US Army – Leadership Development
Alice Muellerweiss, Chief, Civilian Leader Development Division

At the US Army, the Leadership Development Division is 100% committed to developing their civilians and soldiers. However, there has traditionally not been a huge investment in supporting the necessary development of the civilian core.

Recently Chief of Army Staff General Schumacher and Secretary Harvey have placed more importance in investing in civilian training. They set the stage and the environment to make this leadership development happen.

In 2008, registration for civilian training will transition from a first-come-first-serve approach to the traditional quota system used in the military serves. Exactly like the military suites, it is a system that assigns quotas that each training manager will be responsible for filling.

If you join the Army ranks as an intern, there are five levels of courses to go through:

1. Foundation Course: Comprised of 57 hours of online learning. Once an individual becomes a first-time supervisor after the Foundation course, he/she would then attend the Basic course.
2. Basic Course: 2 weeks in resident with several hours of distributed learning, which is taken prior to the resident phase.
3. Intermediate Course: 3 weeks in length as a resident, and is about 90 hours of distributed learning. This is one of the longest distributed learning phases.
4. Advanced Course: 4 weeks in resident and 50 hours in distributed learning.
5. Apex Course: The Senior Service Schools is a 10-month course at the Carlisle Army War College. Individuals can also attend this apex course in the distributed learning mode for 2 years. This course is highly competitive and board selected. Unlike the other courses, the apex course is strictly quota-based.

As the Army transitions into the new training model, they are also preparing to increase their ability to train a larger number of civilians on an on-going basis as a part of their career development.