Help an old military working dog learn some new tricks??

Hey all, new to this site.

Background:
I am currently active duty USAF, and my primary career field is avionics systems on fighter aircraft. That's not the type of 'computer' I was hoping to work on - recruiters little joke.

In the last 20 years of military service. I've tried to expand my horizons as far as uncle Sam would let me.
I have taught avionics and electronics for 5 yrs. I've been the squadron resource advisor for an aircraft maintenance unit maintaining a $200k annual budget. Currently, I am in charge of training systems requirements analysis for new and emerging technologies/weapons systems and act as data analyst, flight chief, and project manager.

While teaching tech school, around 2004, a coworker introduced me to the wide world of vba programming. Since then, I've developed a love for basic coding with vba in excel, access, outlook and PowerPoint. I'm all self taught except for those initial concepts. I've developed programs/scripts to solve all kinds of problems whenever/wherever I can. I love process improvement through code. I think I've got a knack for improving other folks design, especially improving the gui/interface. In my current position, I also supervise a couple actual programmers as well as a handful of aircraft maintenance folks.

I have a bachelor degree in management. I started a masters in info systems mgmt, am about 3 classes in but tired of the 16 week class schedule. I'm not sure this direction is going to get me anywhere.

Dilemma:
I'm now just over 20 yrs E-7, so my retirement is secured but I need to figure out what to do when I grow up. I can push the 'retirement button' any time now, but am not confident that I can maintain my lifestyle as a civilian. Fortunately, I've still got some time left while the AF will pay for a cert and have 100% tuition assistance.

In this current assignment and acting as project manager, I've got the resume and hrs required to seek PMP certification- I believe that would be helpful in securing a position out in the scary real world.

I'm not a 'programmer' but I enjoy vba. Have no certs, or anything except for performance reports documenting some of the unique things I've 'coded'. After 20 years buried in the military, I have no idea what an 'it' job would look like. Especially as i look at all the job positions and course descriptions - it all looks good to me.

Talking to some folks, and they have said cyber/info assurance is still in infancy so there might still be some ground floor opportunities. I was looking at the Dakota state and umuc master in cyber. Not sure how techy they are. I despise math and don't have the college prerequisites/certs for most technical degrees. What the heck does cyber policy actually look like in the real world?

So, I guess my question is, what career path makes the most sense for me, and which is the path of least resistance to securing a decent job on the other side of the fence. I believe that a masters in a tech field would meet my needs. I like the 'idea' of cyber. I enjoy Excel programming. Without technical experience I'd expect to be forced into really low level positions unless I could magically step into a project manager type job. I have also been suggested security+ certs would be a plus but not sure what else.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated,

Paul

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dmoore44

We must've had the same recruiter... When I enlisted, the recruiter asked what I wanted to do, so I replied "work with computers, since that's what I do now"... So, I was sent to BMT under the "Open General" code, and when I popped out of BMT, I found out my job was going to be Contracting. I then asked "what the hell do they do?" and was told "we don't know, but you work behind a computer!".

Anyway, as a veteran, you've got several opportunities available to you. LinkedIn will give you a free upgrade to "Premium" status, which I believe get's you access to the Lynda training library - there's a plethora of programming courses, covering several languages, available to you there. The various MOOC sites (edx, coursera, udacity, academic earth) provide an array of excellent courses provided by variety of elite schools. Additionally, if you're interested in learning skills to cyber, Veterans are eligible to receive free access to the DHS FedVTE system. Cybrary is also an excellent resource for all things cyber. There are also a couple of retraining programs that deserve mention - Syracuse's Institute for Military Veterans and Families has some excellent options, and the SANS VetSuccess program looks awesome.

Boxoluckycharms

Wow! That's a lot to absorb! Thank you very much!

At this point in life, do you suggest focusing time/money on certs or going for masters degree?
Especially with little skills?

Nutsy

Boxoluckycharms,

I am USAF vet. Don't worry, there is tons of opportunity out in the private sector. I could respond to your post in a couple of different ways. If you are interested, PM me and we can talk via Skype. Nothing to sell, or up sell you too. Just some Q&A to help you provide some prospective to plot your transition out of the blue.

-Nutsy

mbarrett

A couple other great resources are FedVTE (free to active duty & veterans) and Safaribooks (must have access to a .mil account to sign up.)
These are both good tools to help towards industry certs & staying current with today's technology.

Gadfly

Navy vet here. Let me second FedVTE and Safari Books. I still have access to Safari Books from when I was on active duty and can't begin to describe how valuable it is. Also, Skillport has been vastly improved in the past 6 months although I don't know if the Air Force has a contract with them or not (Navy does). I'd suggest getting Security+ and Cisco's CCNA. Both will give you a solid foundation and allow you to get a solid job which will then let you figure out what you want to do next.

dmoore44

Boxoluckycharms wrote: »

Wow! That's a lot to absorb! Thank you very much!

At this point in life, do you suggest focusing time/money on certs or going for masters degree?
Especially with little skills?

You're welcome! And if you have any questions, feel free to drop a line.

itorian

mbarrett wrote: »

A couple other great resources are FedVTE (free to active duty & veterans) and Safaribooks (must have access to a .mil account to sign up.)
These are both good tools to help towards industry certs & staying current with today's technology.

Thank you so much! Never knew about FebVTE

scaredoftests

My vote for FEDVTE! Excellent resource!!

yoba222

Boxoluckycharms wrote: »

. . . Talking to some folks, and they have said cyber/info assurance is still in infancy so there might still be some ground floor opportunities . . .

There are ground floor opportunities, but cyber/info assurance isn't as young as those folks think. FISMA has been mandating info sys. programs, which include the things like vulnerability scanning and pentesting, all the way back since 2002. While FISMA only applies to federal agencies (and contractors), corporations often model their info sys programs after it.

Often I see companies with pretty half-baked cyber policies that are in desperate need of improvement. For a good baseline check out FIPS 199, FIPS 200, NIST SP 800-53, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Information_Security_Management_Act_of_2002

Personally I think both a PMP and a masters in info sys would be nice-to-have feathers in your cap to get into IT, as would some certs. It's still going to take some work getting a break and getting into IT.