Army FAO Proponent continues to move forward with its initiative to build "Pentathetes" and multi-skilled leaders to meet the needs of the Army and the changed international security environment. One initiative has been the creation of an International Military Affairs (IMA) Division at the Army Service Component Commands (ASCC). The intent is two-fold: provide additional opportunities for FAOs to get "re-green"; and developing a pool of regional experts with cultural expertise and foreign language proficiency in each ASCC. We expect a total of 45 new positions will be created by FY10. In fact, HRC is already assigning officers to ARCENT due to this initiative. Additionally, FAO Proponent is aggressively working an initiative to make the IMA Divisions even more robust to support "pushing" FAOs down to the Corps, Division, and BCT echelons as cultural advisors. This initiative will give the Army leader the capability to adapt to changes in regional dynamics and surge Army FAOs where needed.
The initiative to re- green has already shown substantial growth in the overall FAO force. The Army is conducting two accessions boards in 2006. In May, YG97 had a second Career Field Designation (CFD). The re- greening initiative translated to a significant increase in total accessions. Furthermore, in August the Army will conduct a CFD for YG99 officers. We foresee additional FAO accessions during this board also resulting from the additional authorizations at the IMA. What does this mean to the field? It means that our numbers are increasing, we will be training additional new officers, and ICT sites that have been gapped in the past will be less likely to be gapped in the future. It also means that FAO lifecycle management will become more predictable. In the field more FAOs will fall into the "traditional" category of training which means that they will be able to conduct all phases of training early enough in their career to allow for substantial utilization at the rank of Major. This CFD Board will constitute the transition from the old CFD/FAD system to the new seven year CFD. From this point on the Army will CFD one year group per year. The desired endstate is a robust FAO force structure, within the Army Modular Force, able to provide critical regional and linguistic expertise to the Army and Joint Warfighter.
FAO is increasingly the most sought after Functional Area. Last year, due to these high numbers we had the luxury of choosing only the top 10% of all applicants. The 2006 accession produced some impressive results. Nearly half of all newly accessed FAO retained a current language capability. The average DLAB score was 124 and the average GPA was 3.2 for their undergraduate studies. Lastly, all applicants were operationally grounded with 50 percent having experience with OEF or OIF. Certainly, all of these applicants are the future Pentathletes that the Army envisions. We see an upward trend for language competence within applicants. I believe that by continuing with our Army wide outreach program we will continue to recruit only the best applicants from the company grade ranks. The Army FAO management team will be undergoing significant change this summer. We will be losing LTC Paul Dececco, the Chief of FAO Assignments Division at Human Resources Command as well as MAJ Miki Huntington, one of his three assignments officers. These two officers have gone to great lengths to improve all aspects of the assignments process to increase communications, timeliness and transparency. FAO Proponent will be saying farewell to Ms. Sabrina Clark who has served as the School of Other Nations Administrator and Worldwide FAO Property book officer. She has worked in this capacity since 1989 and will retire with over twenty years of government service.
FAO Proponent will be losing two of its regional managers; LTC Al Rumphrey, who manages 48G and 48J, and LTC Jim Turner who manages 48C and 48E. Both have worked here for the last two years and have been invaluable in orchestrating the transformation of Army FAOs. LTC Steve Sabia will also be leaving FAO Proponent. Steve has worked on several key initiatives why being assigned to the office to include reviewing FAO Advanced Civil Schooling and language transformation.
I'd like to thank everyone on my staff for all of their hard work and I'd like to thank
everyone who has provided feedback from the field. I continue to be impressed with the impact
FAOs have within the international arena.