Force development starts with a plan Published Sept. 28, 2007 By Master Sgt. J.C. Woodring Air Reserve Personnel Center Public Affairs DENVER -- How do Air Reserve Personnel Center officials get Reserve officers to embrace career advice offered through force development programs without fear of being "forced" into something they do not want? That is a question Lt. Col. Vince Bugeja, ARPC's force development chief, has been asking himself since the program began in May 2006. "If I can get our Airmen to understand one thing, it would be this: In the Reserve, force development will never be 'forced development.' We will always respect the Citizen Airman mantra," he explained at the Air Force Reserve Command commander's conference recently. "We will never force an Airman to take an assignment, and we will never force a commander to hire a specific Airman. This would go against what our Airmen have signed up to do." Once Airmen understand that, Colonel Bugeja said he hopes they will be more receptive to participating in the system, which starts with them filling out the Reserve Officer Development Plan. "A lot of Airmen won't fill out the form because they think it will put them on the radar to get an assignment," he said. Colonel Bugeja offers a simple way to keep from getting an unwanted assignment, "Tell us on your R-ODP you don't want to move. There is a lot of other career advice we could give to you while respecting your wishes not to move." Unfortunately, a vast majority of R-ODPs are not completed. In fact, of the 16,250 Airmen's records reviewed so far, 10,348 did not have anything on their R-ODPs, which equals 64 percent. Of the 36 percent that had been at least started, 4,777 had been completed, but only 2,411 were endorsed by their commander. "To make this process work the most effectively, we need all of our officers to have their R-ODPs completed and endorsed by their commander," Colonel Bugeja said. Once each Airman completes his or her plan, career field-specific development teams meet at ARPC to review the plans of all their officers, which includes Airmen in active guard reserve, individual mobilization augmentees, air reserve technicians and traditional reservist categories. When they meet, the teams provide "vectors" or career advice on career field progression including recommendations on professional military education, education and other development. They also recommend Airmen for squadron command and key qualification requirement consideration. "A big part of what our development teams do is advise and support commanders and other senior leaders," Colonel Bugeja said. "We are trying to give commanders an additional pool of qualified candidates for consideration." Getting career advice may be a great thing, but if the Airmen don't know how to implement the suggestions, it could all be for naught. "This is why we've started to add assignment facilitators to the development teams of some of our mature career fields," Colonel Bugeja said. They will take part in their development team events, and will, in turn, help the Airmen understand what opportunities are available and provide commanders a deeper candidate pool from which to choose. "Basically, these facilitators can help the Airmen navigate the personnel channels to get their desired results based on the development team's counsel," he said. Development teams do not select people for positions or PME. Neither do they make job assignments or recommendations to promotion boards, he stressed. "In the past, only those with good mentors or supervisors received good counsel," Colonel Bugeja said. "Now, everybody will get the counsel that they deserve, and the Air Force benefits because we deliberately produce our own leaders."