Captains Career Course: Leveraging Talented Officers Towards the Army Profession
Abstract
The Army Captain's Career Course (CCC) is the second developmental course attended by officers following their commissioning. Generally, officers attend the course immediately after promotion to Captain and between their 4th and 7th years of service. Attendance to the CCC also requires the completion of a related distance learning (dL) Captain's Career Common Core Course (C5) that both Active Army (AA) and Reserve Component (RC) officers complete either before or during the CCC. Given the CCC's pivotal timing and role in the career progression of the officer corps, it is under continual scrutiny and revision. As such, the Army struggles to improve the course to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by Information Technology (IT) enabled dL approaches. While pursuing improvements it must also respond to the demands dictated by war and a rapidly changing organizational and operational environment. This paper examines the critical role the CCC has in the professional development, performance, and retention of talented officers and recommends several modifications to improve its design and conduct. It concludes that the CCC is a critical factor in retaining talented officers within the profession and is instrumental in both their development and successful performance in a challenging operational environment.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 07, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA560340
Entities
People
- Troy Messer
Organizations
- United States Army War College