'Apples to oranges'

  • Published
  • By Bo Joyner
  • Air Force Reserve Command Public Affairs
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  In 2011, then-Air Force Reserve Command Commander Lt. Gen. Chares Stenner approached his Directorate of Analyses, Assessments, Lessons Learned and AFSO21 with what seemed like a pretty simple question: “What is the cost of an Air Force Reservist versus an active-duty Airman?”

In a quest to answer this not-as-simple-as-it-first-seemed question, the people in the A9 directorate developed the Individual Cost Assessment Model, a simulation tool that has made it easier to analyze and compare manpower costs across the reserve and active components.
For its efforts, the ICAM development team was recently recognized with an honorable mention for the 2015 Air Force Analytic Innovation Award.

“There are more than 60 organizations in the Air Force analytic community, so this was a great accomplishment for our ICAM team,” said Col. Hal Linnean, A9 director at AFRC headquarters, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. “I would like to thank Dave Gillespie and his ICAM team for their excellent work on this project and our senior leaders who have championed and powered ICAM development over the past few years.”

“The ICAM development team, consisting of the best analysts across the Air Force, pulled off what many said could not be done,” said Gillespie, A9 chief analyst and ICAM development team leader.

In addition to Gillespie, other ICAM development team members are Lt. Col. Terence Kudo, Lt. Col. Julia Phillips, Dan O’Neal, Ron Sweat and Mark Mercier from AFRC/A9; Lt. Col. Andrew Wallen, Joseph Murphy and Misita Nicole from the secretary of the Air Force Financial Management Directorate; and Iara Infosino from Air Force/A9.

Kudo has been working with ICAM since 2012 and has seen the model improve over time.

“We had a traditional Reservist, Lt. Col. Todd Combs, who first developed ICAM in 2011,” he said. “In his civilian job, he was working at the (Department of Energy) National Labs, and he was an expert in modeling and simulation. So he was able to bring that expertise over to us and create ICAM. I came on-board in 2012 as a full-timer and started working with Colonel Combs as a part-timer to grow ICAM.”

Kudo said that early on the team found that “costing” an active-duty Airman is pretty easy; but “costing” an Air Force Reservist is more challenging.

“The active-duty side is pretty straightforward,” he said. “An active-duty Airman is 24/7. I can pretty much figure out where he is going to be in his career based on time in service, rank, et cetera. When you look at a Reservist, it’s not that straightforward: Is he part-time or full-time? If he’s a part-timer, is he just doing the minimum requirements? What if he does a 180-day activation? What if this Reservist is a pilot who has to add some short training periods in there? Did this Reservist previously serve on active duty? All of that, and a lot more, affects the ‘cost’ of a Reservist.”

ICAM is designed to bridge the gaps in Air Force understanding of manpower costs, not only on an annual basis, but also in terms of burdened life-cycle costs -- things like retirement payments and Tricare for Life, for example.

Comparing costs between active-duty Airmen and Reservists “is not an apples-to-apples comparison,” Kudo said. “It’s more of an apples-to-oranges comparison. But it’s still a comparison that needs to be made, and ICAM can help our decision-makers see that comparison a little better.”

Early in 2015, ICAM was added to the Air Force Standard Analytical Toolkit, a foundational set of Air Force analytic community-accepted modeling and simulation tools designed to improve the consistency and quality of Air Force analyses.

“Being accepted into the AFSAT was an important milestone for us,” Kudo said. “It shows that we’ve put the model through a thorough vetting process, and our tool is now available for use throughout the Air Force analytical community.”

The lieutenant colonel said the team is constantly looking at ways to improve ICAM.

“We started out five years ago looking at what is the comparative cost of a Reservist versus an active-duty Airman, and I think we’ve been able to give our bosses and the AFRC community some great information on what those costs are; but there are always other factors we need to look at,” Kudo said.

“For example, there is a new retirement system that will be implemented starting in 2018. The model we have now, of course, uses the current retirement system,” he said. “We are going to have to look at the cost implications of the new system compared to the old system. Those are the kinds of things that General Miller (Maj. Gen. Maryanne Miller, who was recently nominated for a third star and assignment as chief of Air Force Reserve and AFRC commander) is going to be very interested in.”

“ICAM is important because it provides an unprecedented capability to understand what Airmen cost, not only on an annual basis, but across the life cycle,” Gillespie said. “ICAM looks ahead, assessing not only today’s costs, but also future costs under different pays, compensation policies and conditions. Understanding of costs is obviously important as we make decisions to shape the future Air Force under increasing budget pressures.”