Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the Blm National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, an
All‑employee Message from BLM Acting Director Tom Fry. And Now, the Host
of Your Program, Marilyn Johnson.

M. Johnson: Good Morning, Everyone. With the Promotion of Pat Shea to
the Department of The Interior, Tom Fry Has Assumed the Responsibilities
of Acting BLM Director. Since the Bureau\'s Executive Leadership Team Is
Meeting at the NTC this Week, Tom Wanted to Use the Satellite System to
Say Hello to Everyone and Share Some of His Thoughts with Us. Tom, on
Behalf of All BLMers, Thank You, Welcome, Congratulations!

Dir. Fry: Well, Thanks, Marilyn. It\'s Great to Be Here in Phoenix. I
Wish All the BLMers Could Be Here with this Great Weather You Have in
Arizona. It Is Wonderful to Be Here With You Again. I Did Want to Take
this Chance That I Have Here Today to Talk to Some of the Folks in BLM
about What My Ideas Are and What My Goals Might Be. But, First, I\'d
like to Introduce Myself. You Know, I\'ve Been with The Department of
Interior off And on for the Last Six or Seven Years, Had the Opportunity
to Serve as the Director of The Minerals Management Service, Got to Be
the Deputy Chief of Staff for John Garamindy, and Have Had Other
Opportunities to Serve Within the Bureau. As Many of You May Know, I\'ve
Been in and out of Government. I\'ve Been in the Private Sector. I Had
the Opportunity to Own My Own Business. So I\'ve Had a Pretty Wide
Breadth of Experience. Some People Would Say I Can\'t Hold a Job. But
this Is a Wonderful Opportunity for Me. I Really Appreciate the Fact
That Secretary Babbitt Has Put His Confidence in Me to Do This Job. You
Know, with Bob Armstrong\'s Retirement, it Opened up The Slot for the
Assistant Secretary. Sylvia Baca Has Assumed The Acting Assistant
Secretary\'s Position. It Seemed Only Natural That Pat Shea Would Move
into Sylvia\'s Spot and Become the Deputy Assistant Secretary, and It\'s
a Real Pleasure for Me to Get to Serve as Your Acting Director of BLM.
First, a Couple of Words About Pat Shea. You Know, Pat Has Jumped in And
Done a Lot of Things for BLM. Lets Just Take ALMRS by Way of Example.
Something the Bureau Has Struggled with and Dealt With for a Number of
Years. But Pat Jumped In, Took a Personal Interest in Getting Us to the
Point in ALMRS Where We Can Now Say We Know What Works, We Know What
Doesn\'t Work, And We Can Now Look to See What Kind of Program We\'ll
Have for The Future. So That\'s One of Pat\'s Great Accomplishments.
Another Is the National Land Exchange Team. You Know, Every Time We Do
an Exchange, Somebody Criticizes Us. The National Land Exchange Team Was
Formed by Pat in Order to Provide Some Protection For Those People in
the Field And Also to Provide Some Truthing for the Land Exchange
Process. It\'s Not Another Bureaucratic Stop along the Road But
Something to Help Us All Do Our Job Better. This Was a Vision of Pat\'s.
He\'s Also Jumped into the Wild Horse and Burro Area. You Know, a
Program That under Sylvia Baca\'s Leadership and Pat\'s Leadership Is
Now Not on the Front Page. Pat, You Know, Is Concerned about Good
Science. He Took That Good Science to the Point of Being Able to Save
the Lives of 12 Foals Based on the Fact That the Science Indicated That
Those Foals Could Be Saved. But it Took Courage to Do Those Things. Pat
Also Jumped in on the Employee Survey. He Wanted to Find out What
Employees Thought, What Was Working for Employees and What Was Not.
Those Were Difficult Things to Do Because Sometimes You May Not like the
Answer You Receive. But Pat Had the Courage to Do That. So on Behalf of
All BLMers, I Want to Thank Pat for His Service and the Things That He
Has Done for BLM, but We\'re Also Glad That Pat Is Still Going to Be
Around and Be Able to Work with Pat in the Deputy Assistant Secretary\'s
Office.

M. Johnson: Tom, Can You Share with Us Some of Your Thoughts on BLM\'s
Future?

Dir. Fry: Well, Yes, I Would like to Do That. Secretary Babbitt Was Here
Yesterday and Met with the Executive Leadership Team, That\'s All the
State Directors, Associate State Directors Were Here, All the A.d.s Were
Here, and the Secretary Spent an Inordinate Amount of Time Talking about
the Land, and Let Me First Say That the Secretary Was More than
Complimentary of the Work That People Are Doing Within BLM on the Land.
He Recognizes That We\'re Strained from a Personnel Standpoint, We\'re
Having to Do More with Less, That There Are a Lot of Requirements That
Continue to Be Placed on Us, but He Was Most Appreciative of the Work
That the BLM Is Doing and the Direction That It\'s Going. He Talked a
Lot about Our Duty to Protect the Land. I Take My Cue from the Secretary
in this Area. I Guess If We\'re Thinking About, You Know, Where We
Should Go from Here, I Believe There\'s an Opportunity for Us to Go Back
to Basics. Lets Go Back and Look at Those Things That Are BLM Core
Values, and That\'s the Land, That\'s the Health of the Land. I Realize
That\'s a Saying That\'s Been Around for a While, but it Really Is True
That What We Do as BLMers Is We Protect the Land, We Nurture the Land,
and We Conserve the Land. So as I Look at My Job, My Job Is to Provide
You the Tools, You in BLM, the Tools in Order to Do That. Now, There\'s
Lots of Things That Go on in Washington. I See Our Job in Washington to
Provide the Environment That Will Nurture You, That Will Give You the
Capabilities to Do the Work That You Need to Do on the Ground and as
Much as Possible out of the Political Environment. So I Guess, as I
Think About This, Marilyn, It\'s Really a Back to Basics, Back to the
Land for BLMers. Now, I Should Also Point Out That There Are Going to Be
a Number of Initiatives That Are Going to Come from Congress. We\'ve All
Dealt with GPRA. There Are Going to Be Administration Initiatives. One
of the Ones That I Think That We Will Be Most Pleased to Work on Is the
Clean Water Initiative. Those Are Going to Be Things That Are Going to
Be Administration Initiatives or Congressional Initiatives. We\'re Going
to Do Those. But What I Want to Do Is to The Extent That We Can Avoid
It, Have New Initiatives from BLM at the Washington Office Level. I Want
Us to Start Helping You Prioritize What it Is We Need to Do on the
Ground So That Every Day When You Come to Work You\'ll Know What Your
Job Is, Know What Your Responsibilities Are, And Hopefully Have the
Tools That Are Necessary in Order to Get the Job Done. As I Talk to
Secretary Babbitt about this Job, We Talked About the Fact That BLM Is
Doing a Great Job, and We Talked About the Fact That BLM Is Poised For
Greatness. I Think It\'s Not That We\'re Not Doing a Good Job. I Think
We\'re Doing a Great Job. But We\'re Also Poised to Take Another Step
and I Want to Be Here to Help You Do That. You Know, I Guess I See My
Job as One of Not Really You\'re Working for Me or People Working for
Me, but That We All Have Our Job to Do, the State Directors Have Their
Job to Do, the Range Con Has His or Her Job to Do. Each One of Us Have a
Different Place Within the Bureau. Every One of Those Equally Important.
We All Have to Work Together as a Team. So I Guess I Look at it as That
I Have the Opportunity to Work with and for You to Help Serve You in
Order to Make for a Better BLM. So It\'s Great for Me to Have this
Opportunity, and I Hope That I Don\'t Let You Down. Thanks a Lot,
Marilyn.

M. Johnson: Thanks, Tom. Again, on Behalf of Everyone in BLM, I Would
like to Welcome You as Our Acting Director. We Look Forward to Working
With You in the Coming Weeks And Months. Well, That\'s it from Phoenix.
So Long and Thank You So Much for Watching.

Announcer: to Help Your Office Participate in Future Telecasts, See the
BLM Satellite Downlink Guide and Visit the NTC Homepage on the World
Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet Address Is www.ntc.blm.gov. Transcripts of
this Program And Other NTC Broadcasts Are Available on the Homepage. For
More Information on Upcoming Distance Learning Events, as Well as
Traditional Courses, Call the Training Center at 602‑906‑5500. Or Visit
the Homepage. This Broadcast Has Been a Production of the BLM National
Training Center.