**[BLM'a Managing for Excellence Initiative -- A Status
Report]{.underline}**

**[Program Transcript\*]{.underline}**

**NOTE\* This transcript was created from the live closed captioning
process. It may contain errors and omissions.**

\>\> The Bureau of Land Management presents live from the BLM national
Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona\... BLM\'s Managing for Excellence
Initiative. A status report. Where we are and the next steps we\'ll be
taking. And now, the host of your program, Tony Garrett.

\>\> T. Garrett: Good morning, and welcome to our update on the BLM\'s
Managing for Excellence Initiative. Today we\'ll be providing you with
information on the decisions made by the executive leadership team at
its recent meeting in Salt Lake City. With us this morning to help lead
that discussion is Henri Bisson, BLM\'s Deputy Director for operations.
Good morning, Henri.

\>\> H. Bisson: Good morning, Tony.

\>\> T. Garrett: I know a lot has been happening since we were here for
the telecast the last time on Managing for Excellence.

\>\> H. Bisson: It really has. And a lot of people have been working
hard since that last broadcast. I\'m very excited today to share with
our employees the progress that we\'ve made and where we hope to get to
in the next six months.

\>\> T. Garrett: We look forward to that, of course. Also with us in the
studio, Arizona\'s own BLM State Director Elaine Zielinski. Elaine, you
ever been involved in this from the very beginning, so we\'re especially
delighted to have you with us in the studio.

\>\> E. Zielinski: Thank you, Tony. It\'s good to be back here and talk
about Managing for Excellence. I recently was in Washington D.C. for a
60‑day detail. So I was able to be quite involved in reshaping the
Washington Office in responding to the Managing for Excellence
Initiative there. So I\'m looking forward to talking about that later
on.

\>\> T. Garrett: Good. And also with us in the studio from Alaska,
Associate State Director Julia Dougan. Julia has been serving as the
lead for the national operations center or NOC transition project team.
Julia, thanks for joining us.

\>\> J. Dougan: Thank you, Tony. Some folks have been referring to me as
the chief cheerleader for the NOC, and I am. The NOC offers some great
opportunities for the Bureau and I really look forward to leading that
part of the discussion.

\>\> T. Garrett: All right. Henri, this effort has been under way for
about two years now. Share with our viewers, if you would, where we are
on the initiative and how things are going. Head sure, Tony. Two years
ago our Director convened what we call their national leadership forum,
and we asked the forum participants to develop proposals that would help
the BLM to meet the needs of our customers in our mandates in the coming
years. A recap of the work that\'s been done since we began this process
two years ago is what we\'re going to talk about. Primarily the goal of
this effort is to ensure the long‑term effectiveness and success of BLM
and its employees is the Bureau leadership team\'s firm belief that
these changes will help us continue to do what we do best, care for the
land. These changes will accomplish two key things that are vital to
keeping the BLM strong in the coming years. One, it will improve the
BLM\'s effectiveness and efficiency throughout the organization. And,
two, it\'s going to ensure that money will be available to support on
the ground activities. While you won\'t hear us today refer to very much
in the way of specific savings, the savings achieved by many of these
proposals is very significant and will make a difference throughout the
organization. We\'re going to do everything possible that we can to
minimize disruption within our workplace throughout the organization. In
the meantime, these changes are going to help us ensure that the men and
women in BLM have the resources and the opportunities they need to
succeed. We\'re here today to make good on our commitment that employees
will be kept fully informed as decisions are made and implementation
begins. On a related note, I\'d like to talk for a moment about an
all‑employee survey that was conducted last summer by the BLM and many
other federal agencies. We recently received the detailed results and I
would like to share with you what we found out. The results from BLM
employees indicate that while you like the kind of work you do, many of
you are very passionate about the work that you do and you consider it
important, you have tremendous workloads and limited resources to get
this work done. You also had many concerns about burdensome process and
would like more communication from your senior leadership. We learned
that there\'s great dissatisfaction with the new five‑level performance
appraisal system and with ill‑timed mandatory training requirements. We
believe that the Managing for Excellence changes will help address some
of those concerns by giving us more flexibility financially for on the
ground work and streamlining some of the administrative workloads.
Further, Jim Hughes and I have asked each of the ELT members to focus on
their state specific survey results and to listen to what employees are
telling us about what should be improved and to take action. In
addition, we expect to be able to make major improvements in another
area that you have expressed frustration about, Federal Register
notices. I know that many of you don\'t deal with this process, but it
is an enormous workload throughout the Bureau and we\'re trying to solve
other concerns as well. While the details still being worked out, we\'re
hopeful soon the vast majority of Federal Register notices will once
again be able to be sent directly to the Federal Register by the field
offices. Certain very important notices would still need to come back to
the Washington Office but they will clearly be in the minority and we
will provide more details on this when it\'s finalized. There are
priorities that we have seen consistently over the years from one
administration to the next and from one BLM Director to the next. These
include the need embrace new ways to be more efficient and effective
land and Resource Managers. The American public expects nothing less and
I think Managing for Excellence will help us deliver on that. But before
we get into specific details, I\'d like to step back a second and talk
about other issues that we discussed at the Bureau leadership team
meeting last week. We had an excellent ELT meeting. In addition to
spending a whole day deciding on which Managing for Excellence options
we wanted to pursue, we spent time in discussions with Lynn Scarlett,
the Department\'s Deputy Secretary, and Julie Jacobson, deputy assistant
secretary for lands and minerals. We talked about the Department\'s
efforts on cooperative conservation, fire management issues for this and
next year, energy security and the growing emphasis on alternative
energy sources, including wind, solar and geothermal, the BLM\'s healthy
lands initiative, the Department\'s climate change task force. Serious
concerns with management issues along our southwestern border, and the
BLM\'s take it outside initiative which reconnects children with the
outdoors.

\>\> E. Zielinski: There was another one, Henri, we did mention, too,
and that Lynn Scarlett emphasized, was the national landscape
conservation system and how there\'s a lot of renewed attention and some
opportunities for us to really show showcase those areas right now.

\>\> H. Bisson: You\'re right, Elaine. In fact, we\'ve been testifying
in the last month on a legislative proposal on the hill which the
administration has been supportive of that would provide permanent
authorization for the national landscape conservation system, and as a
Bureau we\'re pretty excited about that. We also spent some time talking
about some significant changes in the wild horse and burro program which
are aimed at reducing costs and being more effective with the adoption
portion of the program. We discussed our budget outlook for fiscal year
2008 and initial development of BLM\'s 2009 emphasis areas for the
budget. For 2008, while we will fully support the president\'s budget
request, there are discussions that are occurring in the house and
Senate that may result in several program increases and restoration of
some our wild horse and burro funding and we spent some time talking
about it. We also spent time with the State Directors and Assistant
Directors discussing issues much concern in their respective states and
directorates and we talked about assistant secretary Steve Alred\'s
recent broadcast his commitment to ensure communication improvements are
made in each of the bureaus he\'s responsible for. As a last note, we
talked about the necessary preparations for leadership transition now
that the president has announced his intention to nominate Jim Caswell
to be the Director of the BLM. Jim is an excellent nominee with many
years of natural resource management and public service experience, and
we hope that his confirmation hearing will be scheduled as soon as
possible so we can have a permanent Director in place.

\>\> T. Garrett: That sounds like great news, Henri. Thanks for that
summary. Let\'s go to another topic, the ELT took up last week and ask
you if you would, please, to discuss the recommendations made by the
Washington Office cost containment team.

\>\> H. Bisson: Sure, Tony. The ELT heard several recommendations in
Salt Lake City regarding the Washington Office activities. Since the
first of the year, several teams have been working on major tasks
relating to the Washington Office, and these teams have developed a cost
containment strategy, they\'ve reviewed functional statements for the
Washington Office, they\'ve drafted a policy on remotely located
positions. This policy affects those employees who work for the
Washington Office but are spread out across the country. The Assistant
Directors in the last few months have developed target tables of
organization. We\'ve refined a communication plan for this initiative.
We\'ve worked on performance measures for the Washington Office. In
terms of the cost containment strategy, let me discuss that first. We
talked about issues such as ‑‑ the team came up with issues such as
contracting long‑term housing for employees that are detailed to places
like Washington D.C., Phoenix, Denver and Portland. We believe that
there could be substantial savings derived from doing this contracting
process instead of people staying in hotels when they go to places where
frequent travel occurs. In addition, we looked at some cost saving
measures regarding to how we pay for per diem while employees are in
long‑term travel at these locations. If implemented we anticipate this
recommendation would result in substantial annual savings. The team also
recommended that the BLM limit conferences to once every two or three
years instead of annually. Again, this would save a substantial amount
in travel costs each year. As part of the budget process this year,
I\'ve asked the state directors and the AD\'s to come to us with all the
proposed national meetings beyond a threshold of, oh, I think attendance
by 30 people or more, so that we can make decisions this summer and
there\'s no uncertainty as we go into the next year as to what meetings
will be approved or not. And we can look at things like how frequently
the meetings are held and how much it\'s going to cost and where it\'s
going to be and make appropriate decisions so that everybody knows going
into next year which meetings will be available for folks to attend. The
next recommendation was to strengthen the oversight of contracts and
assure that contracting officers and technical representatives are
proficient so we obtain the best value for the government. We estimate
this would result in an annual savings of at least several million
dollars. The team also recommended that all Washington Office
information technology be purchased by one directorate. The conclusion
is that this would improve configuration management, control year‑end
spending and streamline support and finally the cost containment working
group recommended we accelerate e‑forms implementation instead of using
paper forms by moving to more of an E form process, we would save
considerable amount of money again in Washington. I should say that I\'d
like to thank Kenny Greenberger who headed up this group and they did a
wonderful job. The recommendations have been submitted to Mike Ferguson,
our Assistant Director for fiscal and business resources where staff is
doing some additional work to figure out the details. This strategy is
part of our commitment to look closely at the Washington Office to
ensure that it\'s streamlined, that the resources of the BLM are focused
on our core mission. I want to emphasize that the savings that I\'ve
just indicated are from the Washington Office\'s internal funding. The
additional staff work is needed to ensure that we\'re not just shifting
costs out to the states but we are in fact shifting savings out to the
states.

\>\> T. Garrett: All right, thank you, Henri. Let\'s turn now back to
Elaine, and Elaine, ask you to discuss some of the other activities and
recommendations have that to do with the Washington Office.

\>\> E. Zielinski: Okay. Thank you, Tony. I would love to do that. I\'m
going to talk about the Washington Office Table of Organization. We
asked the Assistant Directors in Washington to take a look at what their
organization should look like based on the functional changes outlined
in Managing for Excellence. These changes are based on defining the role
of the Washington Office as one that\'s ‑‑ provides strategic direction,
one that develops the budget for the BLM, it formulates policy, ill
communicates BLM\'s goals, policies and needs at the national level to
the office of management and budget, Congress, national organizations,
partners, stakeholders and customers. Also coordinates with the
Department of Interior and other federal agencies at the national level
and facilitates legislation and regulatory changes that will make it
easier for ‑‑ easier for BLM to accomplish its mission. Lastly but not
leastly, it provides program and organizational evaluation and
oversight. As I mentioned before, I spent 60 days detailed to the
Washington Office as the Assistant Director for minerals, realty and
resource protection, and in fact, Henri told me that we all had to have
the target Table of Organizations for Washington completed before I
could go home. So I had quite an incentive to make sure that happened,
and it did. So over the course of all of the meetings that we had back
there was half a dozen or so meetings, each of the AD\'s took the
information from management ‑‑ Managing for Excellence and they saw how
it would form and scope their directorate particularly. So each of them
developed this Table of Organization, and each Assistant Director was
totally personally engaged throughout the process, and I\'m confident
that the directors really crafted an organization in the Washington
Office that will result in a very efficient and effective BLM in the
coming years. We reviewed the following recommendations in our ELT
meeting in Salt Lake City, and I just want to briefly go over there.
Currently there are 680 positions reporting to the Washington Office.
The target Table of Organization will have 578 positions. The proposal
would still have about 30 positions that would be moved closer to the
field and eliminate about 52 positions through attrition. Some of the
proposals that we considered and worked on in the Washington Office with
the Assistant Directors in developing those tables of organizations
overlap with what Julia and her group was doing when they were looking
at the functions and structures of the National Operations Center. So
we\'re asking a small group to evaluate the positions that the
Washington Office is slating to move to the National Operations Center
and report back to the ELT within about 30 days. The group will also
review options we are considering for the National Science and
Technology Center, and we\'ve also decided to reinvigorate the Science
Advisory Committee, and that committee will guide BLM\'s science policy
and acquisition of new studies and research. We also decided that the
major project managers for major rights‑of‑way that currently report to
Washington Office to the Assistant Director for minerals, realty and
resource protection would continue to report to that group. So we\'ve
got a lot of changes that are proposed for various Washington Office
directorates. Henri is going to now meet with each of the assist
Assistant Director one on one, go into more detail about their T.O.\'s
and hopefully the end product that from discussion will be approved
tables of organizations for all of those directorates.

\>\> H. Bisson: I think it\'s important that people understand that
since we started this process when I asked the Assistant Directors to go
through their T.O.\'s I put a freeze on new hires in the Washington
Office, and in fact, we have filled some positions because of the
certainty the positions would be there after the T.O.\'s were assembled,
I let some positions be filled, but it\'s very important that we sit
down and make decisions on the T.O. because there are some critical
vacancies and we want to move ahead with getting the organization where
it needs to be, and those positions that are vacant that are not going
to be required anymore we\'re simply going to take them off of the T.O.

\>\> E. Zielinski: Thanks, Tony. I think that covers the Washington
Office.

\>\> T. Garrett: You mentioned the National Operations Center. This is,
of course, one of the centerpieces of the Managing for Excellence
Initiative, and, Henri, three months ago you established a NOC project
team and asked Julia Dougan to lead that team to develop a NOC
transition plan. Let\'s go to Julia now and ask you to tell us about the
decisions the ELT made with respect to the National Operations Center.

\>\> J. Dougan: Tony, before I get into the real nuts and bolts of what
the NOC will look like, let\'s talk a minute about how the team got to
where we are today. Most importantly, our team used a process where we
listened and learned, included many who may be impacted by the changes,
and from that perspective we created a set of options for the ELT to
consider. Because the NOC will reach out and touch every employee, we
wanted to listen to as many views as possible and capture all
perspectives. The team spent weeks meeting with managers, customers,
contractors and those who will provide the centralized services. We
learned a tremendous amount about the complexity of work at the centers
and the dedication of the staff. That staff made essential contributions
to our understanding of the issues and challenges associated with the
creation of the NOC. Now, our team found service can be improved when
dedicated specialized staff has the goal of exceptional service. And we
also found that centralized services can be less costly to deliver
because of economies of scale and standardized approaches. The NOC will
be formed by merging or existing national centers and some national
functions. The centers will become divisions in the new organization.
Under the new NOC organization, the national business center becomes the
division of business services. The national human resource management
center becomes the division of human resource services. The national
Training Center becomes the division of training services. The national
information resource management center because the division of
information technology services. The National Science and Technology
Center becomes the division of science and resource services. And,
finally, the land and resources project office becomes a branch within
the division of information technology services. All these divisions
will report to the NOC Director who will be a member of the executive
leadership team. Prior to this, the centers and national functions
reported to five individual Assistant Directors. Now they will report to
one ELT member. Now, the National Interagency Fire Center, NIFC, will
continue to serve as a separate management unit to support our
interagency fire program and it will not be a part of the NOC
organization. The plan is to have the NOC in place and fully functional
by the end of 2009.

\>\> E. Zielinski: Julia, one of the things that I know your team did
was you looked at a lot of centralization efforts that other entities
and other organizations had taken on, and there\'s kind of some lessons
learned that from I think you incorporated into our approach.

\>\> J. Dougan: Yes, I think we leaned heavily on those lessons learned.
While we\'ve all heard horror stories about centralized services, we
also found some great success stories and we tried to learn from both.
And we\'re going to detail out those lessons learned in our transition
plan that we will deliver to the NOC director.

\>\> H. Bisson: I think it\'s important that people understand how much
effort went into looking at these centers and looking at what was
proposed in our original Managing for Excellence proposal for Denver,
and Julia and her team did an outstanding job. They looked at what
happened in other bureaus and they really got into the business that
occurs at the national operations center. I don\'t know how we could
have gotten where we did at this last meeting if they hadn\'t put
forward that effort. We know more about all of the work that happens
there now than we did before. And I think they\'ve come forward with
some excellent proposals.

\>\> T. Garrett: Julia, with an organization that will have this much
responsibility, obviously the team gave a great deal of thought to
management and leadership at the new National Operations Center.

\>\> J. Dougan: Yes, we did. In order to create that leadership and that
management accountability, we created an office of the direct tore.
Within the Office of the Director is what we\'re calling the Quality
Assurance Team. We believe that\'s an essential piece of the NOC
operations. The Quality Assurance Team is going to be the Director\'s
tool for finding ways to improve processes. One of the central functions
of the Quality Assurance Team will be to continually survey customers,
find areas that need improvement and help the NOC staff reengineer its
processes. The team also will define and standardize data and assure
that the NOC\'s business processes meet the BLM\'s policies and
requirements. I think this will really help eliminate redundancy,
promote data sharing, and establish consistency of approach. Now,
there\'s also going to be a NOC support services team in the Office of
the Director that will be responsible for the day‑to‑day business
support of the NOC, just as you have in a state office or as is being
created in the Washington Office.

\>\> T. Garrett: All right. As you mentioned, the national business
center is one of the major elements of the National Operations Center.
Tell us how their functions will be realigned and how things will
change.

\>\> J. Dougan: With the creation of the NOC, the national business
center is renamed the division of business services. All the functions
currently performed at NBC will be retained by this new division but
we\'re adding some other functions to that division. Those include the
architecture and engineering function that was previously part of the
National Science and Technology Center, the compliance assessment health
and environment, or CASHE, function previously aligned with the
Washington Office and of course, space leasing is going to be
centralized here. That brings together all of the pieces of the BLM\'s
asset management program. The division will also handle all permanent
change of station actions for the entire Bureau with the exception of
Alaska. These changes align related business functions into one
organizational unit so service can be improved, costs can be reduced and
accountability increased.

\>\> T. Garrett: Understand the acquisitions function was another one of
the assignments given to your team. What did the ELT decide about
acquisitions at its recent meeting?

\>\> J. Dougan: The ELT decided to centralize all acquisitions greater
than \$100,000 for open‑market purchases and greater than \$500,000 for
purchases from established sources. They decided to centralize those
into two specialty zones, one in the Oregon/Washington state office and
one in the NOC. These zones will be distinguished by function, not by
geography. The Portland zone will be responsible for the Bureau\'s
natural resource related acquisitions such as land treatment, wild horse
and burro support, seed, forestry, contracts. The NOC zone will be
responsible for I.T., facilities, add other administrative support
contracts. But both zones will report to the NOC Director. There will be
no change to NIFC\'s current acquisition authority. The Assistant
Director for business and fiscal resources will conduct a workload
analysis to determine exactly how we divide the specialty functions and
recommend staffing levels for each zone. As for all the functions at the
NOC, the NOC Director will work with the ELT to clarify expectations for
service, describe the performance measures we\'re going to hold the NOC
accountable to, establish tracking and reporting methods and also design
a process for problem resolution.

\>\> H. Bisson: Julia, this is a fairly significant change from the
original Managing for Excellence proposal, and from discussions we had
at the ELT, I really believe that by centralizing the procurement in
bands, the resource related work versus the buildings and major
contracts for I.T. and that sort of thing, we\'re going to take
advantage every the strengths both in Oregon and in Denver and provide
better service across the Bureau. I think it\'s an example of where we
started with this Managing for Excellence, and based on a review and
greater knowledge that was gained through the work that you did, we made
some fairly significant changes in our original proposal, and we will
continue to do that as we implement this and other proposals as well.

\>\> E. Zielinski: I agree with you, Henri. I think this is a really
good example of really some creative thinking on part of a lot of folks
that deal with this on a day‑to‑day basis and it\'s going to result in a
much improved process.

\>\> H. Bisson: I understand there was an employee from the National
Interagency Fire Center that helped you on procurement. Who was that?

\>\> J. Dougan: That was Julie Whaley, who was our acquisition advisor,
and one thing I didn\'t mention is that while we had a great team, we
certainly weren\'t subject matter experts in everything at the NOC. So
we did call on a number of subject matter experts to come in and help
the team. That included Scott McPherson for I.T. advice and Mark
Colville for H.R. advice and they reached out to those communities and
asked the people in those functions how should we organize, how should
we align work? We found that invaluable.

\>\> H. Bisson: We certain litho them our thanks.

\>\> T. Garrett: Julia, something every viewer and employee of BLM has a
serious stake in is human resources support. Talk about what happens to
H.R. under the National Operations Center.

\>\> J. Dougan: Well, Tony, the national human resource management
center will become the division of human resource services and the
division will provide Bureau‑wide staffing classification and personnel
action processing. At the recent ELT meeting, the ELT established the
direction that four to seven human resource advisors will remain in the
state offices and Washington Office to provide advisory services,
including those services related to employee and labor relations. And I
think that will really help us transition. But the ELT also agreed to
evaluate the progress of implementation in two years and determine if
the number of human resource advisors could be reduced to three to five
in the state offices and Washington offices. Now, one thing everyone
needs to understand is that NIFC will not be part of the H.R.
centralization and will continue to provide interagency services in
Boise for fire‑related personnel excluding seasonal hires. Also Alaska
will not be part of the centralization because it\'s implementing the
Alaska DOI human resource pilot project. Another thing we need to be
successful is new tools and processes. The Bureau will issue a contract
to acquire electronic official personnel files and right now business
process reengineering is under way on all the centralized functions. The
Assistant Director for human resource management will lead an analysis
to determine if NIFC could assume all the fire‑related H.R. functions,
including seasonal hires, or if, in fact, all the fire‑related H.R.
functions should be moved to the NOC. So we still have another piece to
look at as far as efficiency. The state offices and Washington Office
will assess their human resource advisory workload and set their
staffing levels within the identified range and within a range that will
work for them.

\>\> H. Bisson: Julia, one of the issues we talked about was the need to
make sure that when we establish the national operations center that the
service level provided to the ELT is what we ‑‑ the service level we
expect is what we get, and so there will be also a service level
agreement associated with this particular effort. The ELT is very
concerned about the fact that we\'ve watched H.R. centralization occur
in some other bureaus and we want to do this right. We want to go slow
so we get it right. You know, we\'re very concerned about our ability to
fill our fire positions, both our permanent and temporary and so on, and
getting vacancies filled as we go through a major transition in this
Bureau with all the retirements we have coming up. So we\'re going to go
slow and make sure we get it right.

\>\> E. Zielinski: I think, putting my State Director hat on a little
bit, this was one of the areas that the state directors were very, very
concerned about. I agree with you, Henri, it\'s taking a little bit
slower approach in this arena and making sure that the systems and
processes that we\'re dependent on to make this successful are in place
and up and operating before we launch it.

\>\> J. Dougan: And I think the piece where we\'re leaving a substantial
amount of advisors in the state and Washington Office will really help
us as we move from face‑to‑face to more remote services.

\>\> H. Bisson: I also believe that the piece we\'re leaving in the
states that many people looking for services they normally get there
won\'t see a difference. It\'s the back room functions that will be done
in a centralized fashion, and so we hope that ‑‑ and believe there
won\'t be a significant disruption in service as we proceed with our
centralization.

\>\> T. Garrett: Julia, another function that will be under the national
operations center is BLM\'s training mission. It sounds like there will
be some exciting possibilities and opportunities in that area. Tell us
about those.

\>\> J. Dougan: That\'s right, Tony. The ELT did look at the options we
brought forward for training services. With the implementation of the
NOC, the national training center will be renamed the division of
training services. And the focus there will be the development and
delivery of what we call \"just in time\" distance learning in place of
the traditional classroom training. Our goal is to achieve 80% distance
learning within the next three to five years. With today\'s rapidly
evolving technology, much of the Bureau\'s television production
infrastructure, what we\'re sitting in today s aging and may become
obsolete within the next five years. Before we reinvest we need to take
this opportunity to evaluate what will be the most cost effective
technology to accomplish our distance learning objectives. The ELT
agreed and determined that the Board of Regents for the Training Center
must study this issue and make a recommendation to the BLM Director
about where we want to go with the technology in the future.

\>\> H. Bisson: I might jump in for a second. I\'ve been with this
Bureau for more than three decades, and I have watched, and a number of
people in the Bureau, have watched this Training Center go from what was
originally a land school to one of the first‑class training facilities
in government. This building, this facility, this staff that work here
are something we should all be very proud of. They do a terrific job, I
sit on the Board of Regents, so I will be part of the development of a
recommendation as to what we do with replacement technology, but I think
the direction we\'re going in terms of delivery of services to the field
is what technology allows us to do and so I think the Training Center is
going to be here. It will serve a different function. It will still be a
home for BLMers for some of our major training and pathways we\'ve ‑‑
spent so much time in using to educate new employees and I think much of
that will go on, but I can\'t tell you enough how much this Training
Center means to our workforce and to the BLM leadership.

\>\> T. Garrett: Thank you, Henri. We\'ve talked about evolving
technology and, Julia, go ahead and add something if you ‑‑

\>\> J. Dougan: I was just going to say that I think the Training Center
is poised to be the leaders in the next new evolution of distance
learning. So our team is really excited about that because we\'ve been
leaders all along, and I think we\'re still going to continue that role.

\>\> T. Garrett: We\'ve talked about evolving technology, and more and
more information technology and information resources are becoming an
ever‑greater part of the day‑to‑day jobs of so many BLMers. What happens
to I.T. under the National Operations Center?

\>\> J. Dougan: Tony, first the national information resources
management center, or NIRMC, will become the division of I.T. services
at the NOC. The team developed several options for the centralization of
I.T. services at the NOC. And the ELT discussed those options and
provided the direction that we should centralize all of the functions
where it is technically feasible to do so at this time. These functions
include things like network switch management, video, radio circuit
management, Microsoft active directory management right down to the
desktop level, national deployment of software, web infrastructure, UNIX
and windows server management, I.T. inventory services, I.T. hardware
and software acquisitions, cellular phone services and videoconferencing
management. Now, an important piece to make this all happen, because
it\'s a big step, the NOC will have to work very closely with the
Bureau\'s CIO and the CIO council to develop an implementation schedule
for centralization of each of the functions I mentioned. And that
implementation schedule has to work for us and has to be feasible. After
centralization, the states and the Washington Office will analyze their
post‑centralization workload and establish appropriate levels of
staffing.

\>\> H. Bisson: I think this is probably a place to again mention that
we started with a certain proposal for I.T. in Denver and Bureau‑wide,
and the ELT fully expects that when the CIO council and the CIO engage
in implementation of this centralization that it\'s going to change over
time, and we welcome the CIO council\'s efforts to work with us to make
this a good product that results in terrific service for the field.

\>\> T. Garrett: Another question the ELT considered at its recent
meeting is whether national applications should be managed as a
standalone division or as a branch within the division of I.T. services.
So where are we going in that area?

\>\> J. Dougan: Tony, let me give you just a bit of background.
Currently there are 48 national applications and developed by managed by
a variety of offices and programs. Examples include things like CBS,
LR‑2000, AFMSS, ReMIS and communication. In the future all will be
developed and managed at the NOC. By national application we mean any
application used by two or more states. Our goal is to reduce the cost
of application development by managing all the applications in one
location. This approach will leverage skills, share infrastructure and
provide adequate checks and balances. The ELT decided that national
application development should be integrated into the division of I.T.
services. This will create an environment where business needs, data
applications and technology are managed consistently. Creating this
integrated organization will help assure that the business needs of the
Bureau drive the technology rather than the technology driving our
business processes. The NOC Director and the assistant Director for
information resource management working with the application business
owners will evaluate each and every one of these 48 applications to
really look at the utility of every one. They will develop
recommendations for resource allocations and workload priorities. The
group will also recommend any corrective actions need to do make the
BLM\'s national applications more efficient.

\>\> T. Garrett: And, Julia, the last area we wanted to focus on at this
point in the program, the ELT reviewed the functions of the National
Science and Technology Center. What was the outcome of those
discussions?

\>\> J. Dougan: Under the NOC, this group will become the division of
science and resource services. Specifically, our team looked at these
two questions: To what extent should operational science support be
provided at the NOC? And how many scarce skills should be provided by
the NOC? After reviewing the options, the ELT has directed the BLM to
streamline the operational science and scarce skills function found at
the NOC. The division will provide those scarce skills either in house
or through contracts and agreements that would cost too much to staff in
state organizations but are still needed to deliver our mission
priorities. The division will acquire science and research products that
have gone through the Bureau\'s science committee and have been approved
by the Assistant Director for planning and renewable resources, and they
will also assess those products to integrate new information into BLM\'s
management practices. The division will provide operational support in
some areas that I think many are familiar with, and that includes
environmental compliance, monitoring, haz‑mat, abandoned mine lands, the
development of national publications, 1 to 100,000 scale map
development, remote sensing and aerial photography. Now, the division
library will become a repository for nationally or historically
significant materials prepared or funded by the Bureau, including our
aerial photos and our cadastral survey notes. Within the next 30 days
the Assistant Director for planning and renewable resources and the
assistant Director for minerals, realty and resource protection will
convene a team to establish the type of number of scarce skills to meet
the BLM\'s mission priorities and as Elaine mentioned earlier this team
will also sort of integrate the functions that AD\'s recommended being
transferred from the Washington Office to the NOC. For the most part,
staff aligned with the functions at the NOC should be physically located
in Denver by the end of 2009. Two exceptions we\'ve identified at this
time are the employees in Phoenix who work in training and the
Portland‑based employees who work in acquisitions. These employees will
currently stay in their ‑‑ these employees will stay in their current
location. If some employees choose not to relocate to Denver or if some
positions are not incorporated into the NOC, the Bureau will do what it
can to assist the employees in finding other positions for which
they\'re qualified, or if possible, retrain the employees to fill other
critical positions.

\>\> T. Garrett: Thank you, Julia. It\'s obvious you and your team did a
tremendous amount of work, and Henri, we can see why you selected Julia
to lead that team.

\>\> H. Bisson: Julia had some able help, Mike from Oregon and John,
field manager in Oklahoma city, Jane also from Oregon and she\'s already
mentioned a number of the other specialists who work with her that are
tied to specific program areas. They did a great job.

\>\> J. Dougan: Thank you, Henri.

\>\> T. Garrett: I understand some of the elements of the Managing for
Excellence Initiative are going to require Department approval. Where
are we in that process?

\>\> H. Bisson: Tony, we already have the organizational manual for the
National Operations Center up in the Department for approval. We have a
package up there which would allow us to actually create the executive
position for the national operations center. And they\'re moving through
the Department. We\'ve been told that within the next few weeks they
should be married together, and at that point we should be in a position
to go ahead and make the decision to proceed with the National
Operations Center. It\'s my goal, it\'s our leadership team\'s goal, to
try to stand up the NOC, to separate the budget from the Washington
Office, and create this single enterprise in Denver by October 1st at
the start of the next fiscal year. They\'ll go through a long
transition, but we want them to have their budget and be able to manage
their way as they reorganize. I think what we will end up doing is in
the interim once we get Departmental approval I think we\'ll designate
an interim National Operations Center Director and then go through the
process to recruit and select a permanent Director for the NOC. There
are other organizational changes are both in terms of three tier and
other changes in the Washington Office where we\'re shifting functions
that we\'ll have to go to the Department on for approval as well and
we\'ll do that as we go. We don\'t expect any major problems with that.

\>\> T. Garrett: I know part of the Managing for Excellence Initiative
includes moving BLM from a two‑year organization ‑‑ sorry, two‑tier
organization back to a three‑tier organization. Tell with us we are on
that, if you would.

\>\> H. Bisson: Yeah, Tony, at the leadership team meeting we spent an
hour and a half discussing where the states are with going from two tier
to three tier, and last March I issued an instruction memo to the state
directors asking them to look at their organizations and to come back to
Washington by mid‑July, six months basically w their proposal as to how
they would go from two tier to three tier. The states have been working
feverishly at coming up with those proposals. Half of the states are
already there. Half of the states are already three tier. So a lot of
this activity is occurring in those states that need to make the
transition, but they\'re working hard. Each of the states reported out
where they are with their organizations. They all look great. I think
the public will see a fairly consistent Bureau from now on and will get
the service that it deserves. One of the reasons that we\'re going from
two tier to three tier, I mean, part every it will result in some
savings, but it\'s really an effort to try to position the Bureau for
the future. It\'s about providing leadership experience at a little
higher level than folks are getting at the field office right now, so
that people have greater experience to move into the vacancies as
existing leaders move out. It\'s also about providing a way for us to
move some other employees, younger employees, new employees into
management positions and have them be able to receive some coaching and
counseling from a mid‑level manager out in the states. It\'s very
difficult in a state for a state Director that has 12, 14, 16 field
offices to give the Field Managers the support that they need in moving
ahead with sensitive, critical decisions, and we think that having a
mid‑level position, kind of a regional position, will provide a way for
us to make more decisions closer to the ground without everything going
to the state office, and also do the coaching and counseling necessary
to bring on new managers. So we think this is a very, very important
step that we\'re taking as a Bureau.

\>\> T. Garrett: On another subject, Henri, you and Elaine mentioned the
discussion at the ELT last week about the national landscape
conservation system. Tell us what happens to NLCS under the Managing for
Excellence Initiative.

\>\> H. Bisson: Sure, Tony. Under the Managing for Excellence
Initiative, the national landscape conservation system directorate will
provide leadership to partnership programs, our volunteer programs,
environmental education and heritage education programs, cooperative
conservation and alternative dispute resolution. We\'re confident that
this realignment is going to improve both of these programs and that the
management of NLCS units will not suffer and be improved as well. Right
now there are about 20 positions working in the NLCS directorate in our
Washington Office, about 10 positions will be added to this directorate
to address the additional program areas, for a total of about 30
positions. These 10 new positions will come from other directorates in
our Washington Office and they\'re going to bring additional funding to
the directorate. They\'re not coming as a burden, but they\'re bringing
money with them. One division in the directorate will focus on the NLCS
units, and the other division is going to focus on cooperative
conservation and environmental education. We\'re not proposing to change
the management of any NLCS unit in the field, and the integrity and
ability of the NLCS to conduct its business in the field will not be
affected by management for excellence. The day‑to‑day management of an
NLCS management unit is determined by its land use plan and it\'s
important that everybody understands Managing for Excellence does not
change any of these land use plans. There are a lot of issues that will
require further study as we become more aware of the details but we will
be sure to fulfill our responsibilities to the employee union as well as
we move ahead with this initiative.

\>\> T. Garrett: Elaine, if our viewers and BLM employees have questions
about any of the decisions or other aspects of the Managing for
Excellence Initiative, where can they go for answers?

\>\> E. Zielinski: We have an e‑mail address that\'s been set up to
respond to questions, and that\'s managingforexcellence@blm.gov. So if
you have any questions or comments for us, please send them to us. We
will absolutely build them into the next phases of the Managing for
Excellence Initiative and as we go forward with implementation.

\>\> J. Dougan: Elaine, I would just like to add there that our team
received numerous questions and comments through the website as we did
our work, and we found that really helped us craft some options. So I
really encourage people throughout to continue sending in their
thoughts.

\>\> T. Garrett: Well, it\'s obvious that the three of you have all
devoted a lot of time and leadership and dedication to this effort, so I
want to invite you here as we near the end of the program to share with
us your thoughts about the potential of this Managing for Excellence
Initiative, what can it mean for BLM\'s ability to carry out its mission
and what can it mean for the men and women who are dedicated to that
mission. Elaine, let\'s start with you.

\>\> E. Zielinski: well, as was mentioned in the beginning of the
broadcast, I have been involved in this initiative for the last two
years, basically since the beginning at that national leadership forum,
and I believe that the Managing for Excellence Initiative as we\'re
crafting it and continue to craft it is really looking towards the
future. It\'s going to position us as an agency to better focus on our
core mission of public land management, and I think it\'s really
important to point out that it\'s not all about dollar savings. It\'s
about improving how we do business in the BLM so that we can focus our
employees and our limited resources on doing that core mission and we
can focus being a very productive organization and also giving some
opportunities for our employees as mentioned in the employee survey to
continue with that passion for the work that we\'re doing.

\>\> T. Garrett: Julia, your final thoughts?

\>\> J. Dougan: Well, Tony, I think we all understand that moving to a
centralized environment will be a significant cultural change for BLM.
For example, employees and managers who have been used to receiving
face‑to‑face personal services such as we get from our fine human
resources staff will need to learn to do business differently, and
they\'ll have to learn how to interact effectively with remotely located
staff in Denver. And employees who work in functions that will be
centralized may see their jobs and possibly their work locations change.
And also it\'s important to recognize that service levels may be
impacted during the transition. However, the long‑term trade‑off will be
better service Bureau‑wide. I just want to remind everybody, from my
view, the NOC will have one line of business, and that\'s customer
service, and that\'s what they\'re going to keep their eye on.

\>\> T. Garrett: Henri, what are the key points you would like viewers
to take away from this telecast?

\>\> H. Bisson: Tony, I think I would like to close by, first of all,
thanking Julia and her team. I think that looking at the National
Operations Center, developing all options for the team to consider was
probably the most challenging aspect of this project and all of us on
the ELT really appreciate what that team did. Secondly, by really like
to thank Elaine Zielinski and Mike Nedd. Mike is not here today, but
both of you have been engaged from the national leadership forum until
today in this process and I think the Bureau owes you a tremendous debt
of gratitude for the work that you\'ve done. The ELT in every state and
in the Washington Office has been engaged in looking at the
organizations, and they\'ve been working with their own state leadership
teams to devise how they would go three tier if they need to. Some
states came in and proposed modifications a little bit even though they
were already three tier. I know there has been a lot of effort by Bureau
leadership to deal with this. This is a process of continuous change. As
you\'ve seen today, it\'s changed since the last broadcast and it\'s
going to change some more before we finish. We really want to hear from
our employees as we go. I\'ve gotten some tremendous support and I\'ve
gotten some e‑mails from people who question the wisdom of some of what
we\'re doing, and I want to hear from both sides. I sent an e‑mail out
to one of the managers whose employee was concerned about what we were
doing, and I basically said, it\'s okay. You know, the Bureau is not a
democracy, but it\'s not a dictatorship. I think every employee has a
right to engage and to way in on the changes we\'re making because it\'s
their Bureau as well, and we want to make sure that everybody has a
chance to participate. We\'re going to go slow so we get it right the
first time. And we\'re going to go through this transition together.

\>\> T. Garrett: All right. Thank you, Henri and thanks to Elaine and
Julia for joining us today. Again, if you have a question or a comment
regarding BLM\'s Managing for Excellence Initiative, please e‑mail those
to managingforexcellence@blm.gov. We would like to mention you can find
a lot of background information on the Managing for Excellence
Initiative on the BLM intranet at the address that is appearing on your
screen. Also we\'ll be posting a transcript of this broadcast and NTC
will be posting the broadcast itself as an on demand videostream for
your review and for those employees who may not have been able to join
us this morning. That will be available on the BLM intranet from the NTC
Knowledge Resource Center on the NTC homepage. We hope you\'ve found
this program of some value as we move into the future by Managing for
Excellence. Thanks again for being with us. And so long from the
national Training Center in Phoenix.