TOPIC SPONSOR: ACC/A3/2/6KO
Compare and contrast how sister services, key coalition partners (United Kingdom, Australia, Canada), and Fortune 500 companies attract, manage and maintain Cyber talent. Identify successes and pitfalls encountered when attempting to retain a healthy cyber mission force poised to operate effectively in the Offensive, Defensive, Expeditionary, and DoD Infrastructure domains. Provide recommendations on what the USAF could do better to entice, develop, and maintain long-term careers in cyber to better ensure hard-earned experience and talent is passed onto future generations of cyberwarfare Airmen. Should the CMF have its own separate standards for career progression, to include rewards and promotion consideration? If so, what would that structure look like? Reference Government Accountability Office (GAO) report 19-362 that validates the need to maintain a trained CMF.
- Anthony, Justin, "The Human Capital War: The Race to Attract a Civilian Workforce with Competitive Pay," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- Anthony provides a framework to entice and maintain long-term cyber careers by examining the severe pay disparities that DAF personnel in the 1550 Computer Science occupational series face compared to the private sector. He notes that the lack of financial flexibility in the standard GS and Federal Wage System (FWS) prevents the DAF from adequately compensating fully qualified cyber professionals, leading to a constant drain of hard-earned talent. To better retain this critical workforce, Anthony demonstrates that the AcqDemo system allows supervisors to financially incentivize top-performing cyber talent through dynamic salary increases or substantial cash awards of up to $25,000 during annual appraisal cycles. This contribution-based flexibility empowers the DAF to reward and retain its cyber experts long-term, ensuring they do not have to leave federal service simply to achieve a salary commensurate with their skills.
- Belongia, Maj Brian A., USAF "The Mismanagement of Air Force Cyber Career Fields" Air Force Fellows paper, 2022, 3 pgs.
- Flynn, Daniel, "Tomorrow's War Today: Bridging the Cyber Workforce Gap," AFGC thesis, 2024, 48 pgs.
- Kaloostian, Col. Michael R., "DoD's Cyber Workforce: Strength through Retention and Volunteerism," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2020, 21 pgs.
- Kidd, Maj. Stephen M., "The Role of Digital Transformation in Air Force Artificial Intelligence Workforce Strategy," AFGC thesis, 2025, 71 pgs.
- While specifically focused on AI practitioners, Kidd evaluates the Air Force's advanced analytics capability maturity to determine how digital transformation can improve overall workforce recruitment and retention. He finds that current Air Force efforts related to attracting, sourcing, workforce planning, and performance management remain largely ad-hoc, uncoordinated, or inconsistently applied. To build a stable, long-term talent pipeline, Kidd recommends that Air Force senior officials adopt an advanced analytics capability maturity model (like A2CM2) to comprehensively evaluate and guide the implementation of the DoD’s VAULTIS data framework, ensuring that talent management systems better align with modern data quality goals.
- Marshall, Maj. Jerelle A., "Evaluating USAF Cyber Vulnerability/Assessment Hunter Operator Critical Thinking during Performance Evaluations," AFGC thesis, 2024, 46 pgs.
- Waters, Lt. Col. Paul A., "Reserve Component Cyber as a Solution to the Cyber Manning Problem," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2019, 24 pgs.