The U.S. Air Force's reliance on technology requires leaders with the right IT and engineering skills. There are lots of opportunities for engineering students to become the next leaders of the youngest military armed services branch, says Capt Kerry Strait, Commandant of Cadets for Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI, Troy, NY, www.rpi.edu).
ROTC, with about 17,000 active participants and 2,500 new grads each year, is the largest source for newly commissioned Air Force officers. Air Force ROTC is a college-level program open to qualified students in every academic major. Participants learn valuable leadership skills while they complete their studies, Strait says.
And they fill a need. Tech majors are in particular demand. "We need technically savvy folks. We need every type of engineer, especially electrical engineers," Strait says. "In military operations, we must pay close attention to the offensive and defensive aspects of information. We need folks with IT degrees and skills to protect our information and to monitor information from our adversaries."
In addition to commandant duties, Strait is an assistant professor of air and space studies at RPI, one of 144 academic institutions that hosts an ROTC detachment. Among the host schools are several HBCUs and Hispanic-serving institutions, Strait notes. There are also almost 900 ROTC-affiliated colleges and universities, called "cross-town schools," whose students are part of a nearby host school detachment and travel to the host school for their ROTC courses and exercises. Cadets who finish the ROTC program spend four years on active duty after graduation. Pilots commit to ten years.
Participants take one to three hours of ROTC aerospace science and leadership courses each week for college credit. They learn about the organization and practices of the Air Force, its mission and policies during their freshman and sophomore years. As juniors and seniors, they take advanced courses on leadership and national security policy.
At the same time, cadets attend a non-credit "leadership laboratory" two to three hours a week to learn leadership skills. "When you commission out of college into the military as a second lieutenant, you immediately outrank 75 percent of the Air Force. That's an awesome responsibility. Right off, you could be a flight commander leading 200 airmen," Strait says.
Participants must complete two to three hours a week of physical training when school is in session. After sophomore year, they do a month of summer field training at an Air Force base in Texas, South Dakota or Florida.
ROTC offers a variety of scholarships to help with college tuition. Some are available to upperclass students in specific technical disciplines; others are designated for students who attend HBCUs or schools with a heavily Hispanic student body. Eligibility and details vary from year to year depending on the needs of the service, but most scholarships cover all or part of tuition and book costs, and most pay a monthly stipend.
Students can join ROTC as late as junior year, and scholarships in specific disciplines are sometimes available for the last year or two of school. Students in ROTC must maintain a 2.0 GPA. Scholarship students need a 2.5.
Strait says the Air Force values diversity and has strong relationships with HBCUs as well as Hispanic-serving institutions. "We strive to maintain an active duty mix that represents the society we serve," Strait says.
The Air Force's needs dictate where and when new grads are sent. "We prepare our people here and then deploy them based on their specialties and the world situation," Strait says. "We develop cadets to be officers first. Society expects that cadets will be prepared to serve."
Some ROTC participants with engineering and IT degrees from RPI are profiled below. Three are scheduled to receive their commissions as second lieutenants in 2004.
Cadet Robert Moore Jr: part of something bigger
Cadet Robert Moore Jr, who plans to stay in the Air Force for the next twenty years, hopes to become an astronaut. In the meantime, he is training to become a pilot in the Air Force's undergraduate pilot training school program. He will graduate from RPI in May with a degree in aerospace and mechanical engineering. He has been an AF ROTC cadet since his first year at the school.
Moore's parents are both Air Force enlistees. His father has served for twenty-six years. He is a chief master sergeant at Whiteman AFB (Knob Noster, MO), where he is chief of quality assurance. His mother is a retired master sergeant who worked in personnel and human resources.
Moore says his ROTC experience offered him the leadership skills he needs in his career. He was wing commander of his cadet wing at RPI during his senior year. He also enjoyed the ROTC leadership laboratory.
"I truly believe the enlisted force is the backbone of the Air Force. I've learned how to interact with and motivate them. They're the ones turning the wrenches and making sure the planes fly," he says.
Moore spent three weeks during the summer of 2003 in the Air Force Institute of Technology's Excellence in Engineering summer internship program at Wright-Patterson AFB (Dayton, OH). Here he worked with Major Richard Cobb, a professor of satellite simulation and space dynamics. They researched gyroscopes in planes and satellites.
"I learned about moments of inertia and ran tests. I set them up to make sure we got the gyroscope product we wanted," Moore says.
Through ROTC, Moore says, you earn officer commissions while enjoying a traditional college experience. Scholarships and stipends for meals and books are an added plus.
"I will be a pilot for ten years," Moore says, "but I would stay even if I was just turning wrenches. People want to serve and be a part of something bigger than themselves."
Cadet Darling Garcia: good tech training
When Cadet Darling Garcia was seven, his family came to the United States from the Dominican Republic. His brother Stalin is a Navy aircraft mechanic. Darling Garcia says he wants to give back to the country that has offered him "so many opportunities."
Garcia will graduate from RPI in 2004 with a degree in computer systems engineering and CS. He wants to work in computer networking in the Air Force. "I want to develop survivable high performance networks," Garcia says. As an example, he points to the Northeast's electricity blackout of 2003 when the Internet was down for several hours but phone lines still worked.
"There is talk in the industry about replacing phone lines with a VoIP system. That's a significant switch. Not having phones could create problems. The military depends on the Internet and needs survivable networks. So I'd like to get into that," Garcia says.
He has taken courses in operating systems, program languages and software design. But his most important activity was working with four RPI professors on a large-scale Internet topologies research project.
"We are creating an Internet map. We have a picture of what we think the Internet looks like - millions of nodes and millions of access points. We're simulating the map under certain conditions. If some of these nodes disappear, is the Internet robust enough to survive?"
He says in addition to the professional and leadership development he's received from his ROTC participation, the program helped pay for his senior year of college, which was also his first year in ROTC. "A significant proportion of the people here get scholarship money. You can get up to full tuition. And you have job security. The military won't fire you overnight!" Garcia says.
"Regardless of your major or assignment, you get very marketable technical training. It puts you in a good place."
Cadet Jen Cilia: computers for aircraft
Cadet Jen Cilia has dreamed of being an astronaut since eighth grade when she went to NASA Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. "They told me I first had to be an Air Force pilot," she says.
Her father, a project manager at Unisys, helped her research careers, and when she started at RPI she signed up for ROTC as the best route to her goal. She is scheduled to graduate this year with an EE degree and has been selected to become a navigator flier.
She learned the problem-solving skills she needed for navigating as part of her EE degree. She decided to try for a navigator's position after completing a program in South Dakota where she shadowed an engineer, a pilot and a navigator. Navigators are the ones who tell aircraft pilots exactly where to drop their bombs, Cilia explains.
Cilia's EE savvy gives her insight into how aircraft computers work should something fail. It also provides career options if she doesn't manage to become a navigator.
"If something goes wrong, they'll still need my electrical engineering skills," Cilia says. "I would like to stay in the military as a career officer. No one in my family has ever done that."
Her favorite aspect of ROTC is the camaraderie. "It's like a fraternity or a sorority," she says. She also enjoyed her "wing jobs" as an upperclassman. One was to plan a five-day orientation for thirty freshmen. In her junior year, she planned a 5K race. "I've had opportunities to lead that a lot of college students don't get," Cilia says.
She notes that she is the only woman in her ROTC class. "They're like my brothers. That pushes me on," Cilia says. "There are a few people who don't believe I belong here. I'm going to run that much faster to prove I can keep up."
Captain Elizabeth Dunn: C-17s in Afghanistan
Capt Elizabeth Dunn was the first woman Air Force pilot to fly large C-17 cargo planes into Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
She graduated from RPI and the ROTC program there in 1998 with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Since then, Dunn has handled many missions transporting personnel and equipment into the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We've been flying into Afghanistan and Iraq for over two years. It's now standard," Dunn says. "We fly from stateside to Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan."
She says ROTC gave her leadership opportunities and camaraderie. "I enjoyed the people. They were some of the best friends I've made," Dunn says. She has made several trips back to RPI to tell students about her military experiences.
"My degree helps me understand flying - the basic concepts and how everything works," Dunn notes. She too aspires to be an astronaut.
Dunn is currently based at Charleston AFB (Charleston, SC), where she has flown C-17s since 2000. After graduating in 1998, she spent nine months at Pope AFB (Fayetteville, NC) with flying squadrons, learning tactics and how to execute missions. She also worked as the executive officer, supporting the squadron commander.
"I was working with the C-130 transportation cargo aircraft. We planned airdrops of parachuting soldiers for the 82nd Airborne Division. You have to fly low into a parachute drop area. I helped to plan and organize that," Dunn says.
In March 1999, Dunn moved to Vance AFB in Oklahoma for one year of flight training. She took academic courses and learned to fly the T-37 (a two-seat trainer jet) and the T-1 jet, which is similar to the planes used to transport military leadership.
In April 2000, Dunn spent three months training on the C-17 in Altus, OK. "You start from scratch, learning the systems and how the plane works, then flying low levels, air refueling and air drops," she says.
She was assigned to Charleston AFB in July of 2000. "I fly missions all over the world. I can go almost anywhere," Dunn says.
From October to December 2001, she flew humanitarian food drops in Afghanistan. Since then, she has handled transport missions between Afghanistan and Iraq. Earlier this year, she took a training course at McGuire AFB in New Jersey.
Although she plans to stay in the military, she may rethink her ambition to be an astronaut. She has a May wedding date with a fellow C-17 pilot and says her career plans hinge on future family obligations. She and her fiancé, who is stationed in Seattle, have had a cross-continent romance. They sometimes go three months without seeing each other.
Dunn says she would not change anything about her military career or the training she received in ROTC. "You get opportunities you wouldn't get elsewhere, and it's a great group of people to learn from and with. Military service gives you background and experiences that are hard to get in the civilian world."
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