THE MISSION OF CAP SENIOR TRAINING


by Maj Donald W. Littlefield, CAP
HQ Maine Wing


National Headquarters recently announced that over 60,000 cadets and seniors now belong to our organization. This is an increase of over 6,000 members nationwide from the same period last year. These new people need training in order to be functional within CAP, we all know you can't really just jump in and do anything you want to within the organization. This is where our mission of training begins.

Those of us who have been in CAP for more than a year tend to let down our fellow members. We forget that there are issues which must be addressed right from the start. For the seniors, there is a lot of initial training and paperwork that needs to be done before anybody is "mission-ready."

It's no wonder that we lose nearly 2 out of every ten seniors that join. Not only that, but there are other issues that we need to be aware of. I believe that we have serious shortfalls in the way we handle recruiting and retention, emergency services, and our own professional training opportunities.

Recruiting and Retention

People talk about mentoring new members. It's based on the buddy principle. "I've already been here and have gone through the hoops. Now it is my job to help you through." But more often than not, the new member feels left out, not part of the "club". Recently I heard from one member who joined early this year. As he faithfully attended all of the meetings, he watched from the safety of his chair other seniors come in and get help in beginning the process of senior training.

Why was this person was not getting the necessary training? The feeling from the member was that he was not a "priority". That because he did not fly, or was not really interested in working with the cadets, his training would have to wait. This member was not as invaluable as he felt. He brought with him essential mission ready skills and experience from other groups that would lend itself well to any unit. In fact, what he wanted to do is something that every other squadron is crying out for help with.

New members have a responsibility to getting the training as well. It is a two-way street. In order to do that, they need some help determining the proper way to get it all done.

If it is as simple as assigning an experienced senior to become a mentor to each and every new member who walks through the door of our unit, how come we don't always do it? It's probably because it is so easy, we don't even think about it. After all, it seems to work very well for the cadets.

Emergency Services

Here is another recent example. Lots of people join CAP to become involved in Emergency Services. Since it is our most visible role, that's what the general public usually associates with Civil Air Patrol. But do you think people are taking full advantage of the training that is being offered at the local units, the wing, or nationally? Not even close.

Members sometimes choose not to attend wing training exercises because they can't quite figure out the benefit for the time committed. Still other members will attend only if they can do only what they want to do, never mind the needs of the entire mission. "If I go, I am flying, and only in the plane I brought, and I am leaving at 1 p.m."

This selfish attitude shows that many of our members never take the time to look at the big picture. They only see their little role, and they close out the rest of the program because it is irrelevant to why they are here. This narrow view also means that the member is probably not taking the time to do things right the first time, not ever looking at our regulations, and never considering the effect of their actions on the rest of the members.

I'm sure there is a direct relationship between this attitude on ES training, and the fact that finding members qualified and prepared to accomplish our actual missions has been hard recently.

If it is your life that is in the balance based on whether or not CAP can accomplish its emergency services mission, your attitude would be a lot different. Put yourself in the place of the victim next time you need to think if you will be coming to a training mission. If you truly think that you know everything there is to know, and additional training is not going to be beneficial, than please stay home. The rest of us will be working together to be ready to do the job right.

Professional Training

Yet another example is professional training. CAP and the Air Force offer CAP senior members unlimited training in any number of subjects.

In one example, a scheduled Corporate Learning Course was held in a central location in a wing with offers of free billeting. Forty-one members were eligible to take the training, and their names appeared on a list to publicize the opportunity. Seven instructors were recruited and traveled over 1300 combined miles to present the training to the members. Twenty rooms were reserved for overnight lodging, and arrangements were made for materials and photocopying. Just before the CLC, the director told me that based on applications in hand and telephone calls he had received , seven or eight members would be attending.

The result? Two members showed up on Saturday. They had traveled over 400 miles to get to the training site. They were interested and had committed to attending, and actually followed through. Congratulations to them for showing the rest of the seniors how to take advantage of training opportunities.

Was that a waste? Not for the two who completed the course. But it could be argued that the time and effort in planning and organizing the course was in large part a waste of our most valuable resource, time.

CAP as a Corporation

Many of us think of CAP as a group worth joining because of something we can get out of it. In this sense, it is not unlike any other volunteer group. We may want to fly, perform ground team missions, handle paperwork, operate radios, or a myriad of other duties that can match up with the skills of the member.

But CAP is not just a local club. The fact that it is a Congressionally chartered, nationwide, non-profit, benevolent organization that is all volunteer, structured militarily, and mainly funded locally makes it a truly hybrid group. Civil Air Patrol is also an 30 million dollar National Corporation. It as a CEO (Col Albano), a Chairman of the Board of Directors (Brig General Bobick), directors from every state, plus Puerto Rico and D.C. (Wing Commanders), and stockholders now numbering 60,000. If we look at CAP as a company, as opposed to a local club, we can see that some of the things that CAP does not deal with well are the very things that are necessary to run a Fortune 500 company.

1. Responsibility

We all must have responsibility for our job in this company. There are expectations of performance, and rewards for good work. Everybody's job is important. There is plenty of room for upward mobility. Lines of lateral communication must be open. Frequent team meetings to discuss progress on our products must be held, and attendance is mandatory. We have to look at profit and loss, and constantly are dealing with compromise between what we want to do and what we can currently accomplish.

2. Liability

In order for this company to be profitable in the eyes of our stockholders, we must be vigilant for abuse of our valuable resources. We are an equal opportunity company, but we will not tolerate any inappropriate use of our people, our equipment, our time, or our facilities. We have a lot of money tied up in our equipment, we expect it to function every time we ask it to so that we can meet our goals and deadlines. Of course we have an employee handbook that will help us along the way, and written job descriptions so that we know exactly what we should be and should not be doing. If somebody is truly not in support of this company, we can certainly find somebody else to fill the slot. After all, if you are not a team player as we roll into the 21st century, then we may be looking for someone else.

3. Knowledge

The only way we are going to beat the competition is to remain ahead of them with our products and our people. We have to keep an ongoing training program in place to encourage our workers to learn more about our company. The more time that we invest in our employees, the more they will pay off in dividends later on. In other words, if knowledge is power, than if we can get everybody to know as much as they can about us and our business, we can't lose! Technology is changing, so we have to have training for new equipment coming into the industry. Those who want to sit back and complain about the direction the company is taking should really look into taking a more active role in our future. Take the time to become a team leader, maybe think about managing one of our work units. There is training offered in many different positions, maybe you would rather cross-train into something new to you. Either way, you need to get as much corporate knowledge as you can right now.

Do you see the parallel here? If we begin to think about CAP on a broader scale, and re-commit to the principles and basic foundations of the organization, then maybe we can reverse this disturbing trend. Here are some ideas on how to do that:

o If opportunities turn up, take advantage of them.

o If you want to be a valuable member of CAP, be aware of your actions and the impact that they may have. o Always follow through on any task that you agree to work on.

o Help our new members as much as you can.

o Plan to attend not only our training missions, but be ready for the actuals as well.

o Take on new roles by completing as much senior training as you can.

Let's look at this as a mission. We all have a mission to work to become the best members that we can possibly be. We need to accept responsibility, be aware of liability, and seek knowledge to complete this mission. Our own core values speak to this as well: Integrity First, Service before Self, Excellence in All We Do. This can serve as a road map to accomplish the mission, a constant reminder of the task at hand. With your help, CAP can truly become everything that you are looking for in the program.


Maj Donald W. Littlefield can be contacted by email at dwlittle@server.nlbbs.com.
Excerpts of The CAP Officer may be reproduced for use within Civil Air Patrol. Reproductions shall cite The CAP Officer, its URL, and the author's name. As a courtesy, please email The CAP Officer when reproducing an excerpt.


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