FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
KLMNO
THE FEDERAL WORKER
The White House’s first responders
Crisis duty means little downtime for two NSC staffers
by Scott Wilson
What happens inside the White House when a crisis oc- curs — an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, say, or an earthquake in Haiti? Ask Heidi Avery and Richard Reed, who at such times set aside any pretense of having lives out- side the office. The two senior National Secu-
rity Council staff members have sat at the center of many crises in recent months, from the Christ- mas Day bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner to the gulf oil spill. A recent conversation with them about balancing work and life outside the Eisenhower Exec- utive Office Building, where the two have offices they often in- habit far more than home, opened a small window into some of the administration’s busiest jobs. The short answer to the work- life question is: What balance? Avery and Reed — with more than 20 years of federal govern- ment experience between them — are too diplomatic and devot- ed to their jobs to be so glib. But each also appeared to stifle a laugh. For Avery, being deputy assistant to the president means far fewer mornings in her single scull on the Potomac River, and when it is possible to squeeze one in, the rowing starts at the bleary-eyed hour of 5 a.m. For Reed, a National Security Council senior director, his job means family birthdays spent in the rubble of Haiti’s earthquake and the occasional weekend ride (into work, usually) on his BMW motorcycle. “We’re busy with our everyday
policy work and then, bam, you shift gears into crisis,” Avery said during the talk in her high-ceil- inged office. “You just have to tri- age on the fly.” To summarize their roles in
the various recent crises, Avery and Reed have helped begin the process of compiling informa- tion in the minutes and hours af- ter an incident, mobilizing gov- ernment agencies and pushing the information up through a na- tional security apparatus that ends with President Obama. It is complicated, high-stakes work that helps shape how the sprawl- ing federal government responds to an airline bomb scare at home or a natural disaster abroad. Avery is deputy to John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief adviser for homeland secu- rity and counterterrorism. She is 43, studied political science at Wellesley College and modern history at Oxford University, and has worked in the federal gov- ernment for seven years. Brennan is among Obama’s most trusted advisers, and Avery plays the same role for Brennan, whom she worked with during the Bush administration in “standing up” the National Coun- terterrorism Center. For a sense of how little her life is her own during a crisis, look at just a few afternoon hours in the White House Situation Room on April 27.
Brennan was traveling abroad
that day, and Avery had a rou- tinely busy schedule. She was preparing for a Situation Room meeting with senior government officials on a new strategy for the rapid development of new pol- icies for medical countermea- sures — defenses against a bio- terrorism attack or a fast-moving infectious disease. The issue took on greater importance for Oba- ma after last year’s H1N1 flu out- break.
At the same time, she was monitoring an important meet- ing between national and home- land security officials and BP ex- ecutives about the Gulf of Mexico oil rig that exploded and sank a week earlier. Avery said the meeting came just days after the administration learned that the well was still gushing oil 5,000 feet below the surface. But her afternoon took a turn when reports began coming into the Situation Room of a bomb scare aboard an Atlanta-bound
Delta Air Lines flight from Paris. Avery had been at the center of the administration’s response to the Christmas Day bomb at- tempt, alongside Brennan, and she moved to gather what she could about the Delta flight then being diverted for a landing in Maine. “We quickly set up an emer-
gency VTC,” Avery said, referring to a secure video teleconference. “We always assume an event is terrorist-related until we rule it out.” Terrorism was later ruled out. But those few shifting hours in the Situation Room, touching on issues that endure today, typify the unpredictability of Avery’s work, which she said she manag- es with help. “We have an incredible group of professionals in these agen- cies,” Avery said. “Because a cri- sis never comes at a predictable moment, you just take it as it comes.”
Reed is one of those profes- sionals. He is the National Secu- rity Council’s senior director for resilience policy. Reed, 46, spent most of his 15 years in the federal government doing clinical social work in the Department of Veterans Affairs. But he said the Sept. 11, 2001, at- tacks shifted his focus “from clin- ical work to operations.” He has been at the White House since 2006.
Resilience policy involves na- tional preparedness, and on Jan. 12, Reed was working on a more effective long-term approach to recovery in places hit by disaster. His calendar also included meet- ings with White House staff in preparation for Obama’s State of the Union address. Just before 5 p.m. — after a senior directors’ meeting in the morning, a staff meeting led by Avery in the early afternoon, and reports of punctured containers at a North Carolina port leaking explosive material — Reed began hearing the first news from the Situation Room of a major earth- quake in Haiti. Over the next few hours, lead- ing up to a 10 p.m. emergency “deputies meeting” led by Depu- ty National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Reed was in conference calls with the departments of State and Defense, the U.S. Southern Command, the U.S. Agency for International Devel- opment, and the Federal Emer- gency Management Agency, among others.
dating Obama on the “chaotic situation” in Haiti, as Reed char- acterized it, went out, including information on the status of U.S. government employees and buildings. At 3 a.m., Reed began preparing for another interagen- cy conference call to be held four and a half hours later. The round-the-clock response
started a weeks-long commit- ment to the earthquake after- math. Reed spent the next five days at USAID headquarters, working alongside the recently appointed director, Rajiv Shah. “I walked in on the 19th and Raj said, ‘I need you in Haiti,’ ” Reed recalled. For the next three weeks, he slept on a cot in the U.S. Embassy compound, help- ing coordinate the U.S. agencies involved in the relief effort along with the United Nations, Canadi- an security forces, the World Bank and the beleaguered Hai- tian government. He spent his wife’s birthday in Port-au-Prince. “It wasn’t the first time I’ve missed it,” he said. Avery added that Reed spent his own birthday there, as well. Like Avery, Reed said the rest of the staff deserves much of the praise for carrying the load dur- ing times of crisis. Each speaks modestly of their roles, though others at the White House call them unflappable, experienced and highly capable. “I always try to find the like- minded person to help me un- derstand how government works and how it can work better,” Reed said. “Each day we try to make that happen. And that’s something worth working for.”
wilsons@washpost.com
Justice steps up enforcement
Civil rights division reshapes itself after employee exodus during the Bush era. A16
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Japan’s Hatoyama didn’t dress for success. Al Kamen, A16
wreath-laying ceremonies. But now that the Memorial
T
SUSAN BIDDLE/THE WASHINGTON POST
The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse annex in Washington is among the buildings criticized in the report as being bloated.
Halls of justice are
too big, report says
GAO finds most new federal courthouses
waste space and money
by Ed O’Keefe
Call it “Extreme Makeover:
Courthouse Edition.” Some federal judges and court
workers occupy courthouses that are bigger than necessary, ac- cording to a preliminary report by government auditors. The Government Accountabil-
ity Office revealed last week that 27 of the 33 federal courthouses built by the General Services Ad- ministration since 2000 contain about 3.6 million square feet of extra space — or 28 percent of the total federal court space built in the last decade. The excess space has soaked up $835 million in construction costs and $51 mil- lion in annual rent and opera- tions costs, the GAO said. The report came at the request
of a House subcommittee that oversees federal court construc- tion. It cited three reasons for the excess space: Courthouses are be- ing built larger than the space au- thorized by Congress, federal courts are overestimating their space needs, and judges aren’t sharing courtrooms. The plus- size courthouses include the new- er annex to the E. Barrett Pretty- man U.S. Courthouse in down- town Washington and the Sandra
At 2:50 a.m., an e-mail up- WHAT YOU SAID
Do you think it is appropriate for Defense Department civilians to be housed in buildings that have a greater level of security than buildings for other government workers?
Carl H. Gaum
Retired federal worker, Bethesda
It is not only appropriate but a necessity for the Department of Defense and other agencies hav- ing war or defense responsibili- ties to have high security. For example, the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers civil works program’s purpose is to have a cadre of engi- neers and other related person- nel available to immediately jump in to a military mode dur- ing times of conflict to help ex- ecute engineering needs. The buildings must be located in safe areas and well-built to protect the workers from enemy military actions.
Margaret Johnson
Small Business Administration worker, Georgia
No, I do not feel it is necessary for the Defense Department to have a higher security level than the rest of the government em- ployee community. If they are in the Pentagon, sure, it should be higher level of security. But in other work sites (except military installations) I see no difference in security.
Alan A. Hendricks
Government contractor and re- tired federal worker, Vienna
This is a good example of how a question can be phrased to gener- ate a particular response. You could have just as easily asked, “Do you think it is appropriate for other government workers to be housed in buildings that have a lesser level of security than build-
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ings for Defense Department ci- vilians?” To answer “no” to your ques- tion implies that we’re spending too much to protect Defense De- partment civilians. To answer “no” to the alternative question implies that we’re not spending enough to protect other govern- ment workers. When you fail to take the time to generate neutral questions, you risk getting only the answers you expect to hear rather than an honest discussion of both sides of an issue.
Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix. “The findings of government waste, mismanagement, and dis- regard for the congressional au- thorization process are appall- ing,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R- Fla.) said last week at a hearing focused on the findings. But Robert A. Peck, GSA Public Buildings Service commissioner, said auditors incorrectly includ- ed negative space in the atriums of tall buildings and “phantom
The agency cited $835 million in construction costs and $51 million for annual rent and operations.
floors” in double-height court- rooms. The incorrect measure- ments meant auditors mistak- enly assigned normal operating and construction costs to the empty space, he said. “We built only courtrooms re- quested by the judiciary and au- thorized by Congress,” Peck said. “GSA has been forthright and transparent in all of our docu- ments, testimony, and briefings to Congress throughout the his- tory of our courthouse program.”
ed.okeefe@washingtonpost.com
Day celebrations are a few days gone, veterans might be wondering: What have you done for me lately? This is a good time to ask. Next Wednesday marks six months since President Obama issued an executive order calling on the federal government to increase its hiring of vets. So what has the administration done for veterans since then? It has created a three-year master plan for the program, set up veteran employment offices in each government agency and launched a Web site to help vets find jobs. “I think things have moved very fast, very rapidly,” said John McWilliam, a deputy assistant secretary of labor. “A
tremendous amount of effort has been put into this.” The secretaries of labor and
John McWilliam
veterans affairs chair the Council of Veterans Employment created by Obama’s order. It is charged with coordinating a government-wide effort to enhance the recruitment and training of vets to make them more employable by government agencies. Part of that effort is in the form of a government-wide strategic plan, which was called for in the order. The Office of Personnel Management published it in January. The plan puts meat — in the form of goals, strategies and indicators of progress — on the bones of the four areas that Obama deemed critical to veterans’ employment: leadership commitment, skills development, marketing and an information gateway. For example, one of the leadership strategies calls on administration officials to “create advocates for veterans’ employment within each federal agency.” All 24 agencies covered by the order have established a Veterans Employment Program, as the president directed, according to Ken Robbins, a White House fellow working as an assistant to OPM Director John Berry. Berry is vice chairman of the council. “That aspect of it has been accomplished,” said Robbins, who as an Army major could be considered a pre-veteran. For veterans looking for
government work, the Web site
www.fedshirevets.gov is a good place to start.
All presidents have a soft spot
for vets, so making noise about helping them is nothing new. But the Obama administration has put action behind the words. The strategic plan, for example, is the first one devoted to increasing the employment of vets in the federal government. But more than producing a
lofty document, the administration has made sure the message about increasing veterans’ federal employment has been heard throughout the
Tony Eiland
FEDERAL DIARY
Joe Davidson
Living up to a promise to vets
hey were cheered at parades, and their fallen comrades were honored at
government. And that’s been noticed by the veterans’ service organizations. “The difference this time is
agencies taking heed of those executive orders,” said Joseph Sharpe, the American Legion’s economic division director. “We [previously] didn’t see that level of commitment from the agencies. But now it seems to be a constant where the agencies are echoing the order, to include training their HR personnel to do what’s needed.” One thing that’s missing, said
David Autry, a spokesman for the Disabled American Veterans, is a way to measure progress. It might be too soon to tell whether the order will ultimately be effective, but Autry said the time is right to develop goals. He recommended better statistical tracking of hiring compliance and a recognition program for agencies that meet or exceed targets. “It may be too early to say that
we’ve seen any difference,” he said. “The president has seemingly made it a priority to increase the number of veterans hired. I think there’s a realization that something has gone wrong over the years, and they’re looking for ways to ameliorate the situation. But still, without the stick to go with the carrot, we don’t know if it’s going to work or not . . . do some accountability, do some tracking.” Setting hiring goals for
agencies is under consideration. “It is a topic for discussion that the steering committee of the council will take up,” probably this month, Robbins said. The latest OPM report on the “Employment of Veterans in the Executive Branch” shows a wide range in the percentages of vets working in the various agencies. Overall, veterans were 25.5 percent of the employees in executive branch agencies in fiscal year 2008. That ranged from a high of 49.7 percent in the Air Force (the Defense Department as a whole was 40.6 percent) to just 5.6 percent at the National Science Foundation. The administration is
developing a “skills translator” to help vets realize that seemingly narrow-use military skills might have broad application in the civilian side of government. There might not be much call for artillery experts outside of the Army, McWilliam noted, but sergeants and officers in that field might have more experience in training and personnel management than they realize. Tony
Eiland is a Navy vet who joined the government just before the executive order was
signed. He has nothing but good things to say about his experience getting into the civilian side of government. The system is veteran friendly, Eiland said, “because a lot of people have worked extremely hard to make it that way.”
federaldiary@washpost.com
Staff writer Eric Yoder contributed to this column.
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