ARLINGTON, Va. - The Air National Guard can attract talent other components find hard to reach, a senior Guard official said Feb. 27 at the Air Force Association's 25th Annual Air Warfare Symposium and Technology Exposition.
It's hard for the armed forces to compete with the private-sector salaries paid to computer technology wizards, Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt, the 14th director of the Air National Guard, said during a panel discussion on the future of the total force.
"If you think about what those individuals that are on the cutting edge earn "¦ I will tell you that even if they were paid at the level of the chief of staff of the Air Force, we could not hire those people to come into uniform," Wyatt said.
Yet it's important because cyberspace has joined the domains of land, air and space as a place where the Department of Defense needs a presence.
"We can recruit them into the Guard and the Reserve," Wyatt said. "In fact, those cyber warriors right now reside in the Guard and Reserve. There is an individual ... that earns a seven-figure salary that is in the Maryland National Guard - commutes so that he can drill and offer his expertise in this critical capability to help the United States of America.
"That's the type of partnership that we need to build with our civilian community, using the Guard and Reserve as a conduit to afford patriotic Americans, who have that expertise that we could probably never train to and never pay for, leverage that experience and that capability to help the country and to help the Air Force get to where we need to be."
The Air National Guard is part of a team that also includes the Air Force and Air Force Reserve, the director said.
"I want the Air National Guard to be in all the capabilities that the United States Air Force is in," Wyatt said. "Maybe our portfolios will differ a little bit in the percentages that we are in those respective capabilities, but nevertheless we need to be everywhere the United States Air Force is.
"Wherever the United States Air Force goes, the Air National Guard is all in."