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LCS Crew to be Hybrid Sailors

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS050712-06
Release Date: 7/12/2005 12:00:00 PM

By Lt. Susan Henson, Naval Personnel Development Command Public Affairs

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- Four Naval Personnel Development Command Learning Centers have been working since November to build a training program for the first crew members of the Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), USS Freedom, who started arriving for duty in January.

The Center for Surface Combat Systems (CSCS) is the lead Learning Center of Excellence for LCS and is working in conjunction with the Center for Naval Engineering (CNE), Center for Service Support (CSS) and Center for Information Dominance on individual schoolhouse training issues. To identify the skills needed to operate the ship, Human Capital Objects (HCO), a detailed description that identifies all work, including watches and collateral duties.

“LCS is the first ship on which manning and training requirements were determined based on the development of Human Capital Objects, leveraging the significant work accomplished in Job/Task Analysis and skills-based assessment,” said CSCS Commanding Officer Capt. Rick Easton.

With a total projected crew of 75, the optimally manned Freedom requires that its crew members have skills in more than just their rating. They will have a blend of skills from several ratings, which is creating a new, or hybrid, Sailor.

“Today you have a billet on a ship that’s ascribed to an Engineman second class. That means you have a stovepipe you can only put an enginemen in that billet that does enginemen type work based on occupational standards and things of that nature,” explained CNE 5 Vector Model Manager Roy Hoyt. “When you want to build a hybrid Sailor, what you’re doing now is mixing and matching the flavor of work contained within that billet that becomes your Human Capital Object.”

As a result, some of the LCS work requirements such as some scheduled maintenance and repairs are being moved ashore.

“The LCS Task Force that built the Navy's first HCOs selected, based on the approved Concept of Operations, those functions critical to mission accomplishment and then moved remaining functions ashore to be provided through Distance Support,” Easton said.

Regardless of rating, the added skills will be reflected in the Sailor’s 5 Vector Model.

“Sailors on this Littoral Combat Ship are going to attain various certifications, qualifications, knowledge, skills and abilities that will be resident on their 5 Vector Model, so that in the future when they want to move to another Human Capital Object that is created, they can compare their resume against that position and in many cases may fit better than their contemporaries,” he said.

“LCS is without doubt an advanced combat platform that provides significantly expanded opportunity in both operational and technical responsibilities outside of traditional Navy Rating boundaries,” Easton added. “Part of the Revolution in Training vision is to expand opportunities for Sailors to grow beyond traditional constructs of today’s ratings. LCS provides that opportunity unlike any other platform in today's Navy.”