Program seeks foreign language, area experts

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Melanie Streeter
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  People with international skills are becoming more valuable to many organizations, and the Air Force is no exception.

The foreign area officer program develops line officers with certain skills used by the Air Force and Department of Defense in positions where they are needed, said Lt. Col. Mike Nolta, chief of the FAO program.

“DOD [officials] directed all services to develop this program … to develop officers who have international skills in foreign language proficiencies, cultural understanding, regional specialization understanding and some in-country experience,” Colonel Nolta said.

This development begins when officers identify self-obtained international skills, the colonel said. Sometimes these skills come from heritage, like growing up speaking the language, or from a combination of college studies and an opportunity to live at an overseas location where those skills were polished.

“The Air Force program relies on these people expressing an interest in applying to the program voluntarily, and then the FAO program takes those who meet some minimum qualifications and tries to give them short-duration training they can do on a primarily permissive (temporary-duty) basis,” Colonel Nolta said.

This short-duration training comes in many forms, like one-month immersion programs, he said. Other opportunities, such as regional studies seminars, are also available.

“It’s designed to be a very flexible program that allows officers to, at a minimum, work on maintaining the skills they already have and ideally improving those skills, as their schedules allow,” he said.

These training opportunities are one of many benefits for officers in the program.

“Last summer, I was scheduled to go to a language immersion program for six weeks in Austria,” said Capt. Peter Kerr, Air Force public affairs action officer and FAO European specialist. “My entire job was to get immersed in the language and culture, and come out a fluent German speaker.”

German is not the only language Captain Kerr is familiar with. He is fluent in Danish, can manage in Spanish, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish, and has a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. With a father in the Air Force, Captain Kerr spent nine and a half years in Europe growing up. He found the FAO program almost by accident.

“I stumbled across it on the Internet,” the captain said. “It’s also been written about on the bottoms of leave and earnings statements and other places; but it’s a little-known precious gem in the Air Force if you ask me.”

The Air Force profits greatly from this “precious gem,” Colonel Nolta said.

“With today’s Air Force being expeditionary, it’s important that all Air Force officers have a global mindset to learn international skills,” the colonel said. “Officers who obtain these skills, in the big scheme of things, really provide more value to the Air Force. Not only are they an expert in a primary career specialty, they also have these very well-developed global skills that can be used to support the expeditionary mission.”