Originally assigned an Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) OF 701X0, the Chapel Management specialty was changed to AFSC 5R0X1 before it was consolidated into the position of Chapel Assistant. As the name indicates, the duties of Chapel Management specialists were focused more on actual facilities and services, as well as related bookkeeping and managerial tasks, than on some of the broader issues such as morale support and crisis intervention carried out by Chaplain Assistants today.
Part of the reason for the consolidation might have been job overlap. In 1978, a survey of the Chapel Management Career ladder was conducted by the Occupational Survey Branch of the USAF Occupational Measurement Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The survey revealed there were seven de facto jobs in the specialty, grouped into three clusters: Support, Management, and Independent. Under the Support category were personnel working Non-Appropriated Funds/Professional Support, Professional Support/Administrative, and Non-Commissioned Officers in Financial Management/Professional Support. Management jobs included Chiefs in Support Activities, Chapel Program Administrators, and HQ Personnel. The study classified Bookkeepers working with Non-Appropriated Funds as an independent category.
Examining the answers supplied by survey respondents, it became clear there was considerable redundancy in the type of tasks actually being performed by Airmen in the various categories. Further, the report indicated that while many of the 5-skill level respondents answered the survey by saying they were NCOICs of major functions of the chapel, only seven percent of them actually supervised other personnel.
How much of an impact the study had on the eventual elimination of the Chapel Management specialty is unclear, but it did conclude by saying the Career Field was stable and did not need review within the next five years, and that part of the reason for apparently overlap was the result of a single-manager concept that had been introduced into the specialty in 1972.