SAN DIEGO — The Navy's top personnel officer wants sailors to have a fair shot at advancement.

That hasn't always been the case. Personnel specialists zipped up to first class with a 44 percent advancement rate in the fall 2014, yet hospital corpsmen only had a 7 percent shot at E-6. It was even lower for construction mechanics, at 4 percent.

Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Bill Moran highlighted the 4 percent boost in advancement rates in the latest cycle, but told sailors here that his larger focus is evening out advancement opportunities across ratings, so no one feels stuck while their peers race ahead.

"Enlisted rating health is a big deal to me," Moran said. "We need that stabilityto in the macro to fine tune what we have in the micro."

Since he took over as the chief of naval personnel, Vice Adm. Bill Moran has criss-crossed the globe, traveling tens of thousands of miles, visiting sailors wherever he can find.

What he brings to the more than 50 "all-hands" calls he's done since taking over as CNP in August, 2013 is information — outlining his priorities and concerns in the the manpower, personnel and training programs he controls for the Navy.

He also asks for is feedback from sailors — low ranking or high, it doesn't matter. He often sticks around long after his presentations are to talk to sailors and leaders alike one on one, feeling that some sailors are more comfortable to say what's on their minds away from their peers or shipmates..

"I'm interested in knowing what your concerns are," he said. "This is a two-way discussion and we'll take your concerns back with us."

He most wants to know how the policies he and his staff are resonate on the deckplates — what's working and what is not — and what might they be missing altogether.

But he also brings his message to them, talking about this health of the force and reforms he's bringing to the personal world. He wants them to know the challenges he's facing at his level, so sailors and leaders can better understand how it impact the deckplates at their levels.

On Nov. 21, Moran made the rounds at of some commands in the San Diego area, visiting a riverine squadron, a conference of Naval Air Force command master chiefs and spent time with expeditionary and explosive ordnance disposal sailors at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, with Navy Times in tow.

Navy Times went along for the ride with Moran and heard him passing his state of the force message to separate groups of sailors and leaders. And Though he's pleased with where the Navy is, he's also aware there are still problems to be fixed — and potential problems on the horizon, such as an the traditional worries of retention and recruiting and a new push in enlisted training he's planning in the next year.

But this day, advancement was foremost on everyone's minds that day , at least initially, was advancement. Moran said that, after a glitch, the petty officer lists would be released to commands that day, earlier than planned after a glitch, then turned his attention to the larger advancement picture.

The fall petty officer list was slated to be released to commands the following Monday — but due to an error that inadvertently released the results into the personnel system, Moran had made had made the decision just before arriving at the Navy's Imperial Beach facility to move up release of the results.

It's a little earlier than expected," said Vice Adm. Bill Moran to sailors at Riverine Group One at the Navy's Imperial Beach, base. "Due to some technical difficulties we made the decision to push the results to command triads today and you should know who among you will advance in just a few hours."

He passed on the same message at his next stop, speaking to the Naval Air Forces, Pacific command master chief conference.

But his advancement message didn't stop with the announcement. He also passed on how he approaches advancements and how the Navy plans for them.

What he wants most — and believes he's on the path to accomplish — is eliminating wild swings in the advancement opportunity that the force has seen in the past decade. , which as has been the case over the past decade.

Those wild swings are slowing down now and that improvement, Moran said, is important to Moran,as and he wants sailors to be able to count on good levels of advancement, in all ratings, throughout their careers.

Steady advancement across the board, he said, is tied to a stable workforce — something he says the Navy is beginning to achieve.

"When I first came to the job, I looked at it and saw some ratings at 100 percent, and others at zero percent and some at 60 percent," he said to the AIRPAC CMC ir Forces Pacific command master chief's conference. "We were all over the map in every one of the 86 or 87 rates we have in the Navy, and we need to bring those peaks and valleys down to something more stable, so there's predictability in the lives and advancement opportunity for our sailors across every rate."

"Enlisted rating health is a big deal to me," Moran said. "We need that stability to in the macro to fine tune what we have in the micro."

With overall advancement up, Moran told the CMCs that the Navy is now digging deeper to fix those individual ratings still suffering from too little or even too much advancement opportunity, to bring them more in line with the Navy's averages.

For example, the active-duty E-5 advancement rate was 25 percent. Fire controlmen clocked in right around this rate to make second class. Sonar technicians (surface) came in well above it, with a 39 percent shot. Information systems technicians had a 50 percent chance. Air traffic controllers did even better, with a whopping 66 percent chance.

Not everyone was so lucky. Electronics technicians had a 14 percent shot at E-5; aviation boatswain's mates (fuels) had a 7 percent shot. Hospital corpsmen, the largest rate, had a 10 percent shot at E-5. And utilitesmen utiliitesmen had only a 1 percent chance at making E-5.

With the And now, with the Navy's drawdown over, for now, Moran believes the service is able to finally even out the opportunities. he said to better make that happen. .

"What you need most is a steady force structure — we have that now. We're not getting smaller as a Navy, we're actually increasing slightly, unlike the Army and the Air Force, which are coming down pretty significantly," he said.

"We're 320,600 people today and a year or two from today, we'll be anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 more than that. This increase allows us to keep advancement in a nicer place for now," he said. "We're currently in a sweet spot."

Long-term, Moran is working to get his planners better at forecasting changes in ratings. he's working to get his planners to be better at forecasting the future in the individual ratings — and right now there's a lot of uncertainty in the picture, though this time it's not force cuts on the horizon, it's the economy he's got his eye on and the effects of recovery on his force.

"It's very difficult for us to forecast how healthy ratings are going to be in the future, two and three years out," he said "We access up to three years ahead of time because it takes that much time to get many through the training pipeline and to the fleet."

As the economy gets better, it's unclear whether sailors will start to leave mid-career in bigger numbers. he says for the Navy, the retention picture is uncertain and already they're seeing issues in some Navy enlisted and officer communities.

"We need to be more predictable in our forecast of the health of the force, by rate. We need to know what rates are starting to see a decline in retention and ensuring we are accessing the right numbers of people to balance that outgoing with the incoming," he said. "We're getting better at that, but we're not as good as we need to be."

Remanning the fleet

And as the economy improves, intel in this arena, he says, will be as important as it is on the battlefield.

"Overall, when you look at retention in the aggregate, it's good," he said. "But — I don't know if it's going to hold on forever and what keeps me up at night is when are we going to see the downturn in retention across the force."

And he wants the help of deck plate leaders to help him as the early warning system for him that a retention lag is coming.

"Trust me, I'm not going to see it first," he said. "You're going to see it and you need to let us know when that happens — it will happen in pockets so there will be some canary's in this coal mine that will tell us we have a problem."

Right now, he says he's already seeing retention issues in some rates high-tech, nuclear and cyber ratings as well as explosive ordnance disposal and SEALs — many with skills also badly needed on the civilian sectors.

The good news for sailors, he says, is that when retention suffers, advancement tends to increase, but for a high-tech service it can lead to problems manning a fleet leaders are still trying to get properly stocked with trained people.

On the officer side, he says naval aviation is starting to face difficulties across the board in retaining pilots, both junior and senior. He's working to ensure it doesn't get any worse.

"Airlines are starting to expand their routes and size and pilot population," he said. "And in the next few years, we're going be seeing lots of retirements among civilian airline pilots.

"Many of those [airline] slots are normally filled by aviators right out of the service, — we have to stay ahead of this one."

But he's also concerned because the retention problem extends to the senior aviator ranks, too.

"[Senior] Naval Aviators at the senior level are leaving a little earlier than I'd like to see," he said.

Across the force, he said, officers are reaching command tours later in their careers.

"I got to command at around my 17-year mark," he said. "When I was done with command at the 18 and a half mark, I still had a year and a half before I could put in for retirement, so I took another job.

"CO's today are coming out of command at the 19, 19 and a half and even 20-year mark — they're at a beautiful place if they want to get out, because they've done their command and they've mastered their craft."

But the civilian sector's gain is the Navy's loss and he wants to keep these top officers around a little longer to take advantage of their expertise the Navy's developed in them.

"We don't want to lose our top folks and have recently put a bonus in place to try and get them to stick around longer and it's having the right impact," he said.

For both junior and senior aviators, the job market on the outside is starting to heat up, Moran said and he's watching the situation closely.

"Airlines are starting to expand their routes and in crease the size of their pilot population," he said.

In addition, a large sector of the commercial pilot population is approaching age 65, which is now the mandatory retirement age for them and that's expected to open up many more commercial jobs in the near future.

Moran knows where the airlines will come looking, too.

"Many of those slots are normally filled by aviators right out of the service," he said. "We have to stay ahead of this one."

On the bright side, he says recruiting is still good and that bodes well for the service in the future.

On the recruiting side things are very good and right now, the Navy is not having any trouble filling it's annual need for 35 to 40,000 new recruits every year and are still turning some people away.

"Hopefully what you are seeing coming out of boot camp is high quality," he told the command master chief's "Our recruits are not coming into the Navy with a lot of baggage, compared to where we were 10 to 15 years ago."

Moran sees a lot of reason for optimism. The fleet is getting more open billets filled. Retention is high. And sailors are more talented than ever before.

The entry scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test are averaging higher then any time in the Navy's history, Moran said.

In 2014, the average ASVAB score is 68.7 — 70.1 for men and 63.7 for women. Just five years ago the average overall score was 65.59 with 66.32 for male sailors and 62.78 for female sailors during 2009.

"It's the highest it's ever been and the numbers of [high school] grads is in the 98th and 99th percentile," Moran said. "We can't get much better than that, so anything that's at a high, has to come down, but I just don't know when that's going to happen."

Moran said some sluggishness in the U.S. economy is keeping some sailors in the ranks. In the Navy's corner for now is though the economy is recovering slowly, that recovery isn't across the board.

"The economy is heating up a bit in some sectors, but not in the sectors for young Americans right now," he said. "So we're still a very attractive option for people coming out of high school for now. But that can change."

Moran says he's made great strides on closing the manning gaps at sea."I hope you are all feeling it," he said "Those of you at sea, I hope you are seeing the gaps at sea close."The fit/fill ratios are getting better at least from what we see from a headquarters perspective and what the dials — the metics coming in to us on a weekly basis we are closing those gaps in a good way."

Moran said officials had made progress on filling open fleet jobs, but he's not declaring victory yet. But he's not declaring victory, yet, other

"We have a long way to go," he said. "For those of you who are in the yards or are hitting basic phase, we're not there yet. But for those of you nearing deployment or on deployment you should be in good shape." and if you have feed back on that, I want to hear about it.

The push to get training 'right'

His next focus: training. Now, in the coming year, Moran is turning his eyes on training.

"Training is my big focus this year," he said. "I don't think we've got training right in the Navy, especially for our enlisted sailors returning to sea."

To make his point, Moran, who's a career P-3 pilot, offered an aviation example: When aviators return head to flying after non-flying jobs ashore, they must go through rigorous refresher training. Why not do the same for other officers and enlisted? shore duty that's not aviation specific, care is taken before putting them back in a cockpit at sea.

"When I'm going back to the fleet, the Navy puts me back in [a fleet replacement squadron] and they give me the skills training to get me refreshed and re-qualed — they tell me what new equipment is in there and train me up on all that stuff, and we just don't do that in the enlisted ranks."

But that, he said, is about to change and he's getting the Navy's leadership on board with the approval and the money to make it happen.

"I want something that when sailors are coming off shore duty, and before you chiefs get them back at sea, that they're refreshed and have that upgrade training," he said.

"So when that first class shows up, they're ready to lead, and that's not the case today and that's part of our fit/fill problem."

About Mark D. Faram

Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.

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