staff pickup?

[bordway]

anyone have information on chances of staff pickup?  life of a staff pick up?  thanks

[taterhead]

Whether or not your chances are good hinges on a whole lot of factors, primarily, how many are they taking out of your class.  This info is normally made known about halfway through Prototype. 
My class on 635 made -0- SPUs.  They didn't need any.

The number they need is based on some algorithmic projection that one of the civilians make up.  Or, it's based on manning.  Proabably the latter.

Keep your grades up and qualify super fast, and try to make the staff like you without crossing that staff/student line HAHAHAHAHA...there's the rub.....no further comment here.

Let the people in your chain of command know you are interested without being too annoying. 

Oh, and RPI is in NY.  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  I have heard that you can go there as a SPU or staff.

[Handgimp]

I'm a current JSI (Junior Staff Instructor - the new term for SPU) on the MTS 626. Whether you get picked up is based on manning needs; my class picked up 2 EMs, 2 ETs, and 1 MM. The next class picked up only one ET. Also, Charleston is cutting back on the number of JSIs in their manning. They want to get heavier on sea-returnees. Your best chance is as an ET, though. Every crew is undermanned ET.

[Fermi2]

Do you have to reenlist? When I was a SPU you didn't have to do so. In fact I didn't reenlist until well after my staff tour started. I think the requirement was to be able to do 26 months at sea after your tour was over.

Mike

[shayne]

They changed it.  SPU have to reenlist now, then the Navy can get 4 years of Sea Time from them.

[bordway]

Wow I thought that there was better chances than that...  I plan on busting my butt and being persisitant about my desire to be SPU...  it would be nice to be promoted and get the bonus to be at a shore command also a good start for my girl and I.  Hopefully they'll need ET's from my class...    I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed, I wonder how many people on average usually go up for SPU, anyone know numbers?  Thanks for the help

[M1Ark]

Do you have to reenlist? When I was a SPU you didn't have to do so. In fact I didn't reenlist until well after my staff tour started. I think the requirement was to be able to do 26 months at sea after your tour was over.

Mike

Exactly correct!

[jgpwest]

They make you reenlist now....just make sure that you let your staff advisor know that you want to be picked up for staff.  As far as the RPI thing in NY, the only SPU's I have seen go are ones who had prior college.  It takes almost 3 yrs to complete the program, so if you have no prior credits it would take a lot of extra classes on top of your normal job as staff to complete in your 2 years.  Most SPU's when I was stationed there went to New School.

[Already Gone]

Practically speaking, an ET can't make it through the pipeline, do two years as SPU, and still have 26 mos. left until
EAOS without re-enlisting or extending anyway.
Back in the Stone Age (when I was still in) the SPU's who came to the fleet as PO1's were not very popular individuals.  Funny thing is that almost every one of them had re-enlisted anyway.  It seems that they were so sheltered from the "real" Navy for so long that they loved it.  That changed rather quickly, and somewhat drastically for most of them.

NEW SCHOOL?!?!?!  OMG!  How can you get a security clearance if you've been a student at that communist indoctrination facility?  Just as a curiosity, what possible connection could there be between a Navy Nuke and any degree program offered by a Liberal Arts College like the New School?  The two just seem to go together like milk and carrot juice.

[Rad Sponge]

SPU was a very positive experience for me. I did it as an ELT which I feel is the better SPU duty than SPU MM.

I did re-up at exactly my 2 year point.

It was nice to stay on shore for a couple of years and work on my new marriage. Students don't usually get to talk directly to a detailer, but SPUs can and it enabled me to get my choice of duty.

I feel the number 1 factor getting me the SPU duty over the other applicants was my personality/attitude. You have to demonstrate your ability to talk in front of people and be engaging as well as mature. I also qualified quickly and had good grades, but  eggheads do not necessarily make good teachers.

[jgpwest]

Believe it or not....most nukes in NY go to New School to get a degree in Human Resources.  More go to New School than RPI because they feel RPI is too challenging.  It was hard but I don't second guess my choice of getting my Nuclear Engineering degree from RPI.

[M1Ark]

Back in the Stone Age (when I was still in) the SPU's who came to the fleet as PO1's were not very popular individuals.  Funny thing is that almost every one of them had re-enlisted anyway.  They were so sheltered from the "real" Navy for so long that they loved it.  That changed rather quickly, and somewhat drastically for most of them.

Nice generality. Way to paint with a broad brush.

My ship had to MM1 SPU's show up at the same time (1 from A1W and 1 from D1G).  Both were 6 and out and squared away sailors and well liked by both M1 and M2 divisions.

There....  the other side of your brush!

[Already Gone]

You're right.  I keep forgetting about the Grand Canyon of difference that there was between sub life and you target sailors.  For us, Boot Camp was totally over by the time we crossed the brow onto our first sea command.  The surface types had more ... structure (?) ... than we did.
One of the big differences that I percieved was the fact that we were more integrated into the crew on subs.  There was still that line of division between nukes and the "coners", but we intermingled with them a lot more.  We were not berthed by division.  There were no seperate messes for Petty Officers or Chiefs (although Chiefs had their own table and berthing space).  Everybody had to participate together in certain evolutions like loading stores and stuff like that.
So, sometimes an E-6 with zero sea time came to a command where 90 of 110 enlisted men were Petty Officers.  It was a huge adjustment for a lot of those individuals when they had to hot-rack in the Torpedo Room while an E-3 Sonar
Tech had his own rack.  They came from a position of authority over people who were lesser qualified and mostly of lower pay grade and landed in a place where they were the NUB's and pay-grade only mattered on the 15th and 30th of the month.  These guys needed signatures from A-gangers, forward ICmen and Nav ET's who flunked NPS.  ...etc. ...etc.

All this is a big culture shock to these guys, that most of them adjusted to -- some didn't adjust as well as others.  They had to work harder to prove themselves because they already had the stripes. 

To be fair, lots of people reenlisted - not just the pickups - before they came to the fleet.  I was among them.  Reenlistments were far more rare than that among guys who knew what sea-duty was like.

The bottom line is that picking up staffers from the students is unfair.  It cheats the SPU's out of earning their sea legs, and it cheats the senior nukes out of shore rotation because most ot the Prototype staff are SPU's who haven't earned the shore time yet.  Whether or not the guys came to the fleet and gained acceptance, they still faced the resentment of a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, valid or not.

[Wirebiter]

The bottom line is that picking up staffers from the students is unfair.  It cheats the SPU's out of earning their sea legs, and it cheats the senior nukes out of shore rotation because most ot the Prototype staff are SPU's who haven't earned the shore time yet.  Whether or not the guys came to the fleet and gained acceptance, they still faced the resentment of a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, valid or not.

It may be "unfair" BC, but its the only way the Navy can keep its manning at the prototypes (esp. Charleston).  There is a reason that pro-pay at NNPTU's is more than pro-pay at sea.....prototype is seen, at least in the sub community,  as a last resort type duty, slightly more desirable than RADCON.  No offense to anyone in RADCON by the way  .   The sea-time waviers that went in place six years ago were a testament to the need for bodies.  I personnaly knew a sailor who had 19 months of sea time waived in return for NNPTU Balston Spa orders. 

As far as SPU's who hit the fleet, my experiance has been that they qualify super fast, are relatively adjusted to Navy life (notice I did not say boat life) tend to be more mature, and go on to be O-gangers or 12 year E-9's.  Maybe I was lucky with my experiances... *shrugs*

[Already Gone]

Things change.  Prototype duty never was the most coveted assignment, but it was slightly better than being on the boat for a fifth and sixth consecutive year.  Rotating shiftwork isn't the world's greatest schedule.  It doesn't compare to a 9-5 job, but there are damned few of those for nukes anywhere.
There were always incentives.  Sub sailors got to keep sub pay, pro pay, and the "equivalent" of sea pay while serving at NPTU.  There was also a thing called "X-Leave", which was a bunch of leave days that staff could take that didn't count as leave.  They said that it was to make up for having to work holidays - a sort of payback for not getting a Christmas stand-down.
Of course, there were more prototypes then, and more locations.  Idaho, Windsor Locks and Ballston Spa were all running with a total of around eleven plants pushing baby nukes at once.  (These locations themselves were a negative.  It was practically the same as being a civilian to be there - adding greatly to the culture shock of arriving at places like Norfolk.)

The highest staffing priority in those days was new construction.  So, a nuke with 5 years at sea had that to look forward to.  NPTU was a lot harder to get to for reasons like that.  Believe me, there were LOT of guys who would have taken duty at Ballston Spa over newcon at Newport News.  You didn't have to beg anybody to go.  On the contrary - sailors wanted that duty and couldn't get it.  Naturally their attitude toward SPU's wasn't so great.

The bit about them going on to be zeroes kinda proves my point that they tended to like the Navy.  I don't think I would equate that with being more mature.  The military is a young person's job.  It's a starting point for a nuke - but not a career for a nuke.  I don't want this to sound like an insult, because I appreciate every single person who is serving this country.  But, there comes a point where you either "outgrow" the Navy or you fail to do so.  Economically speaking, it's a no-brainer.  Enlisted nukes get out and start earning a higher income than their CO almost immediately.  For a lot of the military, staying in is the way to go.  For a nuke, it begs the question; "what are you afraid of?"  But this is going off to another topic.

[M1Ark]

The bit about them going on to be zeroes kinda proves my point that they tended to like the Navy. 

SPU's going on to be 12 year E-9's and O-Gangers wasn't because they tended to like the Navy or that they were more mature or any other made-up excuses.  It could simply be that they were SHARP individuals that would succeed anywhere.  I was a SPU and participated in recommending other SPU's for consideration.  They were all Top-Tier folks.  We had an ORSE at A1W prototype and the senior watchstations were E-5 SPU's and the subordinate watchstations were E-6 Sea Returnees.  The ORSE Teaam leader asked me during my interview why MY watchstanders were E-6's.  I promptly replied that we planned for success.

On the ship I spent a day walking down the TG's and stood for my final board the next day and it was similar for main engine watch all the way up the line.  Yeah, Subs and the sub-quals going for it as being more of a PITA.  But ships are more complex than a sub engineroom.  Don't tell me any different because I've qualified many E-6 and E-7 EWS' from a 688 that was overwhelmed and STRUGGLED to qualify at A1W.  On my cruiser the baby nukes we received from the surface based prototypes seem to get going faster than the sub prototype graduates.

Enough for the banter... on this issue Beercourt I'm sure I have a counterpoint to everyone of your well stated points.

I'm sure a BC thesis is on it's way regarding this post and to this I say, "I yield".

[Fermi2]

Good post M1Ark. I was a SPU who made first class shortly after getting to my boat. I received some good natured ribbing but was treated very well. In general SPUs were treated well on my boat and qualified about 25 to 30% faster than other sailors. It makes senses that as a whole they might be more mature as they're getting to sea at an older age.

Mike

[Trinian23]

All right, gotta stop lurking and throw my two cents in here.

I was a SPU and made First prior to leaving Ballston Spa, and I knew without a doubt that I was going to have VERY steep learning curve when I got to the boat. I am VERY glad I decided to do become a SPU when I had the chance. The reason is this; operational and maintenance experience. Things may have changed, but at the prototype, the command structure is very top heavy, almost all of the sea returnees show up to the command as first classes, and if they aren't they very soon become first classes. That being said, a typical division of may have 3 or 4 first classes, 2 SPU's, and then the students assigned to their section. A lot of the sea returnees saw the tour at prototype as a shore tour to get away from things, and to pursue their degree, as they should (within reason). This lead to me getting assigned a lot of work, and I learned more in the two years as a SPU then I would for the same amount of time at sea operationally. If you think about it, a typical Staff Instructor at a prototype will see more reactor startup's, shutdown's, and SCRAMs in their tour then they may see in quadruple the amount of time at sea. This leads to a very in depth knowledge of the systems and their inter-relationships with each other. I was able to qualify senior in rate on my boat within 2 months of arriving on my boat. I also showed up and asked the COB when I started cranking and who was I hot racking with ( an E-2 and E-5). I didn't mind, because I knew that I had a lot to learn about stuff other then nuclear power. There is always the bad seed, and there always will be, but that is one of the great things about serving in the military, you are forced to learn how to deal with people because they (usually) can't be fired. I believe that the SPU is a necessary component of the training cycle for Navy nukes, this is because that Sea returnees tend to have an immense operational knowledge of a nuke plant, however their theoretical knowledge sometimes is rusty due to the sole fact that they just don't use it as much aside from there rate specific knowledge associated with troubleshooting. The SPU just graduated from the program and SHOULD have a grasp on the theoretical side of plant operations and be able to relay that to other students. Some of the best end of cards (Final system checkout) I received was from a SPU (8 hr EOC for Electrical, thanks MCCloud!)

This all has helped me in my civilian career in the nuke industry as well. I find that I am more responsive to training then other older operators and because of my experiences teaching the information, I can then relay that more readily to my peers.

The SPU position is a great job if you are willing to put forth the time, effort and willingness to learn. Understand that you will be the low man on the totem pole, and that you will do a lot of work, but because of that you will get a lot of valuable experience.

Oh, and as for New School, yeah, it was pretty much a cakewalk. I don't know about it being a liberal commie school (depending on who you talk to, all colleges are), but some of the instructors I had were outstanding, and one of them was one of the Naval Reactors Inspectors at the site.

Just my two cents.

[bordway]

Wow, thanks for all your guys input, very interesting.  It seems like there are a lot of SPU even tho all the posters here are from many time periods but thanks again it's really made me want to pursue it even if it is another two years in Charleston...   .  What are typical work weeks?  I know its rotating shift work but I just wanted to know how much time I have for college/girlfriend.  Thanks

[shayne]

As a student, you will work 7-12 hour days.  The shifts rotate from days to swings to mids every week with a few days off between the different shifts.  You will also have one short training week, 4-12 hour days.  As a student this almost means nothing, since all the staff will be in training all day and you most likely will not see them.  Once you qualify, you will stay on the same shift rotation, but the days will be shorter, 8 hours.  The instructors (staff pickups/sea returnees) work 8 hours also.

As a student, assuming that you stay up on the qualification curve, you could have some time away from work for girlfriend or other things.  Getting behind the curve may get you some extra hours at the site to get caught up.  The staff should have plenty of time to pursue college.  Ballston Spa has programs at New School and RPI that work around the shift work.  However, most that attended RPI didn't have much time for anything but work and school.

(Trinian23, only 8 hrs for electrical EOC?  I think you got off easy....)

[Trinian23]

Well Shayne, maybe if you gave it to me it would have been longer, but I think you were busy training EOOW's or something!

[shayne]

I would agree.  It is about a 2 year program to get an nuclear engineering degree (Bachelors).  One will take 13-16 credit hours a semester to finish in the two years.  Most that did attend RPI used up Navy Leave for some classes or just catch up on life/sleep.