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                         November 2, 2001

Program gives officers a chance to gain corporate experience

WASHINGTON (American Forces Press Service) -- Many people believe the military has "its own way of doing things" and will never change. But DoD officials are trying to debunk that thought through a program that gains military officers hands-on experience in civilian corporations.

Two officers from each service are chosen annually to participate in the Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows Program. The officers, in grades 0-5 or 0-6, spend one year working at a high level in a civilian corporation to learn other ways of doing business, program director Eric Briggs said.

"It’s an opportunity for normally busy military officers who have a career-path set out to see how the outside world operates in a competitive environment," he said.

A short-term benefit of the program is that participants can brief their leaders after completing a year in the corporate world.

"Whatever relevant information they find out there, they can come back and talk directly to people in the Pentagon who can do something about it," Briggs explained.

Another benefit -- perhaps the most important, long-term benefit of the program -- is opening the eyes of future senior leaders to the fact that there’s more than one way of doing business, he added.

"When the officers come back, they’re motivated to change and improve their services and improve the defense department itself," Briggs said.

And participants also learn how to manage those changes, Briggs added. "The program shows them how to develop plans to lead their personnel through the changes that will take place," he explained.

Information on the fellows program is available on the Internet at www.ndu.edu/sdcfp/sdcfhom.html.