Navy to add more security officers in career shake-up

The Navy is building a larger security force and moving to hire more security officers. The Navy will merge it’s existing active-duty security technician warrant officers into the the active security officer limited duty officer community effectively immediately.

The security officer community will grow from 211 officers to 260 in the next few years. As part of this, all security technician warrant officer billets switching to limited duty officers, who are commissioned without having to acquire a bachelor's degree. Warrants in the security community will be given the chance to switch to LDO or will be allowed to finish their careers as warrants, but no more warrants will be selected for security.  under the details of the merger plan detailedto In Once the dust settles as warrant billets are converted to LDO’s, the security officer community will grow from today’s 211 to approximately 260 in the next few years. 

That board is slated to to have the ability to pick up to 22 new security officers. Johnson says the billet structure supports very good advancement opportunity and viable careers for the next decade.  

The plan is part of an overall expansion of the Navy’s security forces that was mandated in a study signed out by a Fleet Forces Command study, with a focus on enlarging the enlisted That expansion will include not only the officer community, but also the enlisted master-at-arms rating, which is the third-largest enlisted career field with approximately 9,600 sailors. 

Johnson said that the enlisted force is due to expand, too, but said wasn’t familiar with by how much or over what time frame.

Now it’s up to the each of the eligible existing warrants to decide on the course of their who must now decide how to finish their careers. Their options are to Johnson outlined two choices, either convert into a security officer LDO or elect to stay a warrant for the remainder of their careers. Regardless, They must make that decision in writing to Navy Personnel Command by July 9, according to NAVADMIN 107/16 announcing the changes.

The message states that only those warrants who have never been passed over for promotion to the next paygrade are eligible to apply for to become security LDO. For those who can and do, Johnson says there’s good advancement and career opportunity all the way up to O-6.

Security warrants with more years will require more math. The highest Above for years is a little trickier and requires a little more math, though the highest rank a warrant can assume upon conversion is lieutenant, but more senior warrants will have an earlier date of rank to  - but in order to help those senior warrants being commissioned to maintain viable careers, they will have their actual date of rank determined by the community managers to preserve their seniority.