The Center for Information Warfare Training (CIWT) hosted a domain-wide commanding officer and senior enlisted leader off-site meeting, Oct. 15-18.

With a geographically diverse portfolio of four training commands and two detachments, maintaining alignment while fostering and maintaining regular and unfiltered communication is paramount to CIWT. Therefore, the three-day CIWT event was designed to provide the attendees a face-to-face opportunity to participate in Navy and domain-centric discussions; review and align strategic priorities; share command initiatives; participate in team-building events; and engage with Naval Information Forces (NAVIFOR), Naval Education and Training Command (NETC), CIWT, NETC leadership and staff.

The attendees included leaders and staff from NAVIFOR, NETC, CIWT, Information Warfare Training Command (IWTC) Corry Station, IWTC Monterey, IWTC San Diego and IWTC Virginia Beach.

"Our off-site meeting was a great opportunity to bring the CIWT domain commanding officers and senior enlisted leaders together to better align and build a more nimble domain team," said Capt. Nick Andrews, CIWT's commanding officer. "Agility, collaboration, innovation, and coordination across information warfare training is more critical than ever before, and solid teamwork is essential to achieving those things. Through our face-to-face collective discussions and teambuilding events this week, we've forged a more robust team to train the next generation of information warriors.” 

Events over the three-day span included domain support-services discussions with CIWT’s directorates that included: total force manpower (N1); special security office (N2); training (N7); financial resources management (N8); technical support/logistics management (N9; and the Language, Regional Expertise, and Culture (LREC). Additionally, the attendees had discussions with CIWT’s executive director, command master chief, legal, chaplain, command climate specialist, knowledge management, evaluations officer, career counselor, and public affairs officer.

The guest speaker on the afternoon of day one was Capt. Edward Heflin, deputy training operations for NETC. Additionally, Vice Adm. Brain Brown, commander, NAVIFOR, met with the group during his visit to CIWT and IWTC Corry Station on day two.

Other activities included a no-host social and dinner, group luncheons, and concluded with each commanding officer sharing an overview brief of each of their commands. 

During the off-site meeting, the attendees shared how they felt this off-site meeting was beneficial to help them better understand the inner workings of the CIWT domain, build stronger stakeholder relationships, brainstorm new ideas, open better lines of communication and to bond together as a more agile team.

“The CIWT domain’s synergy is one of our greatest asset and our face-to-face discussions definitely help build a more solid team,” said Cmdr. Andrew Boyden, commanding officer of IWTC Virginia Beach. “I’ve participated in many events like this in my 19-year career, and I feel this one helped us elevate our commands’ overall efficiency and enthusiasm of delivering trained information warfare professionals to the Navy and joint services.”

CIWT is one of the largest of the NETC learning centers with four schoolhouse commands, two detachments, and training sites throughout the United States and Japan. Training 22,000 students every year, CIWT delivers trained information warfare professionals to the Navy and joint services, enabling optimal performance of information warfare across the full spectrum of military operations. CIWT also offers more than 200 courses for cryptologic technicians, intelligence specialists, information systems technicians, electronics technicians and officers in the information warfare community.

CIWT delivers trained information warfare professionals to the Navy and joint services, enabling optimal performance of information warfare across the full spectrum of military operations.

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