The chances of making master chief in the active-duty Navy took a dip for the second year in a row.
Slightly more than 11 percent of senior chiefs will be advanced to E-9, according to the 2020 active-duty master chief quotas released Monday.
The release of the master chief data kicks off a season of enlisted selection board announcements arriving from Millington, Tennessee.
The 11.18 percent selection rate for E-9 is the lowest since the 2009 board, when only 11.01 percent moved up.
The latest figures also mark a two-year decline after three consecutive years of growth.
Just two years ago, 15 percent of senior chiefs were marked for advancement.
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This year’s decline is mostly due to fewer vacancies at the Navy’s highest enlisted pay grade. The Navy offered only 377 quotas, 109 fewer than the 486 billets the sea service mandated last year.
The plummet would’ve been steeper, had the number of eligible E-8 candidates not dipped, too. This year’s board will review the records of 3,373 eligible sailors, 109 fewer candidates than last year’s pool.
Another 76 senior chiefs have no choice but to wait until next year because no quotas were created for submarine-qualified culinary specialists, electronics technician (communications), yeoman, religious programs specialists and naval aircrewmen (avionics).
The complete list of quotas can be found here.
Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.
