Outlasting Them All

The honoree was David O. Cooke, whose title-director of administration and management at the Pentagon-masks his real influence as a force for good in the federal government. One source of "Doc" Cooke's power (and of his sobriquet as "mayor of the Pentagon") is his ability to allocate office and parking spaces in the Pentagon complex. Another is a budget that's big and flexible enough to fund such initiatives as Al Gore's reinventing government program.

But Cooke's influence and moral authority really stem from five decades of service to the public sector and especially to the men and women of the armed forces. He has been a true friend to them and, through his leadership in the Combined Federal Campaign, the American Society for Public Administration, the National Academy of Public Administration and the Public Employees Roundtable, a friend to everyone who serves in government. "You embody all the values and virtues that America could hope for in a public servant," Cohen said during a toast at the Nov. 28 dinner, "unwavering honor, unquestioned integrity and unequaled commitment to the nation . . . a person who always gets things done." The Secretary quoted Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said on his 90th birthday, "the work is never done, while the power to work remains." Doc Cooke will continue working and, by his example, should serve as inspiration to the new generation of leaders the federal service needs to attract.

The need is pressing, as more and more people are now acknowledging. Given two generations of politicians who have campaigned on anti-government platforms, it is no surprise that the nation's youth are not rushing to join the public sector. Downsizing with little workforce planning has left many agencies with workforces short both of needed talent and new blood. My colleagues Anne Laurent and Katherine McIntire Peters, writing in this issue about the principal management challenges facing the next administration, focus on the recruiting problems facing government's civilian and military workforces. Peters quotes one expert: "The single most important issue regarding the nation's security rests in attracting and retaining sufficient numbers of qualified people to serve in government."

On Dec. 4, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee leaders Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, told the media they would make the government's staffing crisis a priority for committee action next year. Comptroller General David Walker is another leader seeking change in human resources practices. Their interest is an encouraging signal that tomorrow's government may find worthy successors to the inestimable David O. Cooke.