The Marine Corps announced a pilot program last month that will allow senior enlisted Marines to reenlist to the end of their service limitation without having to submit recurring — and often burdensome — extension packets.

The Enlisted Career Designation Program, announced Feb. 20, is aimed at keeping experienced Marines in the Corps by reducing the administrative hassle and uncertainty associated with extending their service.

Marines with the rank of master sergeant, first sergeant, master gunnery sergeant and sergeant major with at least 15 years of service and an end of contract date before Sept. 30, 2026, can voluntarily apply for the program beginning on June 1 of this year, according to the service message in which the pilot was announced.

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When Marines decide to reenlist, they often do so in four-year increments “that may not align with their duty assignments or career aspirations,” the message said.

It also comes with an often cumbersome administrative process that involves conferring with career counselors, assignment monitors, command teams and other personnel sections, then submitting a hefty paperwork request, only to wait for the Marine Corps to determine whether it is accepted or not.

“We want to do away with that. You are clearly a career Marine and our top talent,” Maj. Erick Lallemand, a force management officer with the service’s Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said during a recent interview with Military.com about senior enlisted Marines who are eligible for the pilot.

“We already know these Marines. We’ve invested in them. We’ve retained them, and we want to retain them to continue further service,” he said. “So why do we want them to keep having to do the same process every four years when we can just eliminate it, streamline it, and better manage our talent across the force?”

Master sergeants and first sergeants can serve up to 27 years on active duty, while master gunnery sergeants and sergeants major can stay for 30 years in the active service. Marines with those ranks could already have two decades of service under their belts, Lallemand said.

Under the pilot program, those senior enlisted Marines will incur an automatic two-year obligation but can decide to separate or retire from the service once that initial commitment is up — and they don’t have to submit another reenlistment package if they choose to stay longer.

“Get on the program, and you don’t have to worry about that administrative burden ever again,” Lallemand said. An additional benefit to the program is that it will free up career planners, monitors and command teams to process other reenlistment packets since senior Marines in the program will be exempt from submitting their own.

He added that Marines who opt for the program will still be able to take advantage of bonuses that can come with certain high-demand jobs, though those often carry their own additional service obligations.

Lallemand said that the service will review the pilot’s effectiveness to see how it needs to be adjusted or even expanded to staff sergeants or gunnery sergeants. One of the most significant factors the service will assess is the “take rate” — or how many senior enlisted Marines decide to join the pilot, he said.

There are roughly 1,800 Marines who would be eligible for ECDP pilot, and a key part of measuring its success will be seeing how many not only apply for the program but stick it out to their maximum service limit, Lallemand said.

“There’s gonna be a lot of different things that we can analyze once we have the data after the program’s gone live to see the success or failures of the program, and then where we might need to tweak it and make improvements so that we can eventually get it ready, perhaps, to those other staff NCO-level ranks,” he added.

Lallemand said that officials looked at similar programs the other services offer — such as the Army, which allows staff sergeants with 10 years or more in experience to reenlist in the same way — and curated this pilot to match the “unique” retention environments of the Marine Corps.

“We decided that it was time, though, to look at a way to show our career Marines we are committed to them,” he said.

Marines who are not qualified to reenlist — due to misconduct or ongoing legal proceedings, for example — will not be eligible to enroll in the pilot. Those who are eligible will go to their career counselors and request to be placed in the ECDP program, submitting their final reenlistment package, should they be accepted to the pilot.

When asked whether the service has identified any risks or concerns related to the pilot, Lallemand said that the Marine Corps has prioritized messaging to its senior ranks and career counselors to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page and informed. Once the program starts, he noted, it will be imperative to make sure no technological bugs hamper its rollout.

“Now, granted, you’re never going to be able to plan for everything, so there may be minor hiccups here and there that will adjust fire on as they come up,” Lallemand said. “But overall, I think that the program — it’s very good. It’s going to have great results.”

The ECDP pilot is associated with the Marine Corps’ Talent Management program, a 2021 initiative meant to prioritize retaining top talent and experience, rather than the old “recruit and replace” model that saw Marines leaving the service at a “remarkably high turnover rate,” it said.

A key part of that talent management is making it easier for senior Marines — who “have all the knowledge, they have all the experience,” Lallemand said — to stay in the services and use their institutional maturity to mold the next generation.

“So if we can manage to maintain a high-quality talent population past 20 years,” Lallemand said, “we’re strengthening the Marine Corps, we’re strengthening our career Marine population, and we’re ultimately making a better Marine Corps, holistically, from our most junior ranks to our most senior ranks.”

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