Tuesday, November 14. 2006

More on Training - "We're missing a generation in the workforce"

At GEOINT, at the afternoon plenary panel on "Challenges for the GEOINT Community" moderated by Michael Jones, CTO of Google Earth, the lack of a skilled workforce continued as a major theme as mentioned in the early blog post. I was expecting to hear more on policy and geospatial technology transfer but much of the discussion turned to what Dr. Leo Hazelwood, Sr. VP and GM of SAIC, called "a missing generation in the workforce." Hazelwood indicated that because of the drawdown in funding intelligence agencies in the '90s that the country is lacking experienced workers necessary to stand up the agencies responsible for intelligence analysis. "The workforce is skilled but enormously green," said Hazelwood. He also said that many young workers are looking for different things in their careers and that many may not hang around for 30 years in the civil service. Jones mentioned that some organizations don't allow their workers to fail. "Failure is the first step in creativity," he said.

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I hear this time and time again about the "age" gap not only with NGA but with other Fed Gov't agencies. Lots of older, about ready to retire workers and then younger (early/mid 30's late 20's). Myself being a vet and graduating from college in the mid 90's with Geography degree, I did not pursue a Fed Gov't position because 1) hiring process took forever (when you got college loans to pay back, you have to start working pretty quickly) and 2) jobs in GIS were hard to come by. The hiring process is getting better but can still take up to a year from the time the job announcement is posted until the EOD (entry on duty) date. If the Fed Gov't still needs personnel in the "middle" range (in their 40's) who still can work another 25 years, then I am all for that. We can still serve and mentor young people at the same time. Just a thought (hint to NGA).

#1 Beverly Richey on 2006-11-14 19:16 (Reply)

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