A provocative new essay from the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare calls for revolutionary changes in talent management for reserve component soldiers in order to take advantage of a “globally astute and technologically savvy” group of citizen-soldiers who are on executive career paths in the private sector.

Col. Clarence J. Henderson, a drilling Army Reservist who has served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central America and on the U.S.-Mexico border, writes in the essay that the character of reserve component officers is changing, requiring new ways of using Army Reserve and Army National Guard soldiers.

“The reserve component professionals who work within the global security environment are a part of the emerging class of global professionals. They are not going to tolerate antiquated talent management concepts,” he writes. “The career paths of both military and global professionals must be synchronized, or that talent will be lost.”

Henderson’s focus is on corporate workers who are global project managers, cyber experts, software developers, innovation officers and social entrepreneurs who he believes “possess enhanced insights to the strategic changes that often occur at a revolutionary level.” They are officers and enlisted members in the Guard and Reserve who have a “unique perspective on the security environment” and whose talents could be put to use “in the right position at the right time.”

His paper, “Velcro Soldiers: Global Professionalism in the Reserve Components,” is available here:https://www.ausa.org/publications/velcro-soldiers-global-professionalism-reserve-components