Letters

I recently read, with great interest, your article "Leadership Void" (September). Your comments and analysis really hit home. I am a mid-career program analyst (17 years) working for the Navy as a family service center program manager for 18 family support programs. I am invested in my career and intend to work at least another 12 to 15 years, if a transition to another kind of work materializes in the next few years, allowing me to use the skills I have acquired.

There are many 50- to 55-year-olds in government service whose skills and experience are dramatically underutilized. The most frustrating (and a primary) cause is the inability to transfer skills to new federal career tracks. Due to outdated rules, preference, historical behavior or other causes, I think most federal employers assume candidates' history and experience to equate interchangeably with skill.

The situation is compounded by loss of federal employee training dollars and time, all part of the continued fallout associated with a smaller government workforce. For the frustrated mid-level worker, feeling stuck in a stalled career path, isolated from familiar support systems such as real live people in a human resources organization, the options look bleak. Too many are getting out early because they have the chance to go outside federal service to do what they love. The government could capitalize on its collective assets by analyzing and vastly improving use of occupational "crosswalks" to energize and retain employees.

The Defense Department funds a multimillion-dollar program for separating and retiring military members to provide transition assistance to civilian employment. While working as a program manager several years ago, I saw many clients make successful transitions.

Emptying out the federal labor force will take the corporate history with it, along with the skills, work and community relationships, accomplishments, work ethic, the synergy of operative teams, and the energy and interest of those currently filling senior positions. Combine the loss with a failure to maximize use of employees who are not ready to retire and it constitutes a doubly wasteful practice. The group of mid-careerists with a strong desire to work in public service still has a lot to give federal employers. That's what makes them desirable to companies outside government.

Peg Tackett
Family Service Program Manager
U.S. Navy

Left in the Lurch

A problem that was not addressed in "Leadership Void" (September) is that there are highly qualified federal employees out in the field with the desired leadership abilities, yet most of the leadership positions are located in the Washington area. Personnel with the expertise and leadership potential are unable to accept jobs in the D.C. area because more and more agencies are not paying for relocation expenses. Talented employees with critical field experience are not applying for, or cannot accept, positions due to the high cost of moving a family.

In addition, during the downsizing, many GS-14 positions have been eliminated. The career path to most GS-15 positions has gone away, thus creating a bottleneck at the GS-13 level. GS-13s cannot apply for GS-15 positions because they have not worked as GS-14s for one year. However, a person from the outside can be selected over an inside person who has been performing identical duties.

There is no leadership void. Government agencies are causing the void by not providing a solid career path and relocation incentives for the leaders in the field

Robert Vincelette
Edwards AFB

We Get What We Pay For

It's really an inspiration to hear about leadership and vision in government ("The Company Goes Commercial," July). The article touched on some fundamentally challenging issues for the bureaucracy: personal and fiscal accountabilities.

My governmental experience has been similar to that described by Richard Calder: If you're not paying for a service, there is absolutely no incentive to find a better way to do business. I'm not equating cost and quality-we get what we pay for-but I am concerned about the lack of serious "requirements" revalidation.

Around our little cog in the system, we're fighting to become "providers of choice," supporting Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government and fending off competition by trying to be the best game in town. It has been a challenge, and I applaud the CIA 's new thinking, in which honest and candid criticism of the process can be made in the hope of really making things better.

Robert McAlister
Assistant Manager
Airways Facilities Division, FAA
Anchorage, Alaska

Corrections

The data in the 1999 Top 200 Federal Contractors special issue (August) should have reflected the fact that TRW Inc. acquired BDM Corp. in December 1997. The combined companies received $2,007,516,000 in fiscal 1998 federal contracts, which puts TRW in ninth place on the Top 200 list.

Contract totals for MITRE Corp. and Mitretek Systems were divided incorrectly. MITRE should have been credited with $473,648,000 in fiscal 1998 contracts, making it the 38th-ranked contractor, and Mitretek Systems should have been credited with $17,093,000 in contracts.

Teledyne Inc. should have been listed as Allegheny Teledyne Inc.