Operational Planner
Oahu, Hawaii
Job ID: 4528
CALIBRE Systems, Inc., an Employee-Owned Management Consulting and Digital Transformation company, is seeking an Operational Planner to assist the COMMSTRAT Future Operations and Plans Branch of the U. S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific (MARFORPAC) Communication and Strategy (COMMSTRAT) Division, Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii in its cross functional staff efforts in support of LOE 5 Informational Advantage of the MARFORPAC Campaign Plan. The mission of the COMMSTRAT Division is to develop and execute a comprehensive communication strategy to build understanding and relationships that advance the MARFORPAC mission and campaign. Working closely with the MARFORPAC staff, higher headquarters, and subordinate commands, the COMMSTRAT Division develops, aligns, and synchronizes public communication plans, actions, and truthful messaging for the Marine Corps in the Indo-Pacific.
Tasks include:
- Read daily media reports, email traffic, and working group updates to keep informed on operational and information environment trends and determine how they may impact MARFORPAC OAIs and initiatives.
- Integrate MARFORPAC COMMSTRAT into MARFORPAC staff actions and planning processes and represent MARFORPAC COMMSTRAT and ensure staff equities are considered during meetings, staff actions and planning processes.
- Identify staff opportunities for COMMSTRAT attention and inputs including areas which require additional communication research to tailor messaging to appropriate key publics and operational objectives as determined by MARFORPAC staff planning.
- Read published think tank and military working group white papers and reports that are applicable to MARFORPAC OAIs and initiatives in order to incorporate findings on overseas trends, foreign and domestic key publics, and stakeholder organizations into MARFORPAC research archives and planning products.
- Conduct information environment research using supplied tools such as Talkwalker, Decrypt and Sprinklr, and industry best practices such as media monitoring, published third party research, and limited primary formal and informal research.
- Incorporate State Department viewpoints and initiatives into MARFORPAC OAI planning through research and identification of applicable key leader descriptions and verbiage.
- Conduct research on potential key publics for MARFORPAC OAIs.
- Integrate with adjacent service component s, USINDOPACOM and Headquarters Marine Corps conduct research in support of deployments, OAIs and initiatives. Integrate MARFORPAC research efforts and methodologies with these adjacent efforts in order to achieve unity of effort, capture efficiencies, and align communication planning.
- Monitor Congressional testimony and hearings for MARFORPAC equities and to incorporate communication planning into command engagements with Congressional personnel.
- Assess state of research resources and determine mission-critical gaps in understanding key publics and communication priority topics.
- Aid in the creation of communication plans that support the MARFORPAC Campaign Plan.
- Monitor and populate Command and Control in the Information Environment (C2IE) data entries for COMMSTRAT-specific interest points and engagements.
- Provide C2IE COMMSTRAT inputs for MARFORPAC and INDOPACOM OAIs.
- Facilitate or produce proposed public affairs guidance for MARFORPAC OAIs.
- Be prepared to assist with Annex M creation, and other inputs for all-domain synchronizations and LOE working groups.
- Attend meetings when required and participate by answering questions and providing input.
- Summarize C2IE activity for MARFORPAC OAIs and identify areas requiring further staff attention
- Develop search queries for information environment monitoring tools using Boolean modifiers for use with MARFORPAC online monitoring tools.
- Assist the Plans Officer and Future Operations team with tracking upcoming OAIs and paired search queries in MARFORPAC OIE tools.
- Provide project support to planning conferences, tailored for internal and external partners, such as drafting and facilitating large volumes of information (read ahead material, e.g. country briefing cards, playbooks, OAI and media/history prep packets).
- Provide quarterly summaries of campaign plan lines of effort supported through COMMSTRAT planning efforts.
- Implementation focuses on stakeholder management, content management and organizational considerations to carry out the communication plan.
- Provide technical leadership and direction to MARFORPAC and subordinate Marine Expeditionary Force staff personnel in the development, revision, and review of communication plans and public affairs guidance.
- Facilitate transition of communication plans from Future Operations to Current Operations.
- Provide technical advice and communication planning in-stride inputs to Digital Engagement Team and other Current Operations teams.
- Synchronize monitoring and execution-related communication actions with adjacent, subordinate, and higher headquarters.
- Provide recommended communication goals and objectives for OAIs to Future Operations and Plans Officer for optimized support to the MARFORPAC Campaign Plan.
- Produce meeting minutes for meetings relevant to information management, data collection and monitoring.
- Ensure MARFORPAC COMMSTRAT data libraries across all data systems (C2IE, COMMSTRAT shared drive and SharePoint sites) are organized to ensure the metadata is properly tagged to allow users to retrieve required information when they conduct a search.
- Gather statistics relevant to Measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance from information management tools and activities to inform in-stride assessments of staff actions.
- Schedule training for COMMSTRAT training events; arrange all necessary meeting logistics; serve as a training Subject Matter Expert (SME) in regards to training needs for the office.
- Make recommendations, where appropriate, to change planning procedures or ways of conducting planning to the MARFORPAC staff and subordinate command staffs.
- Assist in identification of training gaps or needs and propose development of training products that improve the workforce ability to perform tasks where training needs are identified.
- Obtain and maintain proficiency in social media and social listening tools to include, but not limited to Talkwalker, DECRYPT, and Sprinklr. Apply these tools to evaluate how well intended communication goals and objectives were met and assess impacts on key publics. Produce final reports and summaries as directed.
- Participate in drafting of weekly reports and summaries, meeting notes, working group slides, and communication assessments for the COMMSTRAT Division weekly reports and summaries for the Commander and staff based on information environment analysis, media monitoring, communication, communication assessments and other research.
- Monitor and analyze trends in OAIs in the USINDOPACOM area of responsibility (AoR) using criteria provided by branch leadership.
- Support higher, adjacent, and supporting headquarters planning ensuring proper employment of USMC COMMSTRAT forces. Review and provide written comments on COMMSTRAT aspects of regional combatant commander and JTF communication plans, public affairs guidance, and broader communication strategy.
- Make recommendations, where appropriate, to change planning procedures or ways of conducting planning to the MARFORPAC staff and subordinate command staffs.
- Support meetings (up to 3-5 per month) by producing analysis requested by the Government to support meeting topics.
- Provide after action recommendations, lessons learned and communication guidance following conclusion of MARFORPAC OAIs, using findings from communication assessments and online listening tools.
- Ensure proper planning and execution of communication strategies, communication plans, public affairs guidance, and Annex Ms for all OAIs MARFORPAC supports.
- Produce quarterly reports in support of command communication efforts as required.
- Conduct a review of existing external and internal policies and decision documents annually or when significant changes in policy occur related to information management that the COMMSTRAT Plans division must adhere to and identify any instances of organizational non-compliance or obvious errors in policies and recommend corrective actions to the Plans Officer.
- Review the MARFORPAC Communication Strategy and provide recommended updates based on changes to the MRFORPAC Campaign Order and the annual LOE assessments.
- Provide input to the LOE 5 Information Advantage Assessment conducted by G-39/6. This assessment is conducted semiannually.
Required Skills
Minimum Personnel Requirements:
- Over 10 years of experience and a MA/MS degree. (12 years' work experience may be substituted for a Master's Degree. Bachelor's Degree plus 8 years' work experience may be substituted for a Master's Degree.)
- Ability to work on high visibility or mission critical aspects of a given program and performs all functional duties independently.
Desired Personnel Requirements:
- U.S. Citizens
- Thorough understanding of Marine Corps Planning Process and the Research, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation (RPIE) public planning process.
- Thorough understanding of C2IE, a DoD system of record for strategic OAI management.
- Five to 10 years of experience with USMC MAGTF Planning.
- In-depth knowledge of operational planning, communication synchronization, service and joint doctrine, and Marine Corps componency issues.
- Advanced proficiency with using Microsoft applications such as Excel, Teams, Words, Power Point.
- Favorably adjudicated TS/SCI Security Clearance
- Strong verbal, written, interpersonal, communication and presentation skills
- Must be able to travel.