Current Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) retention is well below the level needed to staff Department Head billets in the Fleet. The Navy is developing a career incentive pay to stem the flow of SWOs leaving the Navy and increase retention. The purpose of this thesis is to capture the training costs of junior Surface Warfare Officers that occur between commissioning and qualifying as a SWO. This thesis also explains the economic theory of specific training and its relevance to the wage streams offered to SWOs. This thesis estimates the training cost of qualifying a SWO to be $80,194.