Stackley goes Salamander

I would love to see, ahem, the details of which billets are going where. More interesting is to know where they are shifting billets from - but one way or another, this is good news.

“Ten to 15 years of downsizing has thinned our professional corps and we need to reverse that decline,” Stackley said. That includes deckplate-level inspectors working for the Supervisor of Shipbuilding, program managers, contract wranglers, test and evaluations professionals, and so on. For the past several years, the Navy has struggled with accepting warships that needed expensive re-work after entering the fleet, or which sailed late or over-budget because of quality problems. Just this week, you read here on Buzz about how manufacturing problems caused hull cracks aboard the littoral combat ship USS Freedom.

According to information provided Friday by Navy spokeswoman Capt. Cate Mueller, the goal is to increase the Navy’s acquisition workforce across the board by about 16 percent, or more than 6,000 people, over the next five years. Most of those people will be government employees, either service members or full-time Navy Department workers.

Yes. Back to basics - give the good folks at SUPSHIPS what they need - and please let's be smart about what the billets will be.

On, shall I be a jerk? Why not.

Who, ahem; made the decisions to cut all those positions, why did they make that decision, what informed that decision, why was that determined to be a bad decision, what lessons have we learned from it, and who will be held accountable?

We know some of those answers already, don't we? That gives you some of your answers.

Until we are honest and open about our mistakes, future leaders will repeat them. That is part of leadership; man up to your mistakes so others won't have to.

There.