Reinvention on the rise south of the border

Lupe Rocha always had ideas about how to do work better at the Brownsville, Texas, office of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, where Rocha helps get supplies to the agency's field workers in the Caribbean and Latin America. But until a few years ago, the response he got to his ideas from supervisors was always the same: "It's always been done this way."

But ever since the APHIS region that covers Latin America and the Caribbean became a reinvention lab under the auspices of Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government about three years ago, Rocha says supervisors are listening to-and implementing-his ideas.

For example, Rocha, a traffic management specialist, used to have to ship goods to APHIS workers in Guatemala over land through Mexico. Rocha realized that shipping the goods by sea would be a lot faster and less expensive, since Mexican customs and required embassy waivers significantly slowed down the movement of goods through the country. Now APHIS workers get the supplies they need much faster.

Whether the reinvention spirit has taken hold throughout federal offices in the United States is debatable, but it apparently is being felt south of the border.

"We have some excellent employees who are eager to change and make things better," says Elba Quintero, APHIS regional director for Mexico, the Carribbean and Canada. Quintero is based in Mexico City.

Quintero says reinvention took awhile to reach her Mexican outpost, but once it did, employees jumped at the chance to make things better. Their accomplishments include:

• Putting control of each office's budget in the hands of its employees. Any savings they produce can be automatically used to upgrade equipment, provide training or give awards. Previously, budgets were centrally controlled.
• Taking over financial dealings with food producers in Mexico, who pay APHIS for its inspection services. In the past, the producers' payments were handled and processed at APHIS headquarters in Washington. Now that the local office handles the payments, APHIS can provide faster service and answer questions about the status of payments.
• Cutting the procurement approval process from 36 to seven days by eliminating approval steps.

"Reinvention has been instrumental in making our systems work better for the industry that we regulate," Quintero says.