A question of word choice

Responding to the story, "Cavalry not coming for the acquisition workforce" – part of our Outlook 2013 feature package -- an anonymous commenter wrote: I disagree with Ms. [Lisa] Mascolo's comment that, 'Much of the expertise those retirees take away is obsolete anyway.' In the 1102 Contracting job series, our expertise is not allowed to become obsolete. We are required to continually update our knowledge and skills. And in this ever-changing environment, that is quite a task.

Camille Tuutti responds: "Obsolete" was not necessarily the best word in this case -- "irrelevant" would have been closer to conveying what Mascolo meant. I also reached out to her to get further clarification. Her response: "For those folks who have been there for an extended period of time, what the government really needs to do is mine those skills and knowledge and figure out a way to transfer that to the younger generation of procurement officers. The skills that they have aren't necessarily as relevant as today as they used to be, but certainly [they're not] obsolete. My point is that in some of these newer technologies, there's a real need -- and most procurement officers would agree-- for ongoing training for contracting and procurement officers."