As you may have read here, ExecEd has been on the road lately teaching Data Analytics to soldiers and Army civilian employees in faraway places. Now the program has branched out in the spirit of an old Navy adage: “Tell it to the Marines.”
Just before the holidays, the Government & Military Solutions division of the Darla Moore Business School’s Executive Education program went to Quantico, Virginia, to teach its Intermediate Data Analytics course at the U.S. Marine Corps’ advanced training base.
ExecEd has worked with the U.S. Army Finance and Comptroller School since 2014, mostly right here at home at first. Since early 2023, this has expanded dramatically in the geographic sense, with courses taught in-person to Army students as far away as Camp Zama in Japan, Camp Humphreys in South Korea, and Wiesbaden, Germany.
The mission this time was much the same, to help fill a critical gap between advancing technology and the training military personnel need to perform financial management missions. But there were differences in Quantico, as Mark Cecchini, the Moore School’s associate dean for Executive Education, recently explained:
- The course was longer, with faculty members Joel Wooten and Mark Ferguson – both veterans at teaching to the Army – on site for two weeks to teach the intermediate course. Dr. Cecchini himself wasn’t there the whole fortnight for once, but Russ Klauman, the retired Army colonel who serves as ExecEd’s Director of Military Engagement, was on the ground the whole time.
- As members of both the Corps and the Army might tell you, some things are different in dealing with Marines. For instance, “One thing I noticed about the Marines is that the organization is a bit flatter.” It’s a smaller service with less compartmentalization. Just as “every Marine is a rifleman” on the battlefield, there is greater commonality in Marine deskwork. That meant each financial manager sees a broader spectrum of the overall Marine picture.
- ExecEd decided to try something new with this class. With the Army, the class was divided into groups who worked together on projects. The class did that this time, too, but added another aspect: Each student undertook a separate individual project as well, to make sure every person was fully engaged. Cecchini explained that in groups, sometimes some students are more engaged than others.
“Everyone engaged,” says Dr. Cecchini, based on what he’s been told by his team, and what he learned during his own visit to Quantico. He enjoyed that time. On previous occasions, his time was divided between teaching and being the associate dean. This time, “I got to meet a lot of students,” and believes they got value from the course.
“We hope to work with them again,” he says of the experience with the Corps. With that new beachhead established, can the Navy and Air Force be far behind? Stay tuned.
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