DCTC Development



The Defense Civilian Training Corps (DCTC) is a congressionally mandated, DoD-funded talent development program that provides a multidisciplinary, active-learning curriculum with summer internship projects at DoD organizations. DCTC is a highly selective program that provides a 100% tuition scholarship and prepares scholars for a direct pathway into Department of Defense acquisition-related careers. Key features of the DCTC Program aligned with its vision of "Building National Security Leaders Today and for Tomorrow" include the following:


  • Recruit and develop resilient DoD leaders who bring innovative ideas, diverse backgrounds, and a collaborative mindset to enable and secure the defense ecosystem.


  • Educate and develop exceptional scholars to become digitally literate future leaders, capable of collaborating across disciplines and with the private sector to procure and protect strategically significant technologies.


  • Accelerate scholars onto a career pathway full of exciting opportunities for growth, mentorship, and advancement.


  • DCTC scholars represent the highly prepared, innovative, agile, and dynamic workforce of the future. They are empowered to make an immediate impact on the world.and will be empowered to make an immediate impact on the world.


Chieftain Elite's Role


Chieftain Elite serves as the Tier-1 subcontractor to assist New Mexico State University (NMSU) Physical Science Laboratory (PSL), the Director’s effort to develop a strategy and supporting proposal to implement the DCTC program experimentation at NMSU, a minority-serving institution with extensive regional partnerships with DoD research and testing enterprises throughout the southwest region.


Chieftain Elite provides program management, curriculum development, and stakeholder integration support for DCTC course concept creation, oriented on four major facets:


  • Creation of DCTC National Security and Defense Acquisition Curriculum
  • Implementing a Co-Op Assignment Program for DCTC scholars at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), NMSU's lead regional partner
  • Assignment of DCTC scholar Test and Evaluation Projects with assigned WSMR Defense Civilian Mentors
  • Early initiation of the security clearance process for DCTC scholars


Chieftain Elite is a key partner of the NMSU Physical Science Laboratory, supporting the creation and implementation of the DCTC program via the National Security Academic Regional Recruitment Prototype (NSARRP) Project, a key initiative undertaken by the Assistant Undersecretary of Defense (AUSD) for Science & Technology (S&T) and the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) as part of DoD’s Artificial Intelligence Literacy Strategy.

Chieftain Elite's Results


The overwhelming success of Chieftain's partnership with PSL has directly impacted the trajectory of DoD's DCTC program and the AI Literacy Strategy. 


In recognition of PSL's achievements, they have been designated as a Defense Civilian Training Corps-Experimental (DCTCx) provider, supporting the National DCTC program. Chieftain continues to provide expert program management and solution development support to PSL's expanded DCTCx program objectives in FY2024.


White Sands Missile Range and DEVCOM Analysis Center


During the upcoming 2024 academic year, the PSL DCTCx project will offer two Chieftain-created full-semester courses on National Security and Defense Acquisition, along with a Capstone series of cutting-edge test and evaluation projects conducted with WSMR, as well as a new regional partnership with the DEVCOM Analysis Center (DAC). Twenty-four (24) scholars are participating. Additionally, Chieftain has developed specific coursework for scholars and assigned Defense Civilian Mentors to enhance the student-mentor and leadership development experience.


Classified Ready Employment Workforce (CREW)


PSL's Classified Ready Employment Workforce (CREW) program will continue into its fourth consecutive year with Chieftain's support for curriculum development and subject matter experts as it continues to create additional growth of supporting regional partners. Furthermore, NMSU will test the Chieftain-produced online version of the CREW curriculum to offer the program to remote and nontraditional students, expanding defense sector talent pipelines to meet critical workforce objectives.


Cyber Learning Lab


The great success of the baseline capability for the PSL Cyber Learning Lab will also continue for Academic Year 2024, with a priority focus on a Chieftain-created synthetic-virtual learning and testing environment that will allow students to safely create, experiment and test full spectrum cybersecurity concepts backed by an array of artificial intelligence and secure data applications.


DLC - Defense Leadership Certificate


The proven criticality of solid regional partnerships will remain a foundational cornerstone of PSL's efforts to support DoD defense workforce talent recruiting and retention. The Defense Leadership Certificate (DLC) is designed for defense civilian professionals already in the DoD workforce. The success of Chieftain's DLC pilot course Leader Development Program will expand in FY2024 into four course offerings supporting WSMR command priorities. The program will offer a tailored and scalable set of solutions to meet Defense Civilian leader development requirements, with an experimental design to explore exportability throughout both the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) ecosystem and the greater Joint Force test and evaluation enterprise.

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