Geospatial Intelligence Certification Info Available on Navy COOL

By Thom Seith, CID Public Affairs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- The Center for Information Dominance (CID) announced the availability of information on Navy Credentialing Opportunities Online (COOL) for the Geospatial Intelligence, GEOINT Professional Certification (GPC) Feb 6.

The GEOINT Professional Certification (GPC) captures the fundamental facts, concepts, and principles that are shared by GEOINT practitioners across the National System for Geospatial-Intelligence (NSG). The Navy COOL website now provides prospective candidates information regarding all aspects of GPC, eligibility, registration, and assessment processes.

"Navy COOL's display of the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) GEOINT Professional Certification (GPC) Program information provides an additional level of awareness to our Navy's intelligence workforce," said Keith Boring, the program manager for the Navy Credential Program Office. "Certifications continue to show employers the level of knowledge and competency attained by the certification holder, which holds true within the Department of Defense and military services as much as it does in the civilian sector."

The Office of Naval Intelligence, Fleet Intelligence Specialists Team (ONI FIST) executes the Navy's GEOINT certification program. Four proficiency levels (PL), accompany each certification tradecraft functional area. PL-I represents GEOINT Fundamentals and is common to all NSG GEOINT analyst work roles. PL-II certification is specific to each GEOINT tradecraft such as imagery analyst (IA), geospatial analyst (GA), image scientist (IS) or GEOINT collection (GC) and denotes full performance in a work role. PL-III and -IV denote advanced and expert, levels respectively.

The GPC is available to uniformed Navy and civilian personnel who are performing specific work roles associated with GEOINT tradecrafts such as enlisted intelligence specialist, intelligence officer and Department of the Navy civilians in the capacity of imagery analysts and GEOINT collection managers.

"This is an important step forward and reflects upon a great effort to help today's Sailors and civilians accomplish certifications in the geospatial intelligence field and many other disciplines. It is good to see the maturation of this approach to providing the opportunity to gain useful skills and to document them for not only current Navy jobs but for future career development," said Will Gallaway, NGA Support Team - Navy located at CID.

The development of the GPC is part of a larger Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI) initiative to further professionalize the Defense Intelligence Enterprise Workforce. The GPC ensures that credentialed GEOINT practitioners are certified to have demonstrated proficiency in a common set of competencies. This certification process facilitates professional development and training standards, promotes better synchronization and alignment of individual capabilities with DoD Intelligence Enterprise needs through transportable credentials, and the further professionalization of the workforce.

CID is the Navy's Learning Center that leads, manages and delivers Navy and Joint Force training in information operations, information warfare, information technology, cryptology and intelligence.

With a staff of nearly 1,300 military, civilian and contracted staff members, CID oversees the development and administration of more than 226 courses at four commands, two detachments and 14 learning sites throughout the United States and in Japan. CID provides training for approximately 24,000 members of the U.S. Armed Services and Allied Forces each year.