that economy. I currently work for iHeart. I'm in a new position specifically dedicated to helping military service recruiting. I'm a strategist dedicated to helping you guys. I spent five years in the Army, boots on the ground, so I'm in a unique position to be the person on the other side of the table when friends and family are asking, what do you think about my son or daughter joining military service? I find myself in opposition to my wife. I find myself in opposition to other family members defending what I love, what everybody in this room loves, right? There's no lack of passion for those of us who have served and believed in it. But when you think about brand, the Army is one of the largest brands, advertising brands in the world. Budget is not the issue. Culture is a big challenge and the problem with brand when you're not constantly thinking about it is the consumer marketplace takes over that brand for you, right? And the loudest voices, what social media has taught us is the loudest voices in the room are the trolls. Social media is an echo chamber for complaining and for whining and for elucidating problems. I know having been in the military for five years and now have a successful career outside of the military that the military set me up for more success than I could have thought possible. The reason I joined is I was in the same position as most recruits are in the bulk of recruit talent that we're looking for. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I grew up in a small town in Western New York. I could pay for college and try to figure it out, then end up with some debt or I could take the adventure of a lifetime and map out what happens next, right? But I knew that if I took the step to the Army I wouldn't have to worry about what the next three, four, five years held. What I didn't think about, but I tell all the people that I mentor now because I continue to mentor people transitioning out, particularly first and second tour, is that there is a ton of opportunity that the Army prepares you for, that nobody's talking about. So back to my question of culture and brand, as we look to the next five years, brand takes a long time. Brand is a long tail initiative engagement. Are we thinking about building a brand that principals and teachers and parents and aunts and uncles can be proud of so that we service members who are standing up for why someone should join. There's a strong enough brand presence behind that that says, yes, bad things happen, but look at how many people we employ. Look at the amazing things that have happened. Look at all these people who have graduated out of even one or two tours and are changing the world. Sorry for the long question. I'll begin. I'd like to, ma'am, go ahead. I've talked too much. No, no, you have not. I'm looking like, I was just, I was gonna add on to that because I think the question's really important. If you think about it in two aspects, one is how do you use data to figure out what all your stakeholders think about? So I think sometimes we underestimate data. What we're doing with a lot of our clients is using that data, holding focus groups or stakeholder groups, making sure we truly understand what people are thinking about a brand. So I would just encourage using that data. I think the other, it's interesting, we talked about this a little bit earlier today as we were preparing, is you described as opportunities. We do the same thing as a firm. A lot of the reasons why some of these young folks out of college come to work at EY is because they know whether they stay for one year or whether they stay for a lifetime or retire. We are preparing them and develop them and training them to be the leaders in corporate America. And I think that's really important because that you can have multiple careers, like you could have multiple careers in the Army too, multiple careers within EY. And there's an attractiveness. We don't, I mean, sometimes people walk in the door and say, I can't wait to be a partner. Others are like, I know it's gonna be a great experience. And so we as a firm really focus on that experience because we want them walking out the door, one being advocates to potentially their clients and then they become alumni. And I will tell you I'm amazed at all the alumni here. It's such a valuable gem. And just how do you mine it and how do you use that for referrals? So I just, it struck me because the data I think is really important to understand what people are thinking and not assume, you know. And then secondly, it is a tremendous opportunity to say how much you learn and how much you give, but also, you know, what's next. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you, Julian, spot on. And sir, one, thanks for your service. And we can really list you if you'd like to come back in, no problem. But sir, I think I can sign that waiver too. You can do that. We're under 30. But you really highlighted some great points. We mentioned in the opening of the comments that this crisis also gives us the opportunity to one, as you just said, clearly communicate not to only those future soldiers that may want to join and learn more about it, but the parents and coaches, they're everybody else that the influences that can speak to it as well. So yes, I'm very positive that our senior leaders in our army are looking at an army brand as well. And I won't get ahead of the senior leaders. I learned that early in school. But also messes all the positive opportunities to the soldiers that may want to come in and their parents as well. Some of my team has heard this already, but I got to tell the one. I was actually approached by a future soldier before who just wanted to be a cook, period. So shared with him, yeah, you can come in, be a cook. There's 149 other jobs you can do also and get you certified at the culinary arts school that the army runs, didn't know that. Did not know that. And if you want to be a cook and jump out of planes, we can do that too. I say that jokingly, but that offers the opportunities that should be shared. And lastly, partnering with our other commands are helping us to showcase those opportunities and abilities. Well, the young specialist that's done it, or the lieutenant, go back to your hometown and share that as well. So I really appreciate what you said, especially from the perspective of being a soldier and a civilian now that sees it from that end of the kitchen table. Thanks. General Davis, you mentioned you've got more help than you can handle right now. To that end, I'm here for you. If you have thoughts, questions, bring a military service and advertising experience. We're here to help. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. I mean, I'm watching the time and I want to make sure we get all these questions. I'm going to actually take two questions here. So the first two on this side, if you'll both ask your questions and then the panel will address. Thanks. Thank you for setting the stage for me. Hi, I'm Francis. I retired in 2012 after 30 years. I'm sorry. I retired in 2012 after 30 years. I was Sergeant 1st Class and then retired as an officer in the Army Nurse Corps. I was one of the few and lucky select of those who were pulled out of retirement for the COVID mission. Kind of helped reset my thinking and I have a few things and I'll try to keep it straight because he said a lot of them. So on day one of AUSA, I went to the Women's Forum, unbelievable, Phyllis included. And I just sat there and I looked at them, these women and what they had to say and I'm like rock stars right across everybody and everybody in this room, everybody here who sees us. And I'll get to that. So one of the comments that they made was 22% of the force is female, which is fabulous, but 85% of the force comes from the family members of our military service men and women. So again, I say, how can we have the rest of our country and the world see us for who we are today? And so that takes me to the most far-reaching platform that influences and entertains and enlightens people to see us for who we are in today's Army and the Army of 2030. That's the film and television stage. That's, I remember a young lady saying to me in the airport because I was in uniform and she said, she wouldn't leave me alone. She just had so many questions. She said, the only way I know about the military is through Army wise. I met her mother, she said the same thing. And so I know personally that film and television can change the projectory of our life. I watched Private Benjamin in 1980 and in October, in November, I raised my hand. It was because back then, I didn't wanna be defined by the man that I married. I needed my own life and I went out. And so I just feel like people need to see the diversity what we're doing and I just think it's all amazing. So my question to you is, is there a plan when you look at film and television cause what was it, 12 Strong was the last Army movie out, Top Gun had huge recruiting. If you have a plan, I'd love to hear it. If you do and you don't, please let me help you or be part of it, I should say. I can start. Hang on, hang on, hang on, ma'am. Question number two, come on up. Let's ask another question. And we're gonna have to roll these in together. My name's Second Lieutenant Lady and I'm from New Mexico. And originally I came up, though I addressed the Army National Guard panel for recruiting retention yesterday and I came up with a different question that I had today or suggestion, thing for consideration that a major general came up to me and asked me to reiterate what I did yesterday and when a major general tells a Second Lieutenant to ask a question, I will. And so the question that I posed yesterday for the board, though it was already acted upon quickly, was as an E5, I worked for recruiting retention for years. As an E5 I ran the state's retention program and so I have a passion for retention in tutoring about 100 applicants to pass the ASVAB. And as you probably know, and if this is outdated information, I apologize, but they did a pilot study in about 1980 where they got their initial test pilot group of thousands of people together and that's how they set their mean, right? And so they took everybody together and said, okay, that's where 50 is, it's not 50%. And then they repeated that study in 1997 and with the same number of people to do the test on and then they reset that mean to the new 50. So since 1997, if that test has been recreated, then it's not anywhere that I can find. What has changed since 1997? Now my third grader has handed a calculator, meaning we have, I've actually tutored honor roll students that do not know their times tables. We have professionals in the community I've tutored that do not know their times tables. This is actually the only test, the ACT, the SAT, the GED allow you to bring in a calculator. The GRE has a four function calculator on the computer. And when you go to the ASVAB website, then it says there is maybe a situation in which you will have had to have known your multiplication table and to have been successful. We are talking about modernizing the Army for 2023, but this is antiquated and I've spoken to many combat arms and non-combat arms jobs and nobody has said that their mission has failed because they did not know what eight times seven was. And so with that, now I will say already, Major General Bissell was assigned to work with me on this and I submitted a white, sorry, I submitted a white paper to her this morning. So if you see that come across, I would ask for the consideration and if nothing else to put together a new way to set that medium, that 50, that mean. And of course I'd also say that if you were worried about, for example artillery or something that where you think it would be necessary, if you put a four function calculator on there, you could code it to where every time they tap the calculator, you would also be able to factor that into their score. So there are options, there are workarounds. And then what I actually came up here to say is that in the National Guard, and forgive me, I started in the reserves and then I moved to the Guard, so I don't really know the active side of things, but in the Guard, I have done now analysis of over a thousand interviews of people that have left and or were planning to leave or why they would stay. And I found commonalities, I analyzed the data and I submitted it up to my leadership. And people are leaving because of two things, National Guardsmen or to be content need three things, they need a leader, a friend, and a job or a purpose. And so they're leaving because either they did not find the leadership that they needed and or they did not have the purpose or the job. Despite what anybody thinks about the younger generation, they actually don't wanna get paid to do nothing. And so when they sit on their phones Saturday and Sunday, I was in the band, so I was tasked all over the state, so I didn't even know that there are people sitting on their phones. And so now then when I'm in the Armory and I see that and then I see why didn't get out because I don't mind that I signed up and I'm not with my spouse or my children, but now I'm not with my spouse or my children and I'm not doing anything. Couple that with my colleague, Captain Jewel and I walked around the AUSA, the exhibit hall and we found all of these phenomenal tie-ins that the Guard is unaware of. I've served for 14 years, she served for nine years. We didn't know half of what was down there in the exhibit hall between in membership to the YMCA, they'll record you reading books to your family members, they'll give you tutor 24-7, all these things and I designed the retention brief for the state of New Mexico and I didn't know. And as well as possibly even tying in spouses into credentialing assistance. All these things that we have opportunities to do that could create that purpose. And so to make a short question long or a long question short is that I would ask or request an acknowledgement of perhaps teaching leaders, future leaders like myself, current leaders to empower their E6s. I mean, NCOs, right? If your squad's sitting around, here's six training binders, pick one, go do the things, play capture of the flag in the motor pool. Let's see if you still know how to plot an azimuth. But then I think we'll see some of that retention, they'll understand they'll have the Y of the purpose to raise the right hand continuously. Thank you for your consideration. Well, I don't know about you guys but I take 50 second lieutenants just like that. Oh, that's amazing. I'll need a job at some point, ma'am. Come find me when you're ready. So two things. Are we looking at using entertainment industry for branding and for purpose and second the ASVAB and retooling the kit? So I can start just on the, to first thank you for your service and very proud of the growth in the number of women that we see serving over the last several years. And I think this weekend is the 25th anniversary of the Women in Service Memorial and that's a huge accomplishment there. And a lot of work done by General Wilma Vaught to make that successful, so we're very proud of that. Completely agree with you. I think that oftentimes, and our data proves this out, that a lot of people's perceptions about what military service is or is in a scope by television and media. There is a very active division of the department and all the services are a part of it that is actively engaged with the media entertainment industry, but of course we can advise, we can recommend, we can say, hey, if you make these changes, then we'll potentially partner. We don't always control the outcome and that's challenging. And so what we have to do then is to try to balance that with making sure that to somebody else's point that we are getting our messaging out there and we are establishing our brand so that we're not letting other people do it for us. And part of that is a layering approach because we know that a lot of folks are driven away from the prospect of serving due to those misconceptions. Then you really have to start there because before they can even really start to say, well, I wanna join the Army or I wanna join the Navy or I wanna join Army Active versus Army National Guard. You have to get them past the prospect that I'm going to become injured, homeless, assaulted, have traumatic brain injury through this active service. And so what we're trying to do through a layering effect is try to make sure that we have advertising content that just addresses some of those misconceptions by modeling the positive outcomes that we see in service to just get them even thinking about, oh, this might be something I'm interested in doing followed by robust marketing and advertising strategies from each of the services, most notably Army here that says, and now that you've kind of thought through, well, this might be something for me, now it's here's what you should join us, here's what you should join Army and here's all the things that we have available to you. So there's the partnership on the entertainment side plus what we need to do to make sure that we're addressing those misconceptions. So that's one. Moving on to number two because these are very widely different topics on the ASVAP. So OSD is responsible for the ASVAP and we do continuously review it and we actually have an external board of experts that are not affiliated with DOD whatsoever and includes psychometricians and other folks from the corporate board and other organizations that run the SAT, the ACT, other standardized testing programs. And I think that there's often this misconception that today's ASVAP is the same as from 1980 and that is not true. It's constantly evolving, it's constantly being revised, we change out components of the test and we do look at kind of the norms. You're right that the last time it was normed was 1997. Our board, our external board did a recent review in 2020 to determine whether or not it was necessary to norm it again and based upon national test scores across the country, not DOD data, Department of Education data and state data, there had not been a significant shift in education outcomes from 1997 to 2020 which is interesting. We do think that there is still value potentially and maybe working with those that conduct the national studies post COVID to make sure that they look at that again which would then subsequently inform whether or not we need to do a norming process for ASVAP. Part of that could include looking at whether or not it's appropriate to include a calculator. You're right, the other tests do include it, not on all math components that usually one or two. And then the other ones that don't include the math components because we want to see if you have some level of mental math ability. ASVAP is, the math portions are largely based on ninth and 10th grade math and we wanna make sure that you have some of those fundamental basics. We also wanna make sure that you understand even how to use a calculator. Folks have probably heard me say before, it's important to know those kind of math principles before you can apply them even with the use of a calculator. So one of the test questions on the ASVAP is what is the square root of 27 divided by three? If you know that you need to kind of work it with your order of operations and what steps you do first, you're going to get one answer, the correct answer. Most people who are not necessarily familiar with how to use a calculator are gonna work that problem left to right. They're gonna hit square root, 27 divided by three on the calculator and I think you get an answer of like 0.333 which is the incorrect answer. So you need to know how to do your basic math principles before you can even apply a calculator and frankly what we find is in some of our applicants that may have had lower education opportunities, their school systems or their individual school may not have been as strong, that's not something that's being taught to them. And so our concern is that in introducing a calculator without doing the necessary work to understand how best to do that, then it could actually have an adverse impact with ASVAP test outcomes. And so all of this is something that we think through continuously to make sure that the ASVAP is providing a level of outcome to determine are they the best fit for the jobs. And I think that there's a lot of times an expectation or a misunderstanding that the ASVAP is somehow an academic test and while it's built on academic principles, it's really an employment test. It's really designed to correlate whether or not we think that you will perform well on basic training in first term of enlistment and right now the current test does. But there's always a need for constant re-examination and potential improvement and to your point, if the national norms indicate we need to do that, we'll do that and as part of that we'll take another look at whether or not it's appropriate to include a calculator. Yes and if I can may, I'm a numbers person, if I may add on to that, to follow up with your point, if you don't know how to solve a quadratic equation, putting the four function calculator won't help you. If you don't know how to dissect what's important in a problem, in the problem solving portion, then that's not gonna help you. And said it's kind of an equalizer if you understand how to do a quadratic equation or you understand how to divide multiple digits into each other, then it's more of an equalizing factor to negate the time, not that you don't know how. And then the other point is again when you take norms of the entire country to decide whether or not attest the norm needs to be adjusted, then again I would consider the actual population that is likely to be the most affected by adding a calculator and make sure you're not taking the top percentage of the echelon that if they're gonna get a 92 GT score then it didn't matter, but for the people that it does matter and since we're in an organization that releases cat fours, then again this could be an equalizer at some point, so thank you. Thank you, sir. This question is actually really more designed for Ms. Bowland to answer hopefully and be able to offer us some opportunity to look at talent in a different perspective. So EY has taken large strides towards integrating neurodiverse talent into your company's regular operations. As the chief has asked us to kind of look at talent differently, how do you think the Army might be able to leverage neurodiverse talent into the future? Thank you. So this is an engineer in due to my heart. At one point I was the chair of a board called Achievement Centers for Children, which actually had children across the spectrum. So what we did a few years ago is we started looking at our business and what our clients' needs were. We were looking for a lot of talent around technology, data, and how to use it. And we were, it's hard to find. I mean, I will tell you there's, we could hire more cyber specialists, more technologists, but we can't find them because it's a really hot skill. So what we started doing, and this is kind of part of our whole recruiting, is where else can we find those skill sets? And we tapped into the neurodiversity population. And I will tell you, not only has it been the right thing to do for our clients, I mean, they perform brilliantly around some of these incredibly technical, data-driven projects that we work on, but I will tell you, we have changed people's lives. We have changed people's lives, people who couldn't get jobs before because of their, you know, of the neurodiversity. We actually, they have professions, they have careers. And so I will tell you, it's something we experimented and we piloted, and now we have multiple neurodiversity centers around the country. And we are tapping into, they are finding innovation around some of the projects that we do across the board. It is, it's incredibly proud moment for EY to have really kind of pioneered that. Thank you ma'am. Sir. Gil Sanborn, I'm a civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army in Northern California, the acronym CASA. And this is the panel I've been looking forward to for four days because I spent about 95% of my CASA time on this issue. And of my waking hours, about 90% of that is spent on CASA work. So I love doing what I do. I'm also on a civilian side, I'm pure civilian, a crisis manager. And I've seen this coming for 14 years since I've been a CASA just in slow motion. And the term used previously was the civilian military divide, but now we look at it as 91% and 9%. So I'm the poster child for the 91%. And I look at that 91%, not in terms of the kids, but all of the people who get between us and an intelligent conversation with students. It's the parents, it's the educators. And I'm in Northern California now, we're in County, cover the Bay Area and points north. And I tell the recruiters, this is the Mount Everest of recruiting challenges. But what I found from my experience in Connecticut, and thanks to General Ham, who choppered me into Schweinfurt, Germany when I was looking for a unit to adopt. And it was the Dagger Brigade, 4,300 soldiers. And then I brought my whole town in to support that unit and learned a tremendous amount. Fundamentally, what the opportunity is in terms of connection and access, which is what I focus on all the time, is that direct personal connection and interface with people in uniform. Let me narrow my question down to the fact that that access has to be developed on a grassroots basis. And the national media coverage really has more downside than it does upside. In other words, people pay attention to the negative stories, but they pay attention to stories that are local to them involving soldiers or activities that are local to them. I think in terms of changing their attitudes about the military. My question is, and what I found is that there is a gap in terms of coverage and relationships with local media, TV stations, newspapers, et cetera, because what I see in the recruiting side is the focus there is on media buys. It's not in terms of planning stories. And at the aqua level, it's a national focus. And to me, the opportunity that we have is developing those local media relationships, which I do as a constant effort and I did it with Fleet Week. We're involved in Fleet Week in San Francisco. Just collecting cards and collecting those relationships with reporters who were oriented toward these kinds of stories. So question to you all is how we're basically reorient ourselves in terms of this crisis so we get better local media access. Yes, I'll start and the others may have some, but agree. First of all, thanks for your support as a caster and all that you've done for many years. I love it every single day. And Depp, we wanna leverage assets like yourself to help us influence all those markets and all those corners and all the streets. But in looking at the crisis we've had, have seen that there's some opportunities, both the national marketing and how to message that the effect in local marketing also. Part of its budgeting, which we're working through, no assistance, well I won't say no assistance required, but not put it at this level, but how can we better leverage marketing and the methods that might resonate in Peach Tree City, Georgia are different than Boise, Idaho. And also talking, working with people like yourself to talk to those influences, to just share the 91% as you mentioned so perfectly with all those soldiers they wanna join, the coaches and parents. So yes, it is part of our renewed innovative focus for recruiting a session and we know we need to get at this because it did not work as well as it could have or it would have the 9%. Well, and this doesn't require dollars because what we're doing is developing those relationships so it's free, it's just a question of cultivating the relationships. But definitely it's gonna happen and we're gonna leverage that as well. Anybody else wanna talk to that issue? No sir, I agree 100%. I think access is very important and when I think through the local media and sir, I know we work together very closely, especially in your area of support and thanks for your help with the access is really how to further relationships with both influencers in the area, social media. And then there's another part of this, those tangible things like the RPI and PPI which are the nice glossy pamphlets that you talk about, hey, service to your country or what is it, what's the US Army all about or what they call PPI or the backpacks and the big water jugs. That's in my mind, that's local brand placement. When I walk into my room or office, I see my big Army coffee cup just reminds me each and every day. So you're right, you have to think through all of those in terms of how you really penetrate the local zip code because I can tell you by zip code where we are witnessing success. And I can tell you over time it's going up and down but what I'm trying to figure out is the why and it does the local marketing, does the relationship, does those things that just talked about play and impact and bringing that up or down. Right and I would, so generally we refer to this as like earned media and we've tried a lot of this. It's a challenge and perhaps you and others can help us is that there's not always an interest from local media to actually air it. It's not exciting, it's not necessarily dramatic. These good news stories that help get out the word about how military service is a positive experience or from a local, somebody that is from that local hometown and what they've done. And so even recently we were trying to place an op-ed about the value of military service and couldn't get primary media outlets to run it as an op-ed. So we do need your help and that of others to kind of signal to local media outlets that you're interested in hearing and seeing this content such that we can probably get our foot in the door. What I've found is what resonates is when people in uniform help civilians particularly saving lives. We had two recruiters who were in the Tan Fran Mall, two shootings, I was with the company commander, I said we need media on this and the next night we had five TV stations covering it. So and then with the fires in Northern California bringing engineers down from JBLM, the focus is on how do we sell those stories because when people who are civilians may have a negative view about people in uniform but if they save their life, that changes instantaneously and those are the types of opportunistic situations we need to exploit. You know we're short on time, Erica Ford from EY. I'm an Army brat, my dad was an intelligence officer, was born on Fort Benning, you know that's when my dad met my mom, two one year tours in Vietnam, Metavec pilot after that. So I grew up very much in the culture and there's certain things about how I go to my day-to-day like I have a hard time not saying yes ma'am, you know or yes sir, even in the job that I have and the role that I have at EY, it's just that my default. So there's so many things about culture and teamwork very much is very much ingrained in me from how I grew up. One thing that I noticed from the Gen Zers which I know is the folks we're focusing on recruiting there's two things. There is this individualism. There's definitely a focus on purpose and wanting to help people but there's also a focus on individualism, what's special about me, what do I, why should I be here, why should I invest? And at the high level that can feel incongruent with this idea of army as one. And so one question I have, so it's two part question, one question is from an outreach perspective and even thinking for EY, do you come in as a team or a very team focused organization? How do you balance that when you're recruiting folks from that bracket? Then the other piece of it too is that there's this sense of always wanting change and not wanting things to be settled but there's a lot of gift that comes from, you can do a lot of change in the army but there's a big gift that comes from that as well of predictability and being on a path and that kind of thing. So just, and the last thing is the language. I don't know if you've ever sat in a room with 18 to 25 year olds, I'm 44 years old, pretty smart, sometimes I have no idea what is going on. And so with that in mind, with the army and the culture it's so strong, the language. So I sat here and I understood what was being spoken about and at the same time there's like an accessibility because when you're talking to an 18 year old, it's not that they're not smart or they're not educated or not eager but they might use words that the recruiter might be triggering for the recruiter because they don't understand. So when you have those factors flying around whether you're recruiting for a big place like EY or army, how are you factoring that in into your strategy? Those are really great points, well made. It's interesting, we collect a lot of focus group data and whether it's at an OSD level or a service level we preview and test run a lot of our content and it's always interesting to see that feedback and kind of what resonates with them or not. I think one of the points you hit on is kind of what's in it for me. They're driven with purpose and I think in many ways they are, they do a lot of community service. They really do, they're focused on how to improve the situation around them or the community around them but at the same time it's often kind of on their terms or what's of interest to them. So how do you balance that? We've also seen in our data kind of this trend to entrepreneurism. That's what they're interested in. I think part of that is driven by the TikTok and the YouTube era where there's a view that if I just make my own content, if I just do this and I will be successful and I kind of control my own destiny and then how do we respond to that? I think there's a lot of ways that military service and army in particular, you can choose your own adventure because there's so many different varied paths and we have to do a good job of helping to explain that to people in terms that they understand and that can be challenging but one of the ways that we've found that to be successful is kind of showcasing both success in service and then also their ability to pursue their passions outside of service. There's this mindset and the data demonstrates this that there's this view if I join the military it's all or nothing. My life is gonna be 100% army all the time. I can't have a dog, I can't have a family, I can't go hiking on the weekends and we know that's not true. And so some of the most successful media campaigns we've seen in army or the other services is ones or ones that help model being able to be successful in both and meeting your passion in both dual tracks and then also once we've kind of captured that interest then even start having conversations about well what component is the right fit for you? Is it active, is it reserve, is it national guard? And that's sometimes hard to do but you're right, we have to do it all usually in 30 seconds or less and then in a language that they understand that speaks to both altruistically what they're interested in but then also what's in it for them. And I think that army does a particularly great job of that and in seeing some of the new content that they're also planning on air I think it will really hit the mark in that way and look forward to your feedback. I could just follow up on that briefly. On the front end getting back the idea of showing them the many many different ways that they can serve all the different types of jobs and training they can get coming in. And then also from their enlistment options that could be designed to get them having a sense of more ownership in what they're putting together and of course once they're in for their professional development as they go along making sure that they continue along a track that's appealing to them we should also help with retention. Right and I think just to add to that on their retention side, I think the army talent management market does a really great job of being able to give members kind of a greater sense of ownership of what that journey looks like and that would be hard to necessarily showcase and advertising content but I think in terms of having a positive service experience then I think that that definitely pays dividends. Can I just, I know you're anxious to get going. So first of all, well done on the branding. She's got Iwai Yellow on, so well done. But I think to your point, so Gen Z, I mean this is, it's a topic where we're doing a lot of research and I encourage people to really just thought leadership around Gen Z because it is an incredibly important question is how do you balance that teamwork which in our world is really important with that sense of, you know, we hire people that have high intellectual curiosity. And so when you start talking about upskilling and some of the creative things you can do of several years ago because of that desire and demand to continue to expand their business acumen, we set up something as simple as called EY badges. There's 250 badges you can do. You can't do it in two hours. It's actually pretty fulsome of a process but you can get a badge in AI. You can get a badge in data analytics. You can get a badge in leadership. You can get a badge in diversity and inclusiveness. So there's 250 topics. Some are more expansive than others. You can get a bronze, silver and gold. But it's one, it's a measure of pride in showing that you've got some specialization and skill sets that are gonna serve you well not just this moment in your job but it was just a creative approach to figure out how do we do that balance, right? Teamwork's important, but we know each of you individually may have different perspectives and wants and needs for your own career. Hi, Dave Grant from SmarterBase. Great information on recruiting. I wanted to get a question in on retention. And so just curious, I read in the paper a couple of days ago, I think it was a quote by a general client that said while recruiting was down, I think it was by 14 or 15,000, all the retention actually surpassed expectations for this past year. And so it made me curious as to are there goals for retention, average, length of service, is the goal to increase that over time? And also what are you seeing as the major causes of people not staying on or maybe retiring early or moving out of the force early? It's particularly one's causes which you think there's some leverage to reverse that, to extend the length of service would be my question. Thank you. Okay, well I'll start on that one and you are correct. We mentioned three pillars up front of sessions coming in, recruiting, retention and attrition. And over the last year, historically high retention was great, historically low attrition, which is also great. And you identify the recruiting challenge that we're working with. But what we have seen, once the soldiers in and they have some of those opportunities that are offered to them, the purpose as well, have all boosted a desire to retain. You'll re-enlist and stay in, it may be in the same job, promotion opportunities are another job. So all of those are things that we're looking at and it's in the innovative approaches for retention. And you even want to bring in more. But at some point you do need young enlisted boots. So we'll focus there also. I would like to highlight something that's not a totally new initiative but it's definitely boosted over the last year or two is an exit survey, like why did you get out? And it's also identified in their transition program. And it may be, I just wanted an opportunity, I'm ready to go to college, which is great. But if something else comes back, I'll be that back into the system on how we would like to improve quality of life and opportunities for those that want to continue to be retained. On the attrition issue, I know you didn't ask this specifically, but from the time someone goes through basic training, sponsorship and transition to their first year of an assignment, that path needs to be pretty fluid and maintain the quality as well, because he or she is probably gonna retain also past their first assignment. So all that's factored in as well. And given all of this holistic look, these innovative approaches, yes. What more can be looked at with retention, whether it's the enlistment times, the enlistment windows, bonuses that may come with it, or just additional opportunities. You are an infantryman today, which I recommend you stay. Bad joke, but other opportunities as well that you could go into. And to really boost all opportunities when those three pillars that I mentioned, the recruiting piece, retention piece and attrition piece, all feed into the strength that an Army needs. Anybody else? Okay, thank you. Thank you. I do have one question here. I'm gonna, it's directed mostly towards Dr. Orvis with Rand. And I'm sorry, I suddenly got a tickle in my throat. How can we better utilize simulation tools, such as the recruit selection tool to affect change in recruit characteristics? So the recruit selection tool followed up everybody who came into the Army and listed between FYI one and 11 for six years. Looked at quite a variety of their characteristics and saw how that played out in various forms of attrition or problems, the rates of problems they got into in the first term. It can be modified also to look at retention. And it had a cost element also. So if you're thinking about looking at eligibility criteria, this can give you a sense as you're thinking about designing a program of which things look like they can help you and which things look like you don't wanna go there. And some of the surprising things about it, sometimes you might get, let's say an increase in attrition to a certain extent, but the amount when you put it together with recruiting resource model, you're saving resources. Even though you've gotta bring in and train more people at the end of the day, it's more cost effective for the Army. So that can be used as you think about a simulation tool can be used in designing programs that deal with eligibility. Thank you. At this time, we're gonna be moving to closing comments, closing remarks. I'm gonna start at the far end, Dr. Orvis and we'll come back towards me. And I won't put you through the glory detail on the analytical side this time. So the first area was strengthening recruiting and we talked about expanding the general market that people know very little about service. There's a wide variety of things they can have as jobs and get trained in, benefits and pay. They have concerns that are not founded. And we talked about trying to appeal to different college market subgroups to increase penetration of the college market and the fact that different subgroups, those that take classes while they're serving, those that wanna do it before, those that do it after, they're gonna require different kinds of programs that are tailored to their particular interests. We talk about increasing the usage of marketing relative to enlistment bonuses and that of course needs to be done in accordance with the size of the accession mission and the difficulty of the recruiting conditions because one size does not fit all. You get different mixes that are optimal. We talked about leveraging analyses to help recruiters increase productivity. So we talked about some research would suggest that if you account in more detail for the difficulty of recruiting submarkets basically the mission boxes. So we're talking about high school grads, one to three alphas, senior alphas and others. If you do that in an area, it gives you a better way of deciding how many recruiters ought to be there and what the mission ought to be. So it should increase productivity. Although USREC does a pretty good job of that I would say historically. And then we talked about strengthening marketing ROI by getting better granularity in the data so we know which tactics actually are better than others. And the outcomes of tactics, different tactics are associated either with different effects in different geographical areas and they attract different types of recruits. We wanna know that. We could also use that to help shape how we market and what the accession cohort would look like that's attracted by the marketing. On the analytical side, we talked about different techniques that are available for program design and assessment focus groups and surveys, past research results, simulation tools. We talked about assessment. You can look at attitude of propensity change for some programs. That's what you're trying to affect or different types of analysis like multivariate analysis of actually the additional leads or contracts that are produced by a new program. And then we talked about experimental and quasi-experimental designs, difference being everything's a balanced test and comparison area, but quasi-experimental can be done after the fact. We've used that to look at local marketing ROI. Experimental designs, they're harder to set up. They require more lead time and effort. And then at the end, I touched on some analytical considerations making sure that if you're gonna evaluate a program, you try to use data that are routinely collected. You don't need a whole new effort for that. That you make sure you're talking about causation of programs, not just something that's associated and really do something else. And the difference between a change and the attitudes, we talked about propensity has gone down over the years. We talked about change and propensity as relates to actual change in enlistments. And the comment there to keep in mind is that is not at all a one-to-one relationship because people's plans change. And if somebody who tells you that they think they're gonna enlist several years later, depending on what measure, maybe 40% of them enlist, maybe it's half that much. It just depends on what measure. And most people are down in the negative propensity group. So that's where most of the enlistments are actually coming from. So you can't forget about them and only focus on the people who are already attracted to service. Thank you. Next year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the All Volunteer Force. And so as we look across different periods of time where we've had a hard environment to recruit in, you look at what the best levers of success were and we've really talked about all three of those today. It's principally recruiters, incentives, and then marketing and advertising. And I hope you can get a sense from the conversation in the comments today that the department and your army in particular is really vested in looking at those three areas and what they can do differently and what they can do better. And hopefully you've also gotten a sense at how OSD and department senior leadership are prepared to give lift to those efforts. But I think the other thing that you heard from all of us is that we do need your help and we do need the partnership with the communities to make sure that we're getting our message out, not only to youth, but also to influencers so that we can tell the army story better, we can tell the department of defense story better, and that hopefully we can start to broach these headwinds that we've experienced over the course of the last year. Thank you. Well, first of all, thanks. And what a pleasure it is to be here. And let me tell you, I think you all know I'm all in, even though I've got a week under my belt. But what keeps me going, first of all, is I love services, Great Nation, but more importantly, of my children of modest daughters deployed right now, another daughter, one daughter army, one daughter Marine, one daughter JRTC, bottom line, I want to make sure that when ever called upon to deploy that you have all of the men and women to your right and left, so that when you need to depend on them, you're not putting an extra weight in your rucksack just due to manning losses. So this is something that keeps me going and I wanna make sure that we really get out there and share our army story, the value proposition of service to this wonderful nation, incentives and bonuses. And lastly, let's just mobilize all of our great VSO, ARAs, CASAs and really get out there and share this gap from the two and a half years of missing the army story. So thanks. Well, I'm totally changing my closing comments from what I was originally after this conversation. I will tell you it was fascinating. So one thing I learned today, I did talk to a couple of former veterans who are now my colleagues and I'm very proud of them. They're actually working with many of you in the audience. And I learned that I think we're really good at recruiting but one of them told me that they had to find us, we didn't find them. So it's a continuous process. I think that's probably words of wisdom for all of us. There's always, it's a journey that we're on. But I think the conversation today was really interesting to me because we talked a lot about branding, the importance of branding around recruiting, but also using data and really truly understanding who your stakeholders are. But the thing that struck me the most is the power of the story. I will tell you, I'm struck by every person who came to the microphone has a sense of pride and it really, really represents the army incredibly well and they tell a story and it's that power of story. I would just encourage all of you to tap into that. We're doing that in different ways around diversity and inclusiveness and we've got a couple programs out there which are kind of showing our culture of belonging and our culture of care. But I'm telling you, it's palpable in this room and I think you should all be really, really proud of that. And last but not least, thank you so much all of you for including me but most importantly for your service. All the great key points have been made. Definitely want to thank the distinguished and diverse panel members for this. And I want to thank you for your seriousness about this. So your thought provoking questions. A lot of good things here. If you're in uniform, you're a recruiter. So help with the effort. I'm sure the chief would say just that. But more importantly for those who have served or supporting us, castes and others, this is a big total team effort and we will not succeed and we will succeed at this. We'll turn the challenge but in order to deliver that army for 2030 and get ready for 2040, we'll continue to be innovative in our talent management approaches and we will turn this recruiting challenge to an opportunity that we'll continue to march forward on. So thank you for your support and again, total team will get this done. Thank you. Thank you all. Again, I would like to thank the audience for taking the time to asking the really tough questions and offering some pretty solid solutions as well. And to the panel, thank you. And on behalf of the AUSA president, General Brown, there is a small token of our appreciation for AUSA at each table side. That's your gift and we made sure we played with the right rules so if there's anybody in here, the cost was not cost prohibitive just to be certain. So we appreciate all of your time today. I don't know whether any of the panel members can hang around if anybody has additional questions. I'll be here and happy to take them under advisement and we'll get them back to the rest of the panel if you have additional questions. Thank you all and have a good afternoon. Thank you.