Issue Date: January 19, 2004
Smarter, smaller fleet
CNO Vern Clark’s plan for a leaner Navy could affect every sailor
By David Brown
Times staff writer
Get ready for more force cuts. The 2005 budget, to be unveiled Feb. 2, will include the latest plans to eliminate sailor and officer jobs throughout the Navy.
“There’s more movement in this area than in anyplace else, and I intend to accelerate it this year,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark during a Jan. 5 interview. “If you look at our [budget] submissions, you’re going to see more major moves. I still think we’re just scratching the surface here.”
Clark’s “Guidance for 2004,” a 20-page rundown of his priorities for the year and goals to be met for Navy commanders, is the heart of his plan.
Having been nominated to extend his tour by two years, making him the longest-serving CNO in history, Clark’s guidance is a bold expansion of his own programs and a roadmap for the year ahead.
“As our Navy becomes more high-tech, our work force will get smaller and smarter,” Clark wrote in his guidance, which was subtitled “Accelerating Our Advantages.” “We will spend whatever it takes to equip and enable our sailors, but we do not want to spend one extra penny for manpower we do not need.”
In 2003, Navy personnel officials began several “force-shaping” initiatives, such as Perform to Serve, which prompts re-enlisting sailors to leave overpopulated ratings. The service also is cutting 433 active-duty junior officers by May, consisting mostly of officers who washed out of flight school or didn’t earn their surface-warfare pin. And personnel officials have said another round of junior officer separations will come this year.
Those moves will help the fleet trim 1,900 billets by the end of September. The reductions, service officials have said, are being driven by ship and squadron decommissionings.
At the same time, Clark is directing the fleets to use the results of the Optimal Manning experiment, an effort to reduce the crew size of destroyers and cruisers, and to expand the concept to the rest of the surface fleet. Officials also are reviewing manning levels on submarines and in aviation squadrons “to apply similar best practices.”
Clark said the experiments, aboard the destroyer Milius, cruiser Mobile Bay and amphibious assault ship Boxer, showed billet cuts can work, and they can go farther. He quoted the master chief on the Milius, who said some day his ship will run with 165 sailors aboard. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers like the Milius were designed originally for crew sizes up to 323 sailors.
“He said that. No one was twisting his arm,” Clark said. “Where was he coming from? Here’s a guy that has seen the vision. He’s seen how we treat labor as free, so [the crew size] just grows and grows.”
Sailors who aren’t cut will want to stay because they have “rewarding job content,” he said. “If you’ve got 400 people on a ship, you’ll have a whole bunch of people that don’t have much job satisfaction,” he said. “With 250 people in that ship, your options are a lot better.”
The manning power for Arleigh Burke destroyers, for example, is dropping from 290 to 237, with room for further cuts later on. The cuts came by eliminating redundant functions on the ship, moving some sailors ashore and replacing others with technology.
Shore commands targeted
Now Clark is turning his eye toward shore commands. He and personnel officials have said the shore infrastructure is ripe for cutting, since the drawdown of the ’90s targeted mostly afloat billets, leaving the shore side manned with Cold War numbers.
At any given moment, and even at the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a commanding majority of sailors serve in shore jobs; about three of every four Navy jobs are shore-based.
Robin Pirie, former assistant Navy secretary for installations and environment, said it’s likely Clark is willing to cut manpower with next year’s round of base closings in mind.
“Base closures are not about shedding real estate. They’re about shedding people,” said Pirie, who served as acting Navy secretary in 2001. “I imagine he’s looking to the BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] 2005 round to reduce some military, but mostly civilian, manpower. Also, with the new deployment doctrine coming out, [manpower] certainly merits a second look.”
Rear Adm. John Townes, commander of Navy Personnel Command, said in December that a number of studies are underway to figure out the Navy’s true manpower requirements. They examine jobs both afloat and ashore, but Townes said more focus is needed on land-based personnel needs.
“As the force structure has come down [in ships, aircraft and submarines], we really haven’t taken a look at those billets, particularly on the shore side,” Townes said.
He added he expects those studies to be completed “sooner rather than later.”
“We are looking within a year’s time frame to see the results of those studies,” he said.
Clark laid out 11 afloat and ashore functions he called “manpower intensive,” and which should be examined for possible billet cuts. He used navigation jobs as an example.
“We have made great advances in technology with electronic navigation. I want to know to what extent that has affected the manning of our ships,” he said. “What policies, what principles, what rules and directives do we have in place that need to be reexamined.”
He added he did not direct specific numbers to be cut, but wants to know what the real requirement should be.
“I don’t know what the number is,” he said. “But I darn well want to know what that number is by the time the year is over.”
Clark said he agrees with those who say the Navy, to stay on the safe side, should retain some people it might need in the future but doesn’t need now.
“Let’s calculate it and figure out what it takes to serve,” he said.
Clark also is directing the Navy to improve the quality of people coming in. In the guidance, he said 95 percent of those enlisting should have high school diplomas, up from 92 percent in fiscal 2003. Also, the number of recruits with college experience must increase by 20 percent over fiscal 2003’s numbers.
Re-enlistment goals for zones B and C will drop slightly, from 73 percent to 70 percent in Zone B and from 86 percent to 85 percent in Zone C. The Zone A re-enlistment percentage will stay at 56.
Retired Vice Adm. Norb Ryan, former chief of naval personnel, said Clark’s formula will work because of the careful way he’s going about it.
“The key here is this CNO and his leadership are going about this issue in the right way,” Ryan said. “They’re doing careful analysis, working with the combatant commanders, and there is no preset answer. He’s going where the facts and data lead him.”
Clark pointed out that several of his directives, especially in the manpower world, couldn’t be done without two or three years of groundwork. But now that others are in tune with the Navy’s priorities, the fleet is ready to continue changing, he said.
Billet cuts are just one piece of an overall drive to run the Navy more like a business, with efficiency and effectiveness at a premium, Clark said. He has begun visiting commands and grilling leaders on whether the money they’re spending is gleaning the productivity the fleet needs.
“I want leaders to understand that when the taxpayers of the United States of America hand over dollars to you, you’re supposed to produce something with it, and you’ve got to figure out how to manage it,” he said. “The nation gives you resources, and your job is to create readiness with it. And I’m keeping score.”
David Brown covers command issues. His e-mail address is dbrown@navytimes.com.
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Possible places to trim
In his guidance, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark directed the fleet to look for possible manpower cuts in 11 “manpower-intensive functions at sea and ashore.” Fleet Forces Command will take the lead on sea billets, and Navy Installations Command will oversee the shore infrastructure studies, with input from type commands, system commands and the “N codes” in the chief of naval operations staff. The 11 functions are:
• Underway replenishment.
• Navigation.
• Long-term equipment storage.
• Ordnance loading.
• Food preparation.
• Computer and telecommunications and master stations, and network operations centers.
• Materiel order receipt and issue.
• Inventory control and management.
• Postal operations.
• Aircraft intermediate maintenance.
• Intelligence and targeting