COMMENTARY INNOVATION Advocate for


Ordered to at tend the yearlong resident course at CGSC, an acquisition of ficer thought his career advancement was totally derailed. Instead, the course was life-altering, providing unexpected insight—and a determination to change the status quo in acquisition.


by Maj. Andrew Miller M


y first reaction, when I saw that I’d been selected to attend the yearlong resident course of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in 2015-16, was that it made absolutely no sense to send me. I was one month into my first acquisition assignment and would have to


leave my project office after a year. Additionally, I was living on Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and could have attended the four-month satellite course, remained in my position and saved the government the costs of moving me to and from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.


Acquisition officers access into (that is, assume duties in) Functional Area 51 as branch-qualified captains. As such, we have limited time to complete the professional requirements necessary to compete for command. For that reason, and in light of the operations tempo associated with the war on terrorism, acquisition officers tradition- ally have attended the four-month satellite CGSC course.


In 2014, the Acquisition Corps, in conjunction with the U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC) and the CGSC leadership, changed this policy and opened the year- long resident course to its officers. Tis had a dramatic impact on my career plans and sparked concerns as to whether the benefits of the course were worth the significant investment of time.


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COMMENTARY


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