Photo By Pfc. Megan Gaston | U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Kenneth Fair, Regional Cyber Center Korea, 1st Signal...... read more read more
CAMP HUMPHREYS, REPUBLIC OF KOREA – Chief Warrant Officer 3 Fair, Kenneth currently serves as a 255S, Information Protection Technician, in the U.S. Army Regional Cyber Center Korea (USARCC-K), at Camp Humphreys, South Korea. He was recently promoted to CW3 on February 1st, 2024, following a highly successful career.
CW3 Fair was born in Trenton, NJ, and grew up around the Delaware River beside the New Jersey, and Pennsylvania Border. He graduated High school in 1996 from Ewing High. He joined the U.S. Army as a 25F, Telephone Operator Maintainer. He chose the signal branch for one main reason.
“I chose signal because before I came into the military I was working with AT&T and another company called Telemed.net. So, I had a background in Signal, and it was one of the jobs that was open when I came in and said ‘Hey, this looks like it would fit’,” said CW3 Fair.
Unfortunately, He didn’t get to be a 25F for long.
“When I signed up for it, we learned all the equipment from the 1980s and were told that we were no longer going to have that Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) pretty much as soon as I got to it,” said CW3 Fair.
Due to this situation, CW3 Fair was reclassed to a new MOS, this time around, He became a 25N, a Network Nodal maintainer and operator. He didn’t get to gain much experience at the beginning of his career.
“The unit I got to, was in air defense at the time, so I was basically a system admin,” He said.
After working as a 25N, CW3 Fair chose to drop a Warrant Officer packet to become a 255N, a network operation Warrant Officer, and managed to switch his Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) to 255S, a cyberspace defense warrant officer during the Warrant Officer Advanced course. He still holds his 255S MOS after 12 years of service and a total of four MOS held.
“The first year of my first duty station in Korea, I met some pretty cool warrant officers that were air defense at the time and I realized that being a warrant was the best of both worlds. The opportunity to still teach and mentor yet you're still respected the same as an officer. I felt like being a subject matter expert was more my speed my kind of my path,” he said, “So I did the research to see what it would take to get to it and kind of proceeded from there.”
A career full of opportunities and success comes from many different aspects of a soldier’s life. The same goes for CW3 Fair. His successful career was full of great leaders, who gave him good information and guidance to accomplish his goals all throughout his time in service. Whether it is a Noncommissioned Officer guiding and leading him to the promotion board, getting him promoted to Sergeant, or Warrant Officers giving their time for a discussion, mentorship, or to sign a letter of recommendation.
“I've had some pretty good leaders over the years. You kind of just take key parts from each. We still stay in touch today long after they've been your boss, your mentor, your leader,” said Chief Fair.
Another key piece leading to success is the experience acquired on the job. Every assignment is important as it provides different experiences and builds knowledge, turning soldiers into subject matter experts in their craft.
Another pillar of CW3 Fair’s successful career is the support of his family.
“My wife's been amazing. She's very supportive. She plays a big role, she helps with the potlucks, and the holiday meals. She shows up at sporting events when we do it. You know, she's the biggest supporter, not only for me but for the people that I work with as well,” said CW3 Fair.
At his current assignment at RCC-K, CW3 Fair has an important role and responsibilities to accomplish the mission. He is responsible for planning and setup up between different sections of 1st Signal Brigade and RCC-K, ensuring proper and secure communication within the Korean peninsula for everyday operations and training exercises.
“I work in a unique environment. We do what we can to augment the contractors, so a lot of that was getting my 25 Deltas prepared to help when it came to like similar watch ops and how we monitor and vulnerabilities we're looking for,” he said. “I can then back brief my boss to make sure he is tracking and try to take some of that off his plate.”
Part of his key responsibilities and tasks is also to lead a team of soldiers and develop a group that works well together to accomplish the mission.
“My leadership style is trust but verify,” said CW3 Fair. “What I've learned from mentors and senior leadership has helped me. I provide people with these tasks or assignments or whatever you have to learn to trust somebody's work but verify and hold accountability. In this day and age, you find a lot of people are afraid to hold someone accountable, and as a result, maybe you get subpar work or you get subpar performance. When you hold people accountable, they're going to go ahead and give their best effort. Then just the communication, is important. I haven't always been the best at putting it on paper, but I have a lot of one-on-one discussions where we talk about performance, talk about what's going on, and set expectations. You can't ask somebody to do something that you're not going to do. I'm going to tell you how I expect you to get it done, or what I'm looking for.”
All of this experience, support, and leadership style accumulated over the years helped CW3 Fair execute missions wherever he was assigned and set expectations for himself and his team, improving the unit and the Army as a whole.
“I expect that I've brought something to the table, help my team think of something that they otherwise wouldn't have thought of something outside the box,” said CW3 Fair. “I provide a team member a little bit of my leadership and or expertise, working with other units as they came in, knowing that I have given them everything that they've needed to accomplish their mission.”
| Date Taken: | 02.07.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 02.12.2024 19:49 |
| Story ID: | 463738 |
| Location: | PYEONGTAEK, 41, KR |
| Hometown: | TRENTON, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 130 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Warrant Officer Highlight, CW3 Fair from RCC-K, by SGT SHAWNEE VERCAMMEN, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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