Tom Ridge

he challenges facing the Homeland Security secretary are the toughest of any Cabinet member. Tom Ridge needs to pull together-in short order-employees from 22 federal departments and get them working together effectively. Using extraordinary leadership and management skills, he must achieve a balance between dealing with the daily crises and building an organization for the long haul.

Sen. Susan M. Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, thinks he's the right person for the job. Ridge's "background, temperament and experience make him ideally qualified to be the first secretary of homeland security," she said at his confirmation hearing in January.

There's widespread agreement that despite the breadth of the new department, it must refrain from focusing on its own organizational issues and learn to work with an even larger community, especially with the intelligence agencies, state and local governments, and first responders at all levels of government.

Ridge's background, which includes a childhood in subsidized housing, a Harvard University degree, work as a part-time district attorney in his home state of Pennsylvania, a distinguished tour as an enlisted soldier in Vietnam, 12 years in the House of Representatives, and almost seven years as Pennsylvania's governor, could hardly be more fitting.

Yet his political and public relations skills are regarded by some as his weakness. Critics acknowledge that he is good with the news media and good on the campaign trail. But they ask what he actually accomplished during his 13 months as the first presidential adviser on homeland security in 2001 and 2002, before the new department opened for business in January of this year. Defenders consider him the architect of the nation's homeland defense strategy.