Advice From Feds on the Fly

ohn Bullard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's director of sustainable development, recently spent a week in Alaska and Washington state visiting distressed fishing communities. During the trip, he took 18 plane rides in seven days.

The first day he flew from Washington, D.C., to Chicago, Chicago to Seattle, Seattle to Ketchikan, Alaska, and Ketchikan to Juneau, Alaska. Bad weather kept the plane from landing in Juneau, and it returned to Ketchikan. Bullard had no hotel reservations in Ketchikan, of course, and at 1:30 a.m. he bedded down for the night in the airport. Minutes later, the police threw him out because the airport was closing. After a ferry ride and a mile-long walk in the rain to downtown Ketchikan, Bullard settled in at a hotel at 3 a.m. He had to get up at 6 a.m. to catch the first plane to Juneau. It was all in a regular day for Bullard, one of many high-mileage federal travelers.

"Travel is not something I have to do, it's something I get to do," says Bullard, who takes two or three trips a month, each lasting one to 10 days. He sees travel as essential to his mission: "My job is to make sure the assistance the federal government provides meets the needs of the people it's intended to. Travel is the only way to find out firsthand their needs, and most importantly, what ideas they have. It's the only way I can do my job."

As travel dollars shrink and agencies focus on customers and stakeholders, the need to travel to meet citizens and government's partners face to face is falling on fewer shoulders. This has created a hardy band of federal road warriors, toughened travelers who log countless hours on the road and tens of thousands of miles a year by plane, train and automobile. Government's frequent travelers are couriers, inspectors, salespeople. They protect diplomats, check buildings for fire safety, escort illegal aliens out of the country, lease office space, install software, respond to disasters, conduct audits, monitor air and water quality, and more.

Dan Catlett, a Federal Emergency Management Agency mitigation program manager in New England, is another who believes travel is the only way an agency can do its job. Catlett travels about two days a week in the region, and he flies around the country trying to prevent disaster-related damage. Catlett and Bullard, like many other heavy travelers, are grateful for the chance to see new places and people. But they're aware of the high cost of high-mileage travel, too.

The Frustration Factor

Catlett, for example, thinks the government is penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to travel spending. As a case in point he notes that no one in his office is allowed to take a government vehicle home overnight. That means that when Catlett needs to drive a government car on a New England assignment, he spends an hour going into the office to pick up the car before heading out, even if the itinerary leads right past his house in the Boston suburbs.

Road warriors caution that government travel rarely is glamorous. They share tales of accommodations "a step below Motel 6," of standing in endless airport lines at all hours of the day and night, of catching all kinds of familiar and unfamiliar diseases. Diplomatic security service special agent Stan Joseph, who spends 40 percent of his time on the road for the State Department, follows a strict travel regimen to keep himself healthy. Joseph's job visiting foreign dignitaries takes its toll in jet lag, long days and junk food.

Travelers who log lots of miles also face more reimbursement hassles than the occasional traveler does. Vouchers languish unsubmitted and bills lie unpaid on desks at home, waiting for road warriors to touch down long enough to attend to life's details. Some high-volume travelers find themselves due many thousands of dollars in reimbursements before they even get home to submit the vouchers. Some spend so much time on the road that they crash into their charge card limits before they return home.

All those headaches multiply when you travel abroad, says Mary Chambliss, a deputy administrator in the Foreign Agricultural Service of the Agriculture Department. Domestic travelers like Joseph, Catlett and Bullard don't know how good they've got it, she says. For one thing, in the United States, most people speak English. "Overseas, so much more can go wrong and you're so much farther from home." Chambliss travels regularly to Asia, Europe, Africa and the former Soviet Union developing programs to boost U.S. food exports.

The Flip Side

On the other hand, heavy travel has its rewards. Travelers cite the opportunity to meet lots of fascinating people and to see other cities and cultures. Many find travel relaxing, because sitting on planes or in airports forces them to slow down.

And travel agents love frequent travelers. Susan DiStefano, a site manager with
SatoTravel, an agency with extensive federal contracts, says calls from experienced travelers take half the time of calls from the less-traveled. Sato's Jana Marquez concurs. "They're the easiest people to deal with; they know what they need to do. They know what they want when they call." As a result, they get VIP treatment, she says.

All of which confirms the mantra of the federal heavy traveler: "The more you do it, the easier it gets."