Officer question - IT...?

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Permalink Reply by Thomas B. Courtney Jr. on September 15, 2009 at 12:24am

George,
I was a Line Officer (1110) a few years back (60's and 70's) and am now a Senior Project Manager for a major IT firm installing and serving gaming related customers nationally and internationally so I can probably answer your question fairly well.
There are several categories of Officers in the navy: Line Officers, Flight Officers, and Staff officers among others. Line officers serve by taking their ships where they are needed. Flight officers in their planes (Fixed wing, helicopters, etc), and Staff Officers everything else... Supply, Medical, JAG...etc. Line officers are trained to perform various functions on board their ship while maintaining their prime job of fighting the ship. Such an officer might be the Communication Officer (Radios, etc) whose men do the actual technical job of operating and maintaining the equipment necessary while the Commo manages the Division. A junior officer might have several different jobs during his or her tour of duty. I had three jobs myself in three years... Deck Officer, Communication Officer, and DCA (Damage Control Assistant). If you really want to be in the Navy, and really want to "work" in IT, then the best to look at would proably be as one of our enlisted. (ET, FC...) If you could be their manager, then go Officer, with your IT degree, and use that management experience.

Forgive the brevity but you can be whatever you want to be. I have a PoliSci degree, and now work in Project Management in the IT field. My son is in school for FC (Fire Controllman) Advanced Electronics (read that as IT). He graduated college with a Poli Sci degree but very good in math and science. Good Luck.

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Permalink Reply by vince garcia on September 20, 2009 at 11:43am

You want to go in the IP (information Professional) community. It is a relatively a new program (last 5-7 years) that gears you to work more like a CIO. Working directly with computers doing hands on is more of an enlisted job (IT Rate). As an IP, you oversee IT sailors.

more info at
http://www.npc.navy.mil/Officer/Intelligence_Information/IPO/

v/r CDR Garcia

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