Overcoming the Support Focus of the 17D Cyberspace Operations Career Field

The Cyberspace Operations Officer 17D career field has lost its identity. The purpose of this research was to examine how the Cyberspace Operations career field can overcome the support focus so that emphasis can be placed squarely on operations in order for individuals in this career field to become productive members of the Cyberspace Professional Workforce. The problem stems from the fact that the entire support-focused 33S Communications and Information Officer career field was transitioned to the operations-focused 17D Cyberspace Operations Officer career field. Although the increased operational focus is laudable, the legacy support duties from the Communications and Information field still remain. As a result, 17D Cyberspace Operations Officers are still responsible for performing these legacy duties even though they are not cyberspace related. In other words, the new operational career field is still responsible for performing a support mission. The study makes a recommendation to move these duties to the Force Support career field to appropriately align them with a support career field which will allow the Cyberspace Operations officers to focus on operations as was intended in the Air Force Roadmap for the Development of Cyberspace Professionals 2008-2018.