In the Driver’s Seat

he most powerful person in federal travel may well be someone you've never heard of. From city pair fares to travel rules, from authorization procedures to charge card contracts, from use of travel agencies to preferred lodging programs, Jack Kelly has had a hand in them all. Among his various roles as a policy analyst at the Office of Management and Budget, Kelly has been a leading architect of federal travel management and policy since the Carter administration.

Kelly envisioned most of the federal travel process in a 1981 report he wrote as coordinator of the Interagency Travel Management Improvement Project.

Today's basic travel management system was laid out in that report: airfare and lodging discount programs, use of travel agents to make arrangements, the per diem structure. The report also recommended simplifying regulations, increasing automation, faster reimbursements, and more.

"No one else in the federal government has carried a travel management portfolio as long as Jack has-for the whole government, not just the civilian side," says Duncan Farrell, general manager of the Society of Government Travel Professionals, a trade group for travel agencies and other travel industry companies that do business with the government. People don't realize the magnitude of Kelly's role, Farrell says.

STEERING CHANGE

Kelly came to the travel field somewhat by accident. It wasn't travel itself that attracted him, but "the chance to solve a really interesting problem, a puzzle," says Kelly. His assignment was to figure out how the government could leverage its large purchasing volume to get discount airfares. To do that, the government had to create a travel arrangement process and design regulations tied into it. "It was the intellectual challenge that got me excited-and the fun of actually making management reform happen."

The travel system was ripe for reform because it had gone unexamined for so long. The Government Transportation Request form, or GTR, for example, was developed in the late 1800s, says Kelly. A century later, everyone was paying the airlines by credit card-everyone except the government.

The first city-pair offerings were 11 routes from four airlines. "They offered dogs," says Kelly. "They wanted this to fail." Kelly's secretary typed up the first federal travel directory on her typewriter in 1982 or 1983. Now more than 5,000 city-pair routes are on contract, saving the government an estimated $2 billion a year through airfare discounts.

Once Kelly learned more about travel, he was hooked. "The people it affects, it affects very strongly," Kelly says. "A lot of people think travel is vacation-that is, people who don't travel for business. Business travelers understand it can be inconvenient, it can be exhausting, it can be a real pain. To be able to make a better situation for people, and at the same time do it in a smart way-to save money-how cool is that?"

KELLY'S HEROES

The earliest wave of reform focused on how the government buys travel. The city-fare program, Kelly says, was the first and largest of its kind. "Corporations picked up on it later, but they still don't have the breadth and volume of people that government does-or its geographic spread."

Next on the agenda: transforming the way government administers travel. Reducing the costs of arranging, booking, ticketing, reporting and so on-"that is the promise of eTravel," Kelly says.

Once the eTravel Initiative is in place, "we can use the intelligence we gain about the way we do travel," Kelly says. "We will really know the volume of our business and cut better deals, so the model for how we buy and arrange travel could change."

Electronic travel management has the potential to give managers better information, which in turn could allow them to tailor travel to focus more on mission support. "What is the best way to use employees' time and to be cost-effective?" asks Kelly. "It's the ability to ask questions like these . . . that's where I hope the next wave of improvement is."

Transforming travel from a program in itself to its proper role of mission support requires major cultural change, says Karen Alderman, who led the Defense Department's early travel reengineering efforts and now is director of the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program. "Taking advantage of modern technology to make that change requires leadership and promotion through the power infrastructure of government."

Kelly has pushed for use of commercial business practices and "gone up against the power centers in Washington to make things happen," says Alderman. "People at OMB have the power to be a promoter or the power to be a blocker. Jack has used his position to be a promoter."

The other hurdle ahead, Kelly says, is moving beyond the piecemeal approach to technology. Those who have put electronic vouchering and authorization systems in place are heroes in Kelly's eyes, because they pressed their agencies to change. But more change is coming, and Kelly sees people's resistance as "a natural human reaction to change that you don't control."

But if Jack Kelly is behind it, you might want to get on board, because it's probably going to happen.

Parenting: "I feel like a proud parent. I look at this crowd of people working on travel reform-they are taking us to new places and they are bringing energy and new ideas to the table. I'm excited. I feel like I helped us take the first steps. But I'm not going to be the one finishing the race."
Boating: "My role is to listen to a lot of different people and hook the right people up to do the right things. I'm sure that I had a few of my own 'aha' moments, but I don't know that I invented anything-I haven't cured cancer. I've given a number of little boats a nudge, and some of the little boats get to where they're going and some of the little boats don't."
Letting go: "It's about motivating other people to change, not about running things. Success or failure depends on them."