During the 1976 presidential campaign, then-candidate Jimmy Carter was planning a stop in Syracuse and his staff contacted Alan "Scotty" Campbell, dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, to ask for ideas for a speech on education and improving government service. Campbell suggested a program to attract top graduates of schools of public administration into a hiring program that would give them special training, guidance and assignments. He got the go-ahead and wrote the speech.
"It was not an idea off the top of our heads. It was one that those of us who were involved in educating young people in the public service had been thinking about for some time," Campbell says. "To me, the single greatest difference between the public and private sectors that I've seen is the emphasis the private sector puts on executive development. If there's an area where the government is inadequate, it's in that area." However, due to scheduling problems, Carter never delivered the speech, although it was handed out to the press and Carter's staff said he would stand behind it.
The next year, when Campbell was serving as head of the Civil Service Commission, he raised the subject in a meeting with Carter. "I said he probably didn't remember it, and he said he certainly did and he asked for an executive order," Campbell says.
The result was an order issued Aug. 25, 1977, establishing a program for "outstanding individuals who have pursued a course of study oriented toward public management at a graduate-level educational institution" who would be appointed into Schedule A positions and granted competitive civil service status after two years if they performed satisfactorily.
In a letter to a recent conference commemorating the program's 20th anniversary, Carter wrote: "As our nation faces unprecedented change and debate over the responsibilities of government, the PMI program's objectives of increasing the federal government's executive and managerial capability and capacity become even more important. The cause of public service deserves a program like this one."
Says Campbell, who received a standing ovation at the conference, "I'm amazed it's survived, considering the years we've been through in beating up government."
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