Standing Guard

ow is this for a first week on the job: You are suddenly promoted to take the place of a controversial and largely unpopular agency head. Congress cuts your budget by nearly one-third. You spend roughly 10 hours over two days testifying before congressional oversight committees, much of that time sitting relatively quietly as legislators grill your boss. And it's only Thursday.

As all this is going on, you must continue hiring tens of thousands of employees to meet a congressional mandate for full staffing-with a deadline just two months away. Don't forget about creating a performance-based culture. Of course, that will be difficult because your strategic planning team is essentially a skeleton crew and most of your staff is focused on meeting extremely tight deadlines to improve security at the nation's airports. On top of that, you have to soothe relations with an irritated aviation industry and an unhappy Congress.

Welcome to the Transportation Security Administration, James Loy. Please fasten your seat belt. It is going to be a bumpy ride.

"It's been learning by immersion," says Loy, speaking with Government Executive in late July after his first week as administrator of the new agency. "It's been a chance to consume, at a more accelerated rate than I planned or wanted, a host of information."

Loy's entire agency has been on a steep learning curve. After all, TSA is only 9 months old, but it already has lost an administrator and ruffled the feathers of an impatient Congress. Lawmakers and the Bush administration would do well to study the agency's rough takeoff as they seek to create a Homeland Security Department. The agency serves as a prime example of what happens when well-intentioned plans are hastily implemented. From the outset, TSA had a nearly impossible task-to ensure the safety of all domestic air travel and do it in a year. By comparison, the British government set an eight-year goal to improve security at its airports following the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Even as it strives to meet its mandates, TSA is being pulled in different directions. Buckling to pressure from the aviation industry, members of Congress are shifting their focus from law enforcement to customer service. In July, senators and representatives peppered Loy and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta with questions about the potential for three-hour lines at security checkpoints. At the same time, legislators are starting to micromanage, earmarking millions of TSA dollars for airport construction. That move hamstrings TSA, restricting its ability to choose how and where it spends money. A senior Transportation official complains that Congress is treating the fledgling agency as if it had been around for 10 years, giving it no room to mature.

"Tragedies often beget impulsive legislation that you have to work through over time to get it right no matter how many weeks, months, or years later. That is always the case," says Loy, adding that he will not use that as an excuse to seek less scrutiny.

On July 18, Mineta tapped former Coast Guard Commandant Loy to bring TSA back on course. During his four years leading the Coast Guard, Loy won kudos for creating a performance-based culture. He also was extremely effective in working with industry officials and, just as important, is widely respected on Capitol Hill. It will require every bit of that managerial know-how to stabilize TSA.

One of Loy's most daunting challenges is to repair relations with the agency's constituents. It's an area where his predecessor was frequently criticized. While health is cited as the main reason for previous Administrator John Magaw's departure-he had heart surgery in April-observers say he was forced out because he was more combative than collaborative with the aviation industry and members of Congress. A former head of both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Secret Service, Magaw focused on the agency's law enforcement duties to the detriment of all others. As a result, the agency had a tough time fulfilling its mandate to secure airports and aviation without impeding customer service.

Magaw clashed often with lawmakers, who were critical of his inability to control costs. Created on Nov. 19, the agency spent its initial appropriation of $2.4 billion in a matter of months. By late July, Mineta said TSA was nearly out of cash. TSA sought $4.4 billion in a 2002 supplemental spending bill. Congress gave it $3.8 billion, which Mineta said was not enough and could hurt the agency's ability to carry out its mission. The assertion was greeted with skepticism on Capitol Hill, largely because agency officials had done a poor job of explaining how they were spending money. For fiscal 2003, the agency wants $6.8 billion.

"One of the first things I found here, despite a very good effort from ex-Federal Aviation Administration employees and initial TSA hires, was that the legislative affairs and public affairs world wasn't, I believe, given the resources necessary to adequately do their jobs," Loy says. "The legislative affairs office is really an empty locker. . . . If you don't tell your story well, the story won't be there . . . you won't have credit in the bank."

"In the very beginning, TSA did not care about customer service," says Kent George, executive director and chief executive officer of Pittsburgh International Airport, in summing up the frustrations of many airport directors. "They were a police-oriented group. They approached their job under that circumstance. They saw a threat [in] every corner." George oversees all operations at the airport. As TSA rolls out its new security procedures, he has to figure out how new passenger checkpoints will disrupt the business of airport retailers and the flow of pedestrian traffic in common areas. He also has to determine how to reconfigure the baggage handling system to accommodate new explosive-detection equipment. The key is balancing the need for security with customer service.

Loy wants to create a culture where neither customer service nor security gets short shrift. "To whatever degree that I need to get that pendulum to swing over to a customer service piece, we will," he adds.

Soothing relations with airport directors such as George falls largely on the shoulders of TSA's 160 federal security directors. These senior managers are responsible for carrying out the agency's mission. As their title suggests, they have taken over nearly all security functions at the nation's 429 airports. Local law enforcement officials are still responsible for securing public areas and the spaces immediately surrounding airports, but TSA takes over once passengers check their bags and pass through security checkpoints. Some directors supervise operations at more than one facility. Large airports such as Chicago's O'Hare, Dulles International near Washington and John F. Kennedy in New York have their own security directors.

The Pittsburgh airport's security director, Robert Blose, sought out his constituents immediately after finishing two weeks of training in late July. He contacted stakeholders at the airport to introduce himself and to provide an update on when TSA's security assessment teams would arrive. He keeps in touch on a weekly basis. "I need to come in here with the idea that this is a collaborative effort," he says. "If we develop an adversarial relationship, it will be bad for everyone." George says the situation at Pittsburgh has improved with Blose on board. "I've been pleased with the openness and the willingness to communicate. I now feel better that the airline customer is going to taken care of."

MORE THAN A COP

TSA's tough-guy reputation was not strictly its own doing. The agency was born out of frustration with a security system that allowed terrorists to hijack four planes and turn them into weapons of mass destruction on Sept. 11. Lawmakers blamed the Federal Aviation Administration and the airline industry for security lapses that allowed the terrorists to succeed. When the FAA regulated aviation security, much of the operational responsibility fell to private airlines. In an effort to hold down costs, airlines typically contracted for security services from the lowest bidder. Poorly trained and underpaid security personnel often failed to meet FAA standards. During tests in 1998 and 1999 at eight large airports, staffers with the Transportation Department inspector general's office were able to breach secure areas 68 percent of the time. They were able to sneak onto aircraft 117 times. Providing security on the cheap, airlines had a hard time retaining security personnel. Turnover among passenger screeners exceeded 100 percent a year at most large airports, the General Accounting Office reported in September 2001.

Responding to public pressure, Congress took the job of securing airports and air transit away from FAA and handed it to the hurriedly created TSA. The 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act, introduced on Sept. 21, 2001, was signed into law two months later. While the law gives TSA responsibility for securing all modes of transportation, it focuses almost exclusively on aviation. It establishes tight deadlines for making all passenger screeners federal employees (Nov. 19, 2002) and examining all checked bags for explosives (Dec. 31, 2002).

"When the legislation was moving along, Transportation officials made the comment that many of us were thinking-these deadlines were going to be impossible to meet," says Mortimer Downey, who was deputy Transportation secretary in the Clinton administration. "Mineta got slapped down for that. So, TSA from day one wouldn't discuss the realities of these deadlines," adds Downey, who now is principal consultant with pbConsult Inc. of New York, part of construction firm Parsons-Brinkerhoff.

TSA's slow pace in hiring screeners, the limited availability of explosive-detection equipment, and the time required to reconfigure airport terminals to make room for new security equipment all make it increasingly unlikely that the agency will meet its deadlines. Legislation passed July 29 by the House of Representatives to create a new Homeland Security Department includes language extending TSA's deadlines by a year. At press time, there was no similar provision in the Homeland Security Department bill moving through the Senate.

GROUND CREW

Regardless of whether Congress extends the deadlines, William Hall is busy building the agency from the ground up at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He is the TSA federal security director there. Like Loy, he faces immense challenges as he sets up operations while trying to meet tight deadlines and cause minimal disruption to the multitude of airport businesses and fliers.

"The hardest part is juggling everything at one time," Hall says while touring Terminal 7, one of eight stand-alone terminals at the 5,000-acre airport. The terminal is home to British Airways and United Airlines. One of three airports in the New York area, JFK processes roughly 60,000 passengers and 850 flights to 100 countries every day. "Hiring staff, getting the screeners in place, meeting all the stakeholders, coordinating with the contractors . . . it's tough," Hall adds.

Hall is working with three sets of contractors. One team, lead by Boeing, is responsible for deploying explosive-detection equipment. Two other teams, both headed by Lockheed Martin, are redesigning security checkpoints and training screeners. At the same time, Hall meets regularly with airport and airline officials to keep them abreast of the evolving situation.

Hall joined TSA in March, having retired from his post as chief of transportation for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He spent 32 years with the agency, which built and operated the World Trade Center. It also oversees operations at New York's three airports. After the first plane hit the trade center, Hall rushed there with his colleagues to head a search and rescue operation. "It was rather personal for me," he recalls. "I was downstairs as our fire chief climbed up the stairs at the World Trade Center. He never came down. "

SCREENING SCREENERS

Having lived through the Sept. 11 attacks, Hall is committed to ensuring TSA's success. Yet he acknowledges the challenges, not the least of which is hiring and training screeners. As of late July, TSA had taken over passenger screening operations at three terminals. The agency sent 650 mobile screeners to JFK. These roving screeners travel from airport to airport helping to ease the transition from contract security personnel to a fully federal staff. The number of national mobile screeners changes daily. As permanent screeners come on board, the mobile teams return to their home airports or head on to train screeners elsewhere.

Hall is not sure how many permanent screeners he will get. Lockheed Martin assessment teams have been studying how to reconfigure security checkpoints and how large a workforce each airport needs. At press time, the assessments weren't to be finished until early September. Before TSA took over, 1,000 contract security personnel worked at JFK.

Hiring screeners has been slow. Just 200 people graduated from the first three training classes at JFK in late July. Until the airport can hire more people, the mobile screeners will stay put. That has a tremendous ripple effect. It means some can't return to their home airports and it slows training at other locations. Initially, TSA officials said they would need 30,000 passenger and baggage screeners nationally. In June, Transportation's inspector general put the number at 62,000. Aghast at the steep climb in less than six months, Congress capped the number at 45,000 in a supplemental appropriations bill signed by President Bush Aug. 2.

Whatever the final tally, concern is growing that TSA won't be able to hire enough people by the Nov. 19 deadline. As of July 13, TSA had just 166 baggage screeners and 2,475 passenger screeners on the job. (Another 4,000 passenger screeners had accepted job offers.) But, according to Loy, the agency is on track to build its workforce. He says the agency has done a poor job of communicating its plan. "People never had an understanding of what the ramp-up would be," Loy says, adding that the agency would have been criticized if it had hired 10,000 screeners at the outset and paid them to sit around and wait until explosive-detection equipment and new checkpoints were installed. "Then people would have said we were wasting the taxpayers' money," he says.

Hall worries about getting his workforce in place. Agency officials believe that New York's three airports-JFK, La Guardia and Newark-will need roughly 2,300 screeners. Between June 24 and July 13, just 368 people applied for jobs as screeners at the New York airports, according to the IG.

So far, TSA has discovered that only one-third of the applicants it sends to its assessment centers actually show up, according to Alexis Stefani, assistant inspector general for auditing at Transportation. Testifying in July before a Senate panel, Stefani said 60 percent of those who keep their appointments fail the first round of aptitude testing. Hiring problems are compounded in large cities, where a majority of job applicants are not American citizens, which the law mandates they be. Hall says citizenship has become such a problem that TSA should help prospective candidates apply for it.

A senior TSA official says NCS Pearson, the Bloomington, Minn.-based contractor hired to recruit screeners, underestimated the magnitude of the job. He says the firm did not do a good job of advertising and picked out-of-the-way places to hold job fairs and assessments. "I'm a little nervous that we will not get to our target," he adds.

CREATING CULTURE

TSA faces a host of other managerial challenges, among them creating a results-oriented agency culture. Loy is credited with helping to build the Coast Guard's performance-based culture. But TSA is not the Coast Guard.The Coast Guard has been around for more than 100 years and had a dedicated staff with a can-do attitude before Loy took over. At TSA, Loy enters with a skeleton crew and no distinctive culture to build upon. "I want a set of core values that each member of the TSA workforce can not only recite, but truly understand . . . how [they connect] to an organizational culture that, at the end of the day, won't accept anything other than excellence as the performance measure," Loy says.

Creating that culture will take time, but the agency has made strides by developing a preliminary set of performance measures. They include the percentage of screeners completing training, the percentage of bags checked with explosive-detection equipment, and the number of complaints per 1,000 passengers. The agency has not developed specific measures for employees, including federal security directors.

"Those must be coming," says Pittsburgh's Blose. Blose completed his two-week training as a security director in late July. "One person in class asked, 'How will we know if we are doing a good job?' 'If you get fired,' someone said. That is not the right answer. There are many ways to measure us," he says.

Michael Robinson, TSA's associate undersecretary for aviation operations, says security directors initially will be measured on their ability to get operations under way in a relatively short time. Their performance measures include getting passengers through security checkpoints within 10 minutes. However, both Robinson and Loy acknowledge that it has been difficult to focus on administrative details with the congressional deadlines looming. The final measure, for TSA and its directors, may be as simple as this comment from Blose: "If screeners are doing poorly, I'm doing poorly."