[PAO] New CAPP 201 - Public Affairs Officer Specialty Track

[Blake Sasse]

  I don't think I agree with the merging of PIO/PAO quals as this 
essentially does.  With effort you can find people willing to do normal 
CAP PAO work, but I have had a very tough time finding those interested 
in the more high pressure, time-sensitive PIO job.

What I think we are risking is that more and more unqualified people 
will be put in the PAO slot because it is a required position, but that 
they will choose another specialty to progress through because of the 
very high new and existing barriers within the PAO track.

Those that are actually interested will probably still get Technician, 
for which the requirements are basically to do the squadron PAO job the 
way it is supposed to be done.  But, I think that we will see a major 
decrease in the number going to Senior and Master because of the PIO 
requirements.  I counted 5 in-residence training courses to get Master 
-- any one of which is likely to be an insurmountable barrier to a 
majority of PAOs, especially those that work and can't afford to give up 
that many weeks of pay for CAP (since most of these courses are taught 
during the work-week for the paid emergency response community).

I have always been supportive of the idea of increasing the requirements 
for PIO, which are awfully weak, but putting this much into the 
specialty track just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How much is it 
going to benefit CAP to make it this difficult for someone that is only 
interested in doing PAO to advance in grade?

Incidentally, has anyone pointed out that the "become a PIO" requirement 
is in both the Senior and Master requirements?  I think it would be 
"Become a PIO" for Senior and "Maintain PIO" for Master (assuming we 
want Master level to be a PIO at the time they get the rating).

Blake Sasse