Financial management flight develops 2 new officer courses Published Sept. 24, 2007 By Susan Griggs 81st Training Wing Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- October marks the launch of two new courses in the 335th Training Squadron for financial management officers, senior noncommissioned officers and upper-level civilian employees. "This is the largest course rewrite in nearly two decades for these courses," Capt. Peter Smith, financial management staff officer course chief, pointed out. "The career field focused on overhauling approximately 80 percent of the entire curriculum for these courses." In November, Keesler hosted a utilization and training workshop for the finance officer courses. Discussions by senior leaders in the financial management career field paved the way for the two new courses. The four civilian and two military officer instructors in the schoolhouse enlisted the help of about 40 subject matter experts from Defense Acquisition University and across the Air Force in developing the courses. The basic financial management officer course that begins Monday trains new accessions to the Air Force, including Palace Acquire civilians, Air National Guard members and some international officers. The 11-week course awards Air Force specialty code 65F1 and encompasses eight blocks of instruction. The financial management staff officer course, which rolls out Oct. 15, is intended for captains, senior noncommissioned officers and civilian employees general schedule 9 and above. It's a four week course with two blocks of instruction. Course development emphasized two specific components -- decision support and providing appropriate training for the financial management career field. "We want to ensure that financial management has a seat at the table in today's fiscally-constrained environment," said Captain Smith in explaining the decision support emphasis. To accomplish this, the new decision support course curriculum focuses on qualitative and quantitative skills sets. Qualitative skill sets include written and oral communication, such as negotiating, influencing and conflict resolution. Quantitative skill sets cover statistical analysis. Approximately $325,000 has been invested in upgrading the training environment by renovating four classrooms, the break room and officer class hallway in Allee Hall. In addition to the two new courses, the comptroller training flight is rewriting its enlisted courses and developing two new online supplemental decision support courses. Those rewrites are guided by discussions during March's utilization and training workshop for enlisted training.