Photo By Monica Wood | Chief Warrant Officer 5 Rolando Rios, the new CWO for the Field Artillery, talks with...... read more read more
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FORT SILL, Oklahoma (Jan. 18, 2022) – With the passing of a saber, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Kenneth Pressley symbolically passed the responsibility of being the top technical expert in the Field Artillery to Chief Warrant Officer 5 Rolando Rios.
The change of responsibility ceremony, held Jan. 18 in Fort Sill’s Kerwin Auditorium, was hosted by Brig. Gen. Andrew Preston, commandant of the Field Artillery.
Preston said the chief warrant officer of the field artillery is the senior advisor to the field artillery commandant on all matters pertaining to accession, institutional training, leader development, talent management and the readiness of over 600 field artillery warrant officers, although the position was just formed in 2010 by then-Fires Center of Excellence Commanding General, Maj. Gen. David Halverson.
“As the fourth chief warrant officer of the field artillery, he’s had a direct impact of field artillery targeting technicians throughout the world while delivering a briefing before Congress in 2013,” said Preston. “He established trust within the warrant officer enterprise by coaching, teaching and mentoring over 200 field artillery targeting technician students throughout the Warrant Officer Basic Course and Warrant Officer Advanced Course.”
Before becoming the Chief Warrant Officer of the Branch for Field Artillery, Pressley was in charge of all Field Artillery warrant officer instruction, a role Pressley said set him up very well for the role of CWO-FA.
Pressley did not say much about his accomplishments but he did speak at length about how much he and his wife, Amy, loved being stationed at Fort Sill since 2018.
“In the last four years my wife and I were here the Lawton-Fort Sill community embraced us and we’re forever grateful and happy about how you made us feel. And we’re sad to go,” said Pressley.
Pressley said he is leaving the position in good hands as he relinquishes his responsibility to a great leader with 35 years of experience in the service.
“Brig. Gen. Preston could not have selected a better guy to do the job as the fifth Chief Warrant Officer of the Field Artillery than Rolando Rios,” said Pressley. “He’s going to continue to push the ball forward and make some changes as the Army changes and we prepare warrant officers here at Fort Sill in the field artillery branch and get them ready to go to their first unit of assignment.”
Rios is looking forward to becoming the Fifth Chief Warrant Officer of the Field Artillery and said he has big shoes to fill and not for the first time.
“I replaced him (Pressley) as the course manager for the Warrant Officers Instruction Branch and now I’m replacing him as the chief warrant officer of the field artillery,” said Rios. “He has been a great mentor and a great friend. I’ve known him for over 20 years.”
Rios, who has served for more than 35 years, has some goals he plans to tackle while in the position.
“Right now we have a retention problem. A lot of our warrant officers are retiring after 20 years and we need to try to keep them in longer so I’ve got to try to figure that out,” said Rios. “There are only 18 chief warrant officers in the field artillery and a few of them are going to retire.”
Pressley and his family are headed to the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii.
| Date Taken: | 01.18.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 01.19.2022 15:40 |
| Story ID: | 413103 |
| Location: | FORT SILL, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Web Views: | 189 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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