Jonathon Wynn joined the Navy about a decade ago with his eyes on cyber. Now, he\u2019s among the first batch of sailors who will play a key role in shaping the way the sea service battles high tech foes for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of us are going to take that experience and technical kind of oversight into those higher level meetings and really assist leadership in making those important decisions while being well informed,\u201d said Wynn, who\u2019s one of eight sailors who graduated Friday from the Limited Duty Officer\/Chief Warrant Officer Academy<\/a> in Newport, Rhode Island, as a warrant officer-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A first class petty officer before his appointment to W-1, Wynn has orders to report next to Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66<\/a> at Fort Meade, Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If his rank sounds odd to you, it\u2019s because the Navy phased it out the bulk of its W-1s after 1975. According to Pentagon personnel reports, the sea service reported its last W-1s in 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But last year, the sea service announced it was reinstating<\/a> W-1 to recruit and retain more leaders with technical experience in computer network operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis graduating class of six newly minted warrant officer-1s couldn\u2019t come at a better time and over the next year, we will select even more sailors for this important program,\u201d the Navy\u2019s top personnel officer, Vice Adm. John Nowell<\/a>, said in a statement to Navy Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Bringing back the W-1 rank is a great example of our agile adjustment of personnel policies, in this case intended to improve manning the fleet with the right sailor in the right position at the right time to ensure success in the cyber domain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t