The Navy held its first Primary Qualification Standard (PQS) for its newest Information Warfare Community officer cadre, the Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer (MCWO), at Corry Station from May 6 -10.

Center for Information Warfare Training (CIWT), as the Navy’s lead for cyber warfare training, hosted this PQS workshop that included 18 Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) across 16 commands. These SMEs were assisted by three CIWT PQS development SMEs. The team was tasked with defining the MCWO’s roles and responsibilities in the PQS document and establishing the standard for the MCWO program within the information warfare community.

“The Subject Matter Experts were critical to the success of the publication development,” said Sam Kelly, N75 Requirement Director, CIWT. “The hardest actions were defining the fundamentals that support the basic level of performance qualification and associated resource reference materials to support the fundamental requirements. They were an exceptional group that worked diligently to outline the designated qualification requirements.”

Kelly added that it was a unique challenge in developing an entirely new PQS, when job requirements are not already defined, and it directly supports the actions to build basic level training requirements at the upcoming Job duty Task Analysis in September.

“This working group was a critical step forward in developing the future of the Maritime Cyber Warfare Officer community,” said Capt. Chris Bryant, command officer, CIWT. “We had the right mix of senior leaders and experience on hand this week to continue to momentum of developing this new community of Information Warfare leaders to support our nation and Navy’s warfighting needs in the cyber domain.”

The workshop concluded with development of a PQS that included 15 Fundamentals and 1-Watchstation. Next steps are for the PQS to be released for a Fleet Preliminary Review. After the following comments and recommendations have been added, Naval Information Forces will validate the PQS. CIWT will then collaborate with Naval Education and Training Command to post for fleet utilization.

With four schoolhouse commands, two detachments, and training sites throughout the United States and Japan, CIWT trains more than 26,000 students every year, delivering trained information warfare professionals to the Navy and joint services. CIWT also offers more than 200 courses for cryptologic technicians, cyber warfare technicians, intelligence specialists, information systems technicians, electronics technicians, and officers in the information warfare community.