Sorry all I really did is what was suggested in here.
1) After reinstalling, so working with the program from scratch... I left the new hire rank alone (didn't edit it or anything)
2) I added the two ranks that I wanted to add.
3) I went into and edited the local config file and changed the autoranking from true to false
4) Logged out of the system, and logged back in and the drop down menu with the new hire and the two ranks I added was there
So not sure I really did anything that the program wasn't already set up to do, other than changing that autoranking to false, and keeping the new hire in place (I deleted that the first install when I realized the problem). So I'm not sure if the new hire needs to be in there forever, but I'm ok with it if it does as I will be manually ranking pilots upon hiring, so they won't be a new hire for but a couple moments after accepting the registration and going in and editing to the appropriate rank.