U.S. NAVY CWO CIVIL ENGINEER CORPS HARD SHOULDER BOARDS

Of all the Navy’s Staff Corps, the Civil Engineer Corps would seem to be the one most suited for the position of Chief Warrant Officer (CWO). The Civil Engineer Corps oversees the Seabees, and CWOs serving as Staff Officers will have spent a lot of time in one of the seven Seabee ratings. Only Sailors serving as Chief Petty Officers or higher (E7 to E9) can even apply to become CWOs, and the average time it takes to become a CPO in the seven Seabee ratings is thirteen years, nine months. By the time a Seabee is named a CWO in the Civil Engineer Corps, he or she likely has fifteen or sixteen years of hands-on experience in their field of expertise.

Given the nature of the CWO’s duties—limited in their scope (at least as far as other officers is concerned), technically oriented, repetitive, and not drastically affected by changes in rank—the position would seem to be a perfect fit for the needs of the Civil Engineer Corps.

But starting about a decade ago, the Navy drastically reduced the number of CWOs in the Corps and instead focused on the Limited Duty Officer (LDO) program for the source of enlisted officers. In 2013, the last year a CWO was selected for the Civil Engineer Corps, a single CWO was chosen compared to five LDOs.

And that will be the last CWO selected for the Corps in quite some time.

On July 2, 2014, Naval Personnel Command announced it was suspending all accessions to the Civil Engineer Corps (CEC) Chief Warrant Officer designator (753x) and merging with the CEC LDO designator 653x—in other words, no more CWOs in the CEC. The reason given was that reductions in the size of the Naval Construction Force meant there weren’t enough billets to justify sustaining the CEC CWO Community.

For CWO5s, CWO4s, and CW03s who had failed twice to be selected for advancement to CWO4, there was no option to be redesignated as an LDO. But the relative newcomers, CEC CWO2s and CWO3s who had not been passed over twice by the selection board had two options: They could convert to Limited Duty Officer status (designator 653x), or simply keep their CWO status.

Over the past several years, this trend toward LDOs has led to some imbalance in the Corps. As of June, 2016, the CEC was overmanned at the Lieutenant grade by 34 percent, with 482 in the Corps. The actual Officer Programmed Authorization for that grade is 360.

Important: Due to the extremely low demand on this item, it is manufactured on order. While we might have some in stock, please allow for up to 10 business days processing time.

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Size

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$70.79

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USPHS

Merchant Marine

AUXILIARY

U.S. NAVY CWO CIVIL ENGINEER CORPS HARD SHOULDER BOARDS