Utility of the Logistics Officer Career Path Pyramid in Promotion Prediction

As part of the major restructuring of the United States Air Force, the officer career fields of transportation, supply and logistics plans have been merged into a new career field, the logistics readiness officer. The purpose of this research was to perform a statistical analysis of the career path pyramid for the logistics plans, supply, and transportation officer career fields. This will provide a baseline for the newly created logistics readiness officer, a combination of the three aforementioned career fields. Specifically, this thesis answered research questions addressing the career guidance provided by the United States Air Force, the factors involved, and their predictive value for promotion. The research questions were answered through a log-linear regression analysis of historical data. The data consisted of duty histories of officers with primary air force specialty codes of logistics plans, supply, and transportation with at least 17 years time in commissioned service. The research identified the predictive value of each factor and the presence of factors outside of the scope of current guidance influencing promotion.