I · What the Ladder is
The Qualified Capacity Ladder is a public declaration of how Qualified Capacity is carried through people over time. The Ladder is the architecture by which Qualified Capacity becomes real in the Defense Industrial Base, and sustains.
Three tiers. Each an active practice. Each a continuity covenant. Each structurally coupled to the shops where the work is done.
No passive identity earns a rung here. A rung is something you stand on through active practice. You earn your standing. You maintain your standing. You hold it until you retire from the practice, and then it becomes historical standing — preserved permanently.
II · Apprentice Steward — the first rung
Apprentice Stewardsurveys
An Apprentice Steward has conducted the Qualified Capacity diagnostic at their own shop, produced the required body of work, been assessed against the published rubric, and been conferred Apprentice Steward standing.
The tier is part-time by design. Apprentice Stewards have day jobs — typically as quality managers at Tier 2–4 manufacturers in the Defense Industrial Base — and the standing applies at the shop where they already work. The word carries the trade’s own discipline: real work completed, craft in progress, not yet the full practice but already on the ladder.
III · Steward — the middle rung
Stewardstewards
A Steward has completed the Founding Cohort Sprint (or a subsequent annual cohort), met the readiness threshold, and been conferred Steward standing. Stewards practice the discipline at one or more Roster shops — as the shop’s own quality lead, as an embedded consultant, or as a multi-shop advisor.
Steward standing is not a one-time credential. It is a continuity covenant. Three dimensions must hold — operational, standard, ethical — or the standing changes state.
Standing moves through four states; the verification URL names each one honestly.
- In standing. All three dimensions preserved.
- In transition. Operational continuity in a 6-month grace window — between shops, between engagements.
- Lapsed standing. One or more dimensions broken. The specific dimension is named. The date is recorded.
- Historical standing. Retired from active practice. Preserved permanently.
This is the company Stewardship keeps: CPA · PE · Licensed Pilot · AS9100 Lead Auditor · Medical Board MOC. Every one of them is a continuity covenant. Stewardship belongs in that company by design.
At launch (30 April 2026), zero Stewards exist. First Steward standings confer Q1 2027 after the inaugural Sprint completes.
IV · Senior Steward — the capstone rung
Senior Stewardwitnesses
A Senior Steward has carried stewardship through time — contract recompetes, ownership changes, workforce turnover. Stewardship witnessed by peers over years, not months. The capstone of the ladder.
The word is earned, not bestowed. Senior means seasoned by continuity, not senior by seniority. It is the word quality managers, shop owners, and prime contractors already use for time-in-role recognition in the Defense Industrial Base.
At launch, Senior Steward is a named tier, not yet a criteria-locked tier. Criteria lock in 2027 with the first Senior Steward cohort.
Family coherence preserved. The higher rung is still the same ladder.
V · Coupled to the operation
People and operations must be structurally connected. Floating in parallel is a failure mode the Ladder is built to prevent. Three mechanisms structurally couple every practitioner to the shops they practice on.
Directory cross-reference. A practitioner’s /ladder entry optionally names their attached shops. A shop’s entry on the Qualified Capacity Roster optionally names its attached practitioners. Double-consent in both directions preserves each party’s autonomy.
Annual Review records the shop. The Annual Stewardship Review and the Biennial Apprentice Review both record the shop or shops the practitioner is attached to that year. Qualified Capacity maintains a named historical ledger of the coupling across time.
Standing reciprocity. If a Roster shop loses good standing, attached practitioners respond in real time; at next Review, they examine the pattern. Single-shop failures are not automatically the practitioner’s fault — shops fail for reasons outside the practitioner’s control — but sustained pattern failures are a persistent defect.