U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office,

http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,

U.S. Government Printing Office. Phone 202–512–1800, or 866–512–1800 (toll-free). E-mail, gpo@custhelp.com.

50–384 PDF 2010

S. Hrg. 111–663 

NOMINATION OF HON. M. JOHN BERRY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

OF THE

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOMINATION OF HON. M. JOHN BERRY TO BE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF 

PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

MARCH 26, 2009 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

KRISTINE V. LAM, Professional Staff Member 

THOMAS RICHARDS, Professional Staff Member, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 

Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JENNIFER L. TARR, Minority Counsel 

JENNIFER A. HEMINGWAY, Minority Staff Director, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government 

Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 4 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 5 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 6 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 25 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009 

Hon. Steny H. Hoyer, a Representative in Congress from the State of Maryland ........................................................................................................................ 2 

Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, a U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland .............. 3 

Hon. M. John Berry to be Director, Office of Personnel Management ................ 8 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Berry, Hon. M. John Berry: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27 

Biographical and financial information .......................................................... 31 

Responses to pre-hearing questions ................................................................ 37 

Letter from the Office of Government Ethics with an attached letter ......... 70 

Responses to post-hearing questions .............................................................. 71 

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 3 

Hoyer, Hon. Steny H.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 2 

APPENDIX 

Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, prepared statement .............................................. 25 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER

ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
(1) 

NOMINATION OF HON. M. JOHN BERRY 

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:27 p.m., in room 

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka and Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. This hearing will come to order. I want to say 

aloha and welcome to all of you. It is obviously a joyous moment 

for those who are here today. 

Today the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 

Affairs meets to consider the nomination of John Berry to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

Mr. Berry is a native of Washington, DC, and a graduate of the 

University of Maryland and the Syracuse University Maxwell 

School of Public Administration. 

Mr. Berry is a lifelong public servant. He currently is the Director of the National Zoo, where he successfully shepherded a 20-year 

facilities master plan for the zoo, which the National Capital Planning Commission approved in November 2008. He has worked in 

a variety of posts in the Smithsonian Institution, the Department 

of the Interior, and the Department of the Treasury, in addition to 

serving the people of Maryland while working in the Montgomery 

County Government and the Maryland State Senate. 

Of course, Mr. Berry also served as Congressman Steny Hoyer’s 

Legislative Director for 10 years. With your experience in Congress, 

I expect we will have a particularly cooperative and productive 

working relationship between OPM and the Congress if you are 

confirmed. 

I am delighted to welcome my good friends Senator Ben Cardin 

and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who are here to introduce Mr. 

Berry. We appreciate both of you taking the time to speak on his 

behalf and welcome your thoughts. I know you both are very busy 

and, in the interest of time, would welcome any statement you 

have now. 

I am going to call on Senator Cardin to begin, because—— 

Senator CARDIN. Senator Akaka, if I might, if I could defer to 

Congressman Hoyer. I think it would be appropriate for him to go 

first. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
2 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Cardin. At this 

moment, I would like to call on Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of the 

U.S. House of Representatives, a great man who has served so 

well, for his statement and his comments on John Berry. Congressman Hoyer. 

STATEMENT OF HON. STENY H. HOYER, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND 

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your warm 

welcome. I thank my dear friend, one of my closest friends in life, 

Senator Cardin for yielding to me. 

I am totally subjective on the subject of Mr. Berry. [Laughter.] 

I believe Mr. Berry is one of the most extraordinary, good and 

decent and able human beings I have met in my entire lifetime. I 

could end my statement perhaps at that point. Suffice it to say that 

I think he will perform an extraordinary service for the Federal 

employees, for the Obama Administration, for the Federal Government, and for the American people. So I thank you for giving me 

this opportunity. 

I first came, Mr. Chairman, to appreciate Mr. Berry’s talents 

when he served for a decade as my Legislative Director. You probably first met him in that capacity as you and I were seatmates 

on the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General 

Government of the House Appropriations Committee. We sat next 

to one another for many years, along with Chairman Edward R. 

Roybal, and your role on that committee was critical. 

In the role that Mr. Berry played for me, he was an essential 

part of shaping policy affecting all Federal employees, and the legislation that structures their salaries, Mr. Chairman, to this day 

bears Mr. Berry’s stamp. 

From the beginning of his career in public service, Mr. Berry has 

had an excellent grasp of the issues and challenges confronting our 

1.8 million Federal civilian employees. He has also proven himself 

as a highly skilled administrator. 

As Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget at 

the Interior Department, Mr. Berry won the respect of his employees and repeatedly stood up for government workers who were targeted for discrimination because of their sexual orientation. And as 

Director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, he proved 

himself to be an ardent conservationist as well. 

Today he brings together his skills in administration and conservation as Director of the National Zoological Park, as you have 

pointed out, the job in which he oversees a budget of nearly $40 

million, 240 employees and perhaps most impressively, more than 

2,000 wild animals. As director, he has dedicated himself to revitalizing the zoo’s facilities, as you pointed out as well, making them 

safer and more welcoming for families and attracting thousands of 

more visitors with such special events as winter’s ZooLights. 

He has also strengthened the zoo’s standing as an international 

leader in animal conservation and research. Those are just a few, 

Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich, of Mr. Berry’s many accomplishments. They speak to a creative intellect, and I would stop on 

that part of my statement. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
3 

One of the strengths that Mr. Berry brings to any task that he 

confronts is that creativeness, that flexibility, that willingness to 

look at things in a different way if the way that we were looking 

at them did not work. That was one of the great strengths he 

brought to my staff. 

I tell people that if there were 100 ways to do something and you 

told Mr. Berry each time that he went through the first 99 that he 

could not do it that way, he would find the 100th successful way 

to do it. That will be an extraordinarily important skill that he will 

bring to his directorship of the Office of Personnel Management. 

He has a dedication to service that those who have worked with 

Mr. Berry know firsthand. It was my privilege, as you pointed out, 

to work with him for over a decade and, very frankly, every year 

since he left my staff. And of course, Senator, I tell people they can 

go off the payroll, but they cannot go off the staff. 

I never really feel that Mr. Berry was ever off the staff because 

I worked very closely with him in so many different ways. I would 

urge his confirmation with dispatch. I can assure you that it is my 

view that he will make all of us very proud—this Committee, the 

U.S. Senate, the Obama Administration, and our country. 

I am proud of his leadership, his service, and every employee 

who has the benefit of his focus will believe that they have a true 

advocate, an able spokesperson, and a very caring person serving 

them and serving our government. I thank you for this opportunity 

to testify on his behalf. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Majority Leader Steny 

Hoyer of the U.S. House Representatives, for your statement. I 

really appreciate this. 

Mr. HOYER. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. I know you are busy. 

Mr. HOYER. I want to hear Senator Cardin’s statement. [Laughter.] 

I know it will be brilliant, and therefore, I want to hear it. 

[Laugher.] 

And I am very pleased to be with my good friend Senator 

Voinovich as well. 

Senator AKAKA. Without further adieu, Senator Cardin. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND 

Senator CARDIN. I really wanted to be here to see whether we 

had to hold Congressman Hoyer in contempt of the Senate. I am 

glad that his remarks today were aimed at Mr. Berry and not beyond. 

First let me just concur on everything that the Majority Leader 

has said about Mr. Berry. We are very proud of his public service. 

We thank you very much for your continued willingness to want to 

serve our Nation. We thank you, and we thank your entire family 

for the sacrifices that you make. 

Steny Hoyer is right; we have an extraordinary person who has 

the strong support of Senator Mikulski and myself. Mr. Berry has 

devoted his life to public and community service, and he has done 

it with great distinction. He has vast administration experience, 

which I think is going to serve him very well at OPM. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
4 

He has good judgment and unquestioned integrity, and I think 

that really sums it up. We have gone over his background. He survived serving as the Legislative Director for Congressman Hoyer. 

I know that was a difficult task, but he served with great distinction in the House. 

He has great administrative experience in several agencies, from 

the Treasury to the Interior to the Smithsonian. He served in the 

private sector in a non-profit with the National Fish and Wildlife 

Foundation. He brings, I think, the right package of experience to 

a very difficult job at OPM, and I wholeheartedly endorse his nomination and recommend to the Committee that we move quickly on 

his confirmation. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Cardin, for your 

statement. Again, I want to thank both of you for your statements, 

and before I call on our Ranking Member, Senator Voinovich, I will 

permit you the chance of departing. Yes? 

Mr. HOYER. I am sticking with you. [Laughter.] 

Always good to see you, Senator Cardin. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Before I call on Senator 

Voinovich, I want to welcome the family of John Berry and give 

Mr. Berry the opportunity to introduce them to the Committee. 

Mr. BERRY. Senator, I am very honored to. Thank you so much 

for the opportunity. I would like to start, if I could, with my sister, 

Maureen Raimo, and her husband, Arthur Raimo, and her two children, Anne Buss—her husband is a member of the Capitol Hill Police Force, sir, and is on duty today, so he could not be here with 

us—and her sister, Betsy Raimo, and her boyfriend, Luke Myers. 

My brother is here with his family. My brother, Joseph Berry, 

his wife, Jody, and their son, Thomas. And then my partner, sir, 

from Honolulu, Hawaii, for the past 121⁄2 years, Curtis Yee, as 

well. 

Mr. HOYER. Good planning. [Laughter.] 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, sir. Appreciate the opportunity. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. At this moment I am 

going to withhold my statement because we have an important vote 

on the floor, and the time is running on that. I am going to yield 

to Ranking Member Voinovich to make his statement. We will be 

back after recess, and I will give my statement, and we will have 

Mr. Berry give his statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH. First of all, I think it is a real tribute to you 

that Senator Cardin is here and your old boss thinks enough of you 

to come around and say you are a terrific guy, and the fact that 

you have stayed in touch with him over the years is a real tribute 

to the relationship that you have built with him. 

I have a great deal of respect for Representative Hoyer. We have 

known each other a long time. He is one of the good guys as far 

as I am concerned. 

It is a pleasure for me to review your qualifications. I am looking 

forward to hearing your plans for OPM. My experience as a county 

auditor, county commissioner, mayor, and governor have underscored for me the importance of human capital, and one of the 

things that I have tried to do, with Senator Akaka, to deal with 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
5 

our human capital challenges is to give the Office of Personnel 

Management the flexibility needed so that our agencies can hire 

the right people and retain and reward them. 

We know that there is room for improvement, and as I mentioned to you when you were in my office, I am going to expect it 

from you, and I suspect that Senator Akaka will also. After you get 

in the saddle, I want you to come back to us to talk about your observations and what needs to be done at OPM. 

But immediately, I think you really need to look at the issue of 

the people that the Administration is going to need in their respective departments to implement the stimulus package. Senator 

Akaka and I have asked the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) to come back to us with a list of the agencies and where 

are they in terms of the people that you are going to need. 

In many instances, the jobs will be short-term, but agencies will 

still struggle with the question of how to bring them on board. 

There are lots of flexibilities that are available to departments, and 

one of my frustrations, and Senator Akaka’s, is people are not 

using them. 

We really are unhappy with our hiring system. We are in the 

dark ages if you look at where we are compared with the private 

sector. 

We have a little break right now, Mr. Berry, because of the fact 

that the economy is so bad, and I think a lot of our Federal workers are going to want to stay on a little longer than they might ordinarily. But the fact is, things are going to get better and we are 

going to be out there competing for the best and the brightest, and 

if we do not have a recruitment or a program in place that makes 

sense, we are going to fall behind. 

So that is the end of my statement. We look forward to working 

with you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Good afternoon, and thank you, Chairman Akaka. It is a pleasure to be here 

today to review the qualifications of Mr. John Berry to be Director of the Office of 

Personnel Management. Mr. Berry, I applaud your continued commitment to public 

service, and look forward to hearing your plans for ensuring OPM and the Federal 

Government as a whole manages its most important asset—its workforce. 

My own experience as County Auditor, County Commissioner, Mayor, and Governor has taught me that, of all the things in which government can invest, resources dedicated to human capital bring the greatest return. 

Our nation is grappling with significant challenges—from the foreclosure crisis to 

record levels of unemployment. At the same time, our deficit continues to grow. Federal agencies are struggling to hire the workforce needed to meet current and future 

challenges, including responsibly allocating the almost $790 billion in stimulus 

funds and processing the backlog of 767,000 Social Security disability claims. At the 

same time, agencies must prepare for the retirement of many experienced workers 

to ensure their knowledge is not lost with their departure from federal service. 

The only way the Federal Government will succeed in accomplishing its many 

missions is if we improve our ability to recruit and retain a world class workforce 

and then recognize their daily contributions to improving government performance. 

Mr. Berry, you seek this nomination at a critical time in OPM’s history. Federal 

agencies are not fully engaged in strategic human capital planning. Key agencies 

remain at the bottom of the Best Places to Work rankings. Federal annuitants have 

been waiting for a modern retirement processing system since 1984. Individuals in 

need of access to classified information are forced to rely on antiquated systems. Job 

announcements make a poor impression on those who want to make a difference. 

As OPM’s role continues to evolve, its workforce must be structured to tackle these 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
6 

challenges. In addition, OPM’s human resource products must offer better value to 

agency customers. 

Mr. Berry, I look forward to hearing how you will lead OPM in tackling these 

challenges. If confirmed, I would ask you to report to the subcommittee in 90 days 

with your short, near, and long-term priorities; so we can assist you in meeting 

them on behalf of our nation’s public servants and the people they serve. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. I was going to interrupt 

him to say that I regard Senator Voinovich as a champion of 

human capital and so I am fortunate to be working with him on 

this and look forward to doing that. 

I understand we have less than 5 minutes left in a vote, so this 

Committee will be in recess for a few minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for being so patient. This 

hearing will come to order. 

Mr. Berry has filed responses to a biographical and financial 

questionnaire, answered pre-hearing questions submitted by the 

Committee, and had his financial statements reviewed by the Office of Government Ethics. Without objection, this information will 

be made a part of the record, with the exception of the financial 

data, which is on file and available for public inspection at the 

Committee offices. 

Before I left, I said that I would make an opening statement, but 

at this time, I will ask unanimous consent that my statement be 

included in the record. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Akaka follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Today, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs meets to 

consider the nomination of John Berry to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

Mr. Berry is a native of Washington, D.C. and a graduate of the University of 

Maryland and Syracuse University Maxwell School of Public Administration. Mr. 

Berry is a life-long public servant. He currently is the Director of the National Zoo, 

where he successfully shepherded a 20-year facilities master plan for the zoo, which 

the National Capital Planning Commission approved in November 2008. He has 

worked in a variety of posts in the Smithsonian Institution, the Department of the 

Interior, and the Department of the Treasury, in addition to serving the people of 

Maryland while working in the Montgomery County Government and the Maryland 

State Senate. Of course, Mr. Berry also served as Congressman Steny Hoyer’s Legislative Director for 10 years. 

The Federal Government and its workforce are under a tremendous amount of 

pressure. We are fighting two wars overseas and trying to guide the recovery of our 

struggling economy. People are looking to the Federal Government for strong, effective leadership from the most senior officials to the front-line employees. Having the 

right talent in the right jobs is more important now than ever. If confirmed as Director of OPM, you will be vital to confronting this challenge and helping agencies 

meet their workforce needs and their missions. 

Since 2001, Strategic Human Capital Management has been included in the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) annual High Risk Series report. Furthermore, GAO considers strategic human capital management as a critical element in 

18 of the 30 high risk areas. Successful human capital management requires real 

focus and bold leadership. 

As you know, Senator Voinovich and I have worked very hard on this Subcommittee to address the human capital challenges in the Federal Government. We 

have provided agencies many flexibilities, which too often are going unused. We 

must do more to make the Federal Government the employer of choice. As more of 

the federal workforce becomes eligible for retirement, we must look to the next generation of federal workers. A wave of new employees with similar aspirations, but 

different career expectations, is ready to take on the call to service. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
7 

One way to do this is for OPM to support competitive benefits for employees at 

all points in their careers. OPM must help agencies implement recruitment, hiring, 

and on-boarding processes that attract a highly-talented workforce. Another is to 

improve the federal hiring process. The current process is too confusing, too complicated, and too long. I believe the hiring process must be streamlined, timely, and 

informative to applicants while maintaining the merit system principles including 

Veterans’ Preference. Agencies must be held accountable for modernizing their hiring processes so that qualified employees from a diverse range of backgrounds can 

be brought on board in a timely manner. 

Managers must be held accountable for improving morale and productivity so that 

we are able to retain employees as well. I believe training can go a long way to support this goal. Earlier this week, I introduced the Federal Supervisor Training Act 

to provide initial and ongoing management training to all supervisors in the Federal 

Government. Agencies would be required to train supervisors on management and 

leadership skills, mentoring, prohibited personnel practices, and ways to foster an 

environment of fairness, respect, and equal opportunity based on the merit of employees’ work. 

As you know, last year also I introduced a bill that would have reestablished 

Labor-Management Partnerships. I understand that the Administration is considering reestablishing partnerships. I believe that this will go a long way toward rebuilding a collaborative relationship with employee unions and managers. 

The need for stronger labor-management partnership has been evident in efforts 

at personnel and performance management reforms over the last few years. Congress granted broad personnel authorities to the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, but these Departments’ efforts have been plagued 

by concerns about fairness, transparency, and accountability. Greater cooperation 

with federal employees could have improved the reform proposals and, importantly, 

employees’ perceptions of them. With a new Administration, we have an opportunity 

for a strategic pause. I am pleased that OPM and DOD are planning a review of 

the National Security Personnel System, and I look forward to those results and recommendations. I hope that you will work closely with federal employee unions and 

other stakeholder groups as you consider personnel reforms. 

In his address before Congress on February 24, 2009, President Obama called for 

a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations. The federal 

workplace should be a model workplace, and every federal worker should feel proud 

to work for the Federal Government. Civil servants should feel a sense of honor, 

duty, and importance to the Nation, and carry that feeling with them into work 

every day. In turn, I believe employees will work better, be more productive, and 

inspire the confidence of the American people in the work of their government. In 

this new role you will not only be the steward of employees’ rights, paychecks, and 

performance, you will also be responsible for inspiring the renewed spirit of service 

in the Federal Government and the next generation of federal employees. I look forward to working with you and hope that we can work together to address the challenges of the modern workforce. 

Senator AKAKA. Our Committee rules require that all witnesses 

at nomination hearings give their testimony under oath. Mr. Berry, 

I ask you to please stand and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give 

this Committee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. BERRY. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let it be noted in the record that the 

witness answered in the affirmative. 

Mr. Berry, I apologize for the delay. We had three votes instead 

of one. Please proceed with your statement. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
8 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Berry appears in the Appendix on page 27. 

STATEMENT OF HON. M. JOHN BERRY 1 TO BE DIRECTOR, 

OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich, thank you so 

much. I am deeply honored to be here with you today and appreciate you taking this time to hear from me. 

My entire career has been one of public service, both as an employee and a manager. I was raised to appreciate the importance 

of service and the opportunity for good that it affords. My father 

volunteered for the Marine Corps before Pearl Harbor and was in 

the 1st Marine Division at Guadalcanal. My Uncle Jack, for whom 

I am named, served as a Marine fighter pilot and lost his life in 

battle in the Pacific. My mother worked full time as an x-ray technician, but also served with the Census Bureau in her later years. 

It was the highest honor of my life when President Obama called 

to ask me to serve his Administration in this critically important 

position. I only wish my parents had lived to see this day, as it was 

their firm belief in the power of education, their love of country, 

and their constant and enduring love for me, my sister, and my 

brother that made this day and opportunity possible. 

Our country today faces many challenges. I believe that the reason our Nation has not only faced, but overcome, every challenge 

in our history is because during every one of those times, men and 

women of goodwill, keen minds, and strong hearts have always 

stepped forward to aid their Nation through service, both in government and in our armed forces. 

The civil service today carries forward that proud American tradition. Whether it is defending our homeland against attack, restoring confidence in our financial systems and administering an 

historic stimulus effort, ensuring adequate healthcare for our veterans and fellow citizens, or searching for cures to the diseases 

that plague us, we are fortunate to have the best and the brightest 

to rely upon. 

It is our people who are our most important tool in facing any 

challenge, and we forget that at our peril. I pledge to this Committee that if I am confirmed, I will, to the best of my abilities, 

work my heart out on behalf of the men and women of our civil 

service, both active and retired, and defend the merit system with 

the same rigor as Teddy Roosevelt. 

Just as he established a firm foundation for the success of the 

civil service in the 20th Century, we must today bring the same 

vigor to guarantee a civil service ready for the challenges of the 

21st Century. The pressures and demands on OPM are great, nearly as serious as those of its predecessor, the Civil Service Commission, which it successfully met in the 1930s and 1940s. 

I believe OPM and its talented employees are ready to rise to 

these new challenges once again. We face a new reality. In the next 

decade, there will be a significant increase in the percentage of 

Federal employees eligible to retire. We need to consider and craft 

creative approaches that will allow us to engage the skills and experience of our own retirees and the Nation’s aging population. 

At the same time, we must balance our response to this trend 

with training, mentoring, and providing opportunities for proVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:33 Oct 26, 2010 Jkt 050384 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\50384.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
9 

motion for the new generation entering and advancing through our 

workforce. The youth of today may not envision staying with one 

employer for the entirety of their careers. 

We need to balance and mix flexible benefit approaches attractive to younger entrants to the workforce with our existing more 

traditional model to appeal to the broadest possible range of workers. We need to reach out and attract, as I have said, the best and 

the brightest from all backgrounds and walks of life and recognize 

that in our fast changing world, we must constantly develop job 

skills through training. 

We must commit to training our managers as well to enable 

them to face the many complex challenges that confront us today. 

We need to expect the best from every worker, and we must ensure 

effective approaches to encouraging, evaluating, and rewarding superior performance as well as correcting shortfalls. In exchange, we 

need to provide competitive pay and benefits, healthy model workplace environments, and sensitivity to employees’ responsibility to 

their families and loved ones. 

Finally, we need to honor those who have served their country 

well, both in the armed services and in the civil service, by ensuring their dignity during their retirement. It is my opinion that as 

the Nation’s largest employer, we should be its model employer. We 

should seek to adopt the best practices for every piece of our 

human resource operation. 

One of the first things I would seek to do if confirmed would be 

to convene a good cross section of practitioners and thinkers from 

across the government involving the private sector, the non-profit 

world, academia, unions and managers who can help us define 

what are the current best practices in use today across the Nation. 

I look forward to learning from them what has worked well and 

what has failed, and I look forward to working with you and your 

staff to build a consensus for what might be possible in advancing 

our government toward the title of model employer. 

I ask for your support, both now and if confirmed, in the years 

ahead, as we seek to maintain the finest civil service of the world. 

Thank you, and I am prepared to answer any questions that you 

might have. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Berry. I will begin 

with the standard questions that this Committee asks of all nominees. First, is there anything you are aware of in your background 

that might present a conflict of interest with the duties of the office 

to which you have been nominated? 

Mr. BERRY. Nothing that I am aware of, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Second, do you know of anything, personal or 

otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from fully and honorably discharging the responsibilities of the office to which you 

have been nominated? 

Mr. BERRY. Not that I am aware of, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. And finally, do you agree without reservation to 

respond to any reasonable summons to appear and testify before 

any duly constituted committee of Congress if you are confirmed? 

Mr. BERRY. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Mr. Berry, I should tell 

you, much of what you mentioned in your statement sounds like 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
10 

what Senator Voinovich and I have talked about in the past, and 

of course, we look forward to working with you to implement those 

ideas. 

There are many challenges facing human capital management in 

the Federal Government, including addressing staffing shortages in 

critical occupations, modernizing Federal benefits, fixing the broken hiring process, and a variety of other issues. If confirmed, what 

will be your top priorities? 

Mr. BERRY. I think, Mr. Chairman, just to expand a little bit, 

when I say that I would like the Federal Government to be the best 

employer, the model employer for the country, I sort of shortened 

my statement. I hope, with your indulgence, the whole statement 

would be included in the record. 

I think of that as in each category of our human resource management functions, so if you break that into the traditional functions that you think of—recruitment, hiring, retention, pay and 

benefits, appraisal systems, discipline systems, retirement, labor 

management relations—in each of those we ought to be following 

the best practices. 

We need to put in place what works, and I believe that in many 

instances, the Federal Government may already be using the model 

practice. We may be the model employer in a number of those 

areas, but in other areas, there is no question but that we have to 

do better. I know that you and Senator Voinovich have been leaders in examining each of these processes and have put in place 

many great improvements over the years. 

Hiring is one function that is still broken, and despite all of our 

best efforts, the civil servants at OPM have worked very hard and 

tirelessly to put in place and to take advantage of new authorities 

which you have all given to the agency, but it still is an arduous 

process and often times we are losing good talent. We are not getting the best and the brightest because they have already been 

snatched away or hired to other positions. 

And so I think the first task is to determine what are those best 

practices, but it is clear that hiring has to be the first and foremost 

objective in looking at those practices to make that work better. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. You mentioned that you would like 

your statement to be included in the record. It will be included in 

the record. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, sir. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Berry, the Partnership for Public Service 

ranked OPM 25th out of the 30 large Federal agencies in its 2007 

rankings of the best places to work in the Federal Government. 

Strategic management and effective leadership were two of OPM’s 

lowest scores. 

In addition to your government-wide human resources role as the 

head of OPM, you will be responsible for improving the management and human capital in your own agency. How do you plan to 

tackle this challenge? 

Mr. BERRY. I think, Mr. Chairman, it is the approach—good 

management, I believe, works the same everywhere. It is the job 

of the director, of the leader of an agency, to lay out a very clear 

vision for what he or she expects the agency to be accomplishing. 

I look forward to doing that if I am confirmed. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
11 

You have heard essentially my vision today is I want us to be 

the best, the model employer for the country, and for the world, for 

that matter. Everything that I will do will flow from that vision. 

I believe that the strategic plan that would have to be put in place 

will have to identify clear and measurable steps, for which we will 

be accountable to the Congress and to the Committee and, quite 

frankly, to the employees, that we are making solid progress toward that ultimate vision of being the best, of identifying what are 

the short-term, medium-term, and longer-term steps that need to 

be taken to accomplish that, and then to go after them full bore 

with enthusiasm. 

I am a believer that a leader has to be a person of good cheer. 

I think optimism is the nectar of progress, and if you believe in 

your vision and you empower your people to work toward that end 

and hold them accountable as you go—regularly checking in and 

saying how are we doing, are we making clear progress toward the 

goals that we would set up for how we are measuring ourselves to 

be the best, the model workforce—we will get clear, defined progress toward that goal, I would hope, over my tenure. 

I think right now that is what the employees at OPM are desirous of. They want a clear vision. They know how important the 

mission is to protect the merit system. They know how critical it 

is to get the best and the brightest in. They are not defenders of 

red tape. They want to make this work right. 

My commitment to you is I will run to keep up with them and 

make sure that together we accomplish the vision that I am promising you today. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Let me call on Senator 

Voinovich for his questions to you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would like to follow-up a little bit on what 

Senator Akaka was talking about. The issue is how would you go 

about management and employee satisfaction? Are there best practices or agencies that you would visit that have best practices to 

find out what they are doing? I get the impression that you are 

going to go in, kind of look it over, and then do it yourself. Are you 

familiar with Linda Springer’s plans? 

Mr. BERRY. Absolutely, Senator. First, if I conveyed that I would 

do it myself, I did not mean to do such. A leader is a member of 

a team and can only go as far as the team will take him. Leadership is a two-way street. You need to lay out a vision, but then you 

need to listen to your team on how to implement that vision. 

I think Director Springer’s strategic plan was a good one for her 

period, and it has essentially come to its end. It needs to, as any 

strategic plan, be renegotiated, rebuilt in light of a new Administration and a new team. That needs to be done in concert with the 

other Federal human resource officers across the government. 

I think the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) panel that has 

been put in place is a wonderful model. Having the human resource managers and the human capital officers regularly get together would be my intention. I would be an active participant and 

the chair of the organization, convening it regularly, setting the 

agenda, listening to what the issues of the day for those folks are 

so that we can be responsive. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
12 

Senator VOINOVICH. What I am really interested in is the method 

that you would go about to review and improve OPM as the new 

boss. You have 5,800 working for you. What is your vision for the 

organization? What are you going to do in order to move OPM out 

of a place where the people do not feel that good about the management and where employee satisfaction is low? 

Mr. BERRY. The first thing you do is get a team in place, and so 

I would be working with the President to appoint a team. I think 

he has made three outstanding appointments that I am aware of, 

so far that I have been consulted on in that process as well, and 

if I was confirmed—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. Are you happy with those people? 

Mr. BERRY. Very much so, sir. I think each one of the three that 

have been announced would classify in anyone’s standard as 

amongst the best and the brightest in their fields. They are outstanding professionals, and I would very much look forward to 

working with them. 

Essentially, three out of the five have already been named, and 

my understanding is the remaining two are just on the cusp of 

being named in the near future and—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. Actually, there are six appointments to the 

OPM that are presidential appointments. 

Mr. BERRY. Right. Two more are ready to go. The third one is 

teed up a little farther down the line. But I think the goal is first 

to get a team together. That is job one. 

Job two is to meet with all of the employees, with the managers, 

with each of the units of OPM, get a firm understanding of what 

is going on in the agency and then have town hall meetings where 

you can meet with all of the employees of OPM to allow open access in terms of what is going on, what are the biggest issues of 

your concern, what do you think has been working well, what do 

you think needs more attention, and hear that, and allow accessibility. 

I hope that is not going to be a once-a-month event. We will have 

regular meetings if I am confirmed in this position, but we will also 

have other forums to accept information from all employees. We 

will have Websites, which are essentially open suggestion boxes, 

and the ombudsman role in agencies where I have been has been 

a very effective one. If people feel there is something that they do 

not want to stand up and put their name on, but it is still important and needs attention, they can go to the ombudsman and bring 

it forward. 

So my goal would be to throw that net within the agency, but 

you do not stop at the borders of the agency in my opinion. You 

have to throw that net throughout the Federal Government because OPM is a servant of the Federal Government. We are there 

to service the other agencies. 

And we cannot just be meeting with the CHCO panel. We need 

to meet with the secretaries, the deputy secretaries. I need to go 

around and meet with each agency, not only at the senior levels, 

but also to give the same opportunities to the employees there. 

What do you feel works in your agency with human resources? 

What do you think needs attention? 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
13 

I look forward to being able to do that. I think the Public Service 

Commission has done a great job with that. There is a lot of work 

that has been done between Grant Thornton and these committees, 

so you are not starting from scratch, but I think it is important for 

any new director, whomever you would put into this position, to be 

willing to go out and do the shoe leather, not to run this office from 

the office at 19th and E Street. The Director has to be omnipresent 

throughout the Federal Government, and it would be my intention 

to do that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I am concerned about that because the best 

way I think that you can help other agencies is to get your agency 

working the way it should in terms of management and in terms 

of employee satisfaction so that you can use your agency as a role 

model. If your agency is working like a top, then you are going to 

be able to service the rest of these other agencies in the Federal 

Government. 

Mr. BERRY. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. You are going to have to spend the next couple of years really shaping up OPM. If you can streamline the hiring process, just think of not only the change it will make in your 

agency, but what impact that will have on the rest of the other 

Federal agencies. The same thing with the retirement system. They 

tried to modernize the system, but we still keep the records for retirees with pieces of paper. 

Senator Akaka and I have introduced legislation to deal with 

people who want to work at the tail end of their career on a parttime basis where that will not interfere with the status of their annuities. In agencies where you are bringing on new people, it is a 

way to keep them in place and to get the benefit of their knowledge 

and experience. 

But I really think that your main goal is to shape up OPM and 

be the No. 1 agency in terms of employee satisfaction. Go over to 

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has the best record of 

them all, and say, what are you doing over here that makes a difference and can I copy some of the ideas that you have here in my 

agency? 

I think your idea of meeting with your managers is a terrific 

idea. I lobbied this place for 18 years as a mayor and as a governor, 

and I saw one Administration after another and the new secretaries came in, the deputy secretaries, the assistant secretaries, 

and all the rest of them, and it always seemed that what they did 

is they ignored the A-team, the team that was there, the team that 

knew what was going on, and rarely did they get asked how they 

could improve their own performance. 

That is the kind of stuff that I would like to see, and later on, 

if you get in the saddle, I think we will have you back maybe to 

visit with you about that. 

Mr. BERRY. Great. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. Mr. 

Berry, for more than a decade, departments and agencies have 

sought and been granted personnel authorities outside of a government-wide framework. Many have claimed that their unique missions require unique flexibilities. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
14 

This has created multiple personnel systems across the Federal 

Government, even within departments and agencies. Do you believe this is efficient and effective, or is a more comprehensive approach needed? 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, I think the Federal Government may 

be so big, I do not want to say that one size will fit all. I do not 

have any sacred cow, if you will, that I come into this with other 

than one principle and that is the merit principles, which basically 

say we should hire people who can do the job because they have 

the skills to do the job and we evaluate them by how well they do 

that job and nothing else. 

And that has to be the pole star. That has to be our constant sort 

of evaluative tool. If we are protecting that, then I think we can 

look at flexibilities and differences, but at some point, we have to 

be careful, and I think you raised this in your question, sir. 

The Federal Government does have to treat like employees similarly, and we cannot say to one employee over here who risked his 

life and is doing everything that he can to serve his country, to the 

employee over here who is doing the exact same thing on a dayby-day basis, well this person gets paid more than you do or this 

person is treated differently than you are. 

We have to be careful about that. I think there can be periods 

where there may be flexibilities that we can do fairly and legally 

and meet our constitutional standards. But we do need to periodically step back and look at it and say, is it still accomplishing the 

objective we want? Is it protecting the merit system principle? And 

is it accomplishing the objective we want of having the best and 

the brightest? 

And if it is, then we might be able to still allow those flexibilities. 

If not, I think we need to work together, the Congress and the Executive Branch, to look at these to ensure that there is fairness 

across the board and not duplication. 

Sometimes things are started with a very good intent, and they 

might work for awhile, but then over time they fall into the same 

bad habits, if you will, that the old system had. If it is not working, 

whether it be an old system or a new system, we ought to change 

it, we ought to fix it. It ought to work, and it ought to be the best. 

That is the spirit that I would bring to this. 

I do not come into this with any ideological bent of saying everything has to be the same or we have to protect everything that is 

in existence. We need to look at everything with fresh eyes and 

say, is it the best? Is this doing what we want it to do? And do that 

jointly. I know the passion that you and Senator Voinovich have 

brought to these issues over your entire careers; you have a wealth 

of experience and insights into these issues, and you hear from 

your constituents. 

We need to incorporate that into the evaluation of these systems 

and make sure we are doing the right thing. So, bottom line, Senators, if you confirm me, I do not come into this with any pre-disposition, no prejudice, if you will, other than accomplishing the best 

and what works the best. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. During the previous Administration, 

Mr. Berry, employee unions and other stakeholder groups often 

were not given an opportunity to have meaningful input into major 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
15 

policy initiatives. Having a buy-in from key stakeholder groups 

goes a long way to ensuring the success of any initiative. 

How do you plan to engage employee stakeholder groups and provide them an avenue to provide meaningful input into policy initiatives? 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, I think that is a great question, and 

I fully agree that we need to work in partnership. Labor and management need to work together to accomplish the same objective, 

which is the service of the American public and providing the best 

service to the American public. 

I have been honored to work at the Treasury Department, the Interior Department, and at the Smithsonian Institution. At each of 

those places, to varying degrees, I have been able to improve and 

enhance that sense of partnership. It is not a hard thing to do if 

you are willing to have open and fair communication. That is one 

of the first tests. 

My promise to both sides, both our management organizations 

and our labor organizations, is if I am confirmed in this position, 

there will not be surprises. I am not a shoot-from-the-hip kind of 

guy. I will bring them all in on a regular basis, and they will have 

open access to me. I believe our job is to also make sure that is 

going on in each of the agencies. 

We need to create that spirit of partnership, and if you have that 

open and transparent sense of communication and trust, then great 

things can happen. At the Department of the Interior, when I got 

there, a lot of the things that you all have been talking about today 

were in existence. The political appointees were not appreciating 

the career civil servants. There was not good communication between the political and the career side. 

There was not good communication between labor and management. And one of the things I did was to roll my sleeves up and 

say, this has to be different. We cannot work unless this is handin-glove. If you approach it with that spirit—by the time I left, I 

think anyone would tell you, whether they be on the labor side of 

the aisle or the management side of the aisle, that partnership 

worked. It worked well, and it produced great things for the employees. 

The morale went up. The sense of pride in mission went up, and 

quite frankly, the effectiveness of the agency went up as a result 

as well. 

So it is essential that we do well. If you give me this job, I will 

work hard at making sure that happens both within OPM and 

throughout the government. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for that. Just to go back 

to what Senator Voinovich was expressing here, if you can do all 

of this within your agency and make it work, then we can use it 

in other places as well. 

Let me call on Senator Voinovich for further questions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. As Chairman and now Ranking Member of 

the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the 

Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia since 1999, I have 

worked hard to enact flexibilities to ensure the Federal Government has the right people with the right knowledge and skills at 

the right place and at the right time. If you look at the screw ups 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
16 

that have happened during the last number of years, it is basically 

because we have not had those people. 

We provided flexibilities, and quite frankly, as I mentioned earlier, agencies have not used them. It is discouraging that they are 

available and they are not being used. That is where OPM should 

be out there talking to folks about why agencies are not using 

these flexibilities. 

Others, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), have received unique authority outside of Title 5, and it is interesting that 

they remain at the top of the best places to work rankings. 

What I would like to know is, what are your views on whether 

government-wide recruitment, retention, and relocation incentives 

should be continued, perhaps enhanced, or whether individual Executive Branch agencies should be authorized to establish their 

own personnel systems? 

Mr. BERRY. Senator, I think those are incredibly powerful tools 

and you and the Chairman and members in the House have been 

forward thinking in establishing them. The Federal Government 

needs to utilize them. 

You cannot get the best and the brightest unless you have those 

tools to compete, and you have provided them. We need to make 

them effective. We need to make sure that agencies understand 

that they have them and utilize them fully because otherwise you 

cannot be competitive. 

Relocation benefits is a classic case. I have worked in situations 

where before that authority existed, when the Federal Government 

could not offer that, we would regularly lose people because it costs 

$10,000 to $20,000 to move your family from the Midwest or from 

the West Coat to the East, or vice versa, and people cannot pay 

that out of their own pockets, especially when you look at the economy today. So as an employer, we have to take advantage of those 

flexibilities, and we have to make them work. 

I look forward to working with you. I am a big supporter of do 

not lose tools in the tool belt, and you have been kind enough to 

give them. If they are about to expire, I hope you will help us to 

extend them. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The security clearance process has been on 

the high-risk list since 1990. As much as we have tried to change 

that, we have not been successful, have we Senator Akaka? 

And there was a major undertaking by the four or five agencies 

involved, including OPM. 

Are you at all familiar with the work that they have done? 

Mr. BERRY. Senator, I think a great deal of that is classified, and 

so I have not been able to access it in preparing for this hearing. 

I can tell you as someone who has held five security clearances in 

his government service, the highest being Code Word, above Top 

Secret, when I was at the Treasury Department, there are major 

problems with it, and there are duplications. 

For example, in my own case, Sister Hilarian was my first grade 

teacher. After that was verified in 1985, I am not sure why Sister 

Hilarian has to be re-approached every time as if she has never 

been talked to before. So I can just tell you, my experience with 

it is it seems to be duplicative. Now I recognize we have to move 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
17 

with extreme caution in this area. The Defense Department, the 

National Counterterrorism Center, and the Homeland Security Department—we will have to work in deep concert with them because 

this is too important to mess up. 

You cannot screw this up. But at the same time, there have to 

be great efficiencies that can be achieved here, and I would look 

forward, if I was confirmed in the job, to working with all of those 

agencies to try to make it more efficient. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well at this stage of the game, the Department of Defense, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office 

of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Assistant 

to the President for National Security Affairs, and OPM have developed plans to improve the timeliness and effectiveness of the security clearance process. 

They have set goals for 2009, and obviously you have not had a 

chance to familiarize yourself with the details, but I would like you 

to do that, and I would like to find out whether or not you support 

those plans and those goals. 

Mr. BERRY. Yes, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OPM and the Army have worked to demonstrate electronic receipt of personnel security investigation results from OPM. I would hope that you would continue to work 

with the agencies to expand that technology. 

People are not aware of this, but the backlog of security clearances, particularly with private contractors, is costing us a lot of 

money. 

Mr. BERRY. It is huge. And it, quite frankly, is a vulnerability to 

the country, Senator, because if we do not have the right people in 

these jobs and the job is vacant because of the time delay, it could 

be creating a serious vulnerability in leaving ourselves open to 

something that we do not want to happen. 

So it needs to be faster. It needs to be more efficient, and my 

pledge to you would be that I recognize this is a long-standing 

issue. I know the attention that has been brought to this. A lot of 

people have worked on it. If you give me the job, I will add my 

skills to this and see if I can help bring improvements forward for 

you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I make one suggestion to you. Get a hold of 

the Government Accountability Office (GAO) because they are the 

ones that do the rating that informs the high-risk list. Find out 

what is causing them heartburn. I will not be around, but I would 

love to know that this is not still on the high-risk list. If you could 

knock that off the list, that is a big gold star. 

Mr. BERRY. Sir, I will work very hard on that. It is critical for 

the safety of the country and for our citizens, and so I would devote 

the attention and time and energy to this to see if we could bring 

that gold star home. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Great. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. Let 

me ask my final questions here, Mr. Berry. I think we agree that 

we need to make the Federal Government—and this is what Senator Voinovich and I have talked about—the employee of choice for 

the best talent in America, and you have mentioned that too in 

your statements. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
18 

According to a recent report from the Partnership for Public 

Service, government and public service are the most popular industries for undergraduate students. As the economy continues to 

struggle, the stability of government service becomes even more attractive. It is important for agencies to seize the opportunity to 

bring in top notch talent, especially to meet the pressing need to 

manage and oversee economic recovery spending. 

How do you plan to help agencies quickly hire highly qualified 

employees to meet current needs and to ensure that the Federal 

Government fulfills your vision of being the Nation’s model employer over the longer term? 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, I think, thankfully, OPM has already 

been hard at work on one of those. I think there are two critical 

positions, if you will, classifications that are essential to the success of the stimulus effort. The first is contracting officers. If we 

do not have good contracting officers, there is an awful lot of money 

that is going to be spent out there, and it will be spent poorly. 

We need to ensure it is going to be spent well. We have to have 

professionals doing that job, and we need them fast. And this is one 

where OPM has awarded direct hire authority to agencies. We need 

to look at what else we can do, and that is one where I think you 

all have looked at retirement flexibilities. 

Maybe we might be able to bring back some of these folks who 

have specific skills in this set for limited terms to help in these situations. So we need to do everything we can to get good, sound expertise into procurement positions as fast as we can. 

The second most important one, and it is critical, it is a great opportunity for us. My experience in both the public sector and in the 

non-profit sector is during tough times when agency budgets decline, the first thing that happens in the non-profit world is education positions get cut. 

In the public sector, the first thing that gets cut are human resource professionals. They always believe, and they believe it erroneously, that we are not going to be hiring people, or not as many, 

so we do not need as many people in our shop right now. So they 

whittle that down. 

Well then something comes along where you have to hire people 

fast and now you have a skeleton crew, and they are expected to 

preserve the merit principles and hire the best and the brightest, 

but to do the workload that is 5, 10, 100 times greater than what 

was expected of them when those cuts were originally made, and 

we need to rebuild that human resource function in the agencies. 

So my hope, if I am given this job, is that OPM can take advantage of this opportunity and develop a short list. In other words, 

short circuit the process. Create a pool of human resource professionals that they have already vetted, that they have done the talent search on, that they have allowed competitive examination and 

application on so that you can say to agencies, look, Secretary of 

Commerce, here is a pool. If you need a human resource officer, you 

can meet the folks in this pool. If you like them, hire them on the 

spot. You do not need to do anything more. 

Keep interviewing them until you find somebody you like and 

hire them and get them to work the next day. I think if we can 

do that with human resource professional jobs in this situation, we 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
19 

may be able to rebuild some of the damage that has been done 

throughout the government in our human resource function right 

now and put in place the people that we are going to need to rely 

on for all of these other areas that we have been talking about 

today. 

I think those are just two opportunities, two very critical, important opportunities, and as we find out through the process that 

there are others we need to address, we are going to have to jump 

in with that same approach. But kind of like, Senator, you were 

saying, make your own agency work. I think look homeward angle 

is a good practice. 

In this case, maybe we cannot fix everything, but let us say we 

fix two, and if we got those two to work well and work right, then 

we can use that as a model to move on to the next one and the 

third one and the fourth one and keep going and just hopefully 

keep moving forward, forward, forward. That is the spirit which I 

will try to bring. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Berry, one of OPM’s many roles is to help 

veterans—— 

Mr. BERRY. Yes, sir. 

Senator AKAKA [continuing]. Return to the workforce and find 

Federal employment and understand how veterans’ preference 

works. OPM has a website that serves as a resource, but I am concerned that OPM is not doing enough. How would you ensure that 

agencies use veterans’ preference properly and help veterans seeking Federal employment? 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, there is no more serious responsibility of the Director of OPM. Our men and women who put themselves in harm’s way to protect our freedoms deserve the absolute 

best service when they return. I will be a passionate defender of 

veterans’ preference. It is a wonderful program. It has been in 

place since the Civil War, and it has been an effective tool to help 

us reengage people who come back from serving their country and 

putting themselves in harm’s way. 

I believe we cannot just stop with the point system. We fail if 

that is all we do, is give them the points. We have to give them 

the training. We have to give them the accommodation. Many of 

these people are disabled. We need to put in place and make simple, for the agencies, the technologies and the abilities to employ 

these folks, and that can be done very centrally. 

One of the things I did at the Department of the Interior that 

I was most proud of was we created one center for disability technologies that any bureau of the Department of the Interior could 

go and use, and if someone came in and said look, we have someone who has a sight impairment or we have someone who needs 

a special tool to do their job, it was that agency’s job to work to 

find the solution. The Defense Department does a super job at this, 

and they would work with Defense, but sometimes in the government, we do not have the solution. 

We would go to the private sector to find the solution, and that 

person’s job was to find it no matter what and make it work. And 

then that tool was there that allowed us to actually bring the person who really was not disabled. My experience is, disability is a 

terrible term. They are differently abled. They often times have 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
20 

greater skills and greater senses to offer to us if we can just give 

them the tools to succeed. 

So I think we let our veterans down when we stop the process 

at the point system. We need to make it a full reengagement process, and we need to work not only within OPM, but within all the 

Federal Government to give full access to technologies, to tools, and 

to retraining so that we can get the best out of their services, and 

they can continue to serve their country in a civil capacity. 

Senator AKAKA. This is my final question. I know you will be 

doing a lot of studying and learning to get up to speed on all of 

the details of Federal personnel policy and the workings of OPM, 

and I am confident in your ability to do so. As you approach these 

new topics and issues, what will be your guiding principles in making policy decisions? 

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Chairman, that is an easy answer for me and it 

is what is the right way, what is the best way? My experience has 

been if you put those two questions first and foremost all the time, 

you will always end up further ahead than you otherwise would. 

I grew up in a house where, as I mentioned in my statement, my 

mom and dad were both Republicans. My brother is a Republican, 

and my sister and I are Democrats. 

We used to have very interesting dinner conversations, but you 

could not grow up in our household and not recognize that nobody, 

no party, no person has a lock on the truth. You get through that 

by being fair and open and communicating with people and striving 

to find what is the right way, what is the best way. 

And so through my experience, I think you have seen this, sir, 

over the 25 years in which I have been very pleased and honored 

to work with you from many different angles and capacities, that 

is how I approach every challenge. I do not look at what is—just 

because we have been doing it that way for 50 years. 

People wherever I have worked will tell you, the first question 

out of my mouth is always, wait a minute, what is the right way, 

what is the best way, and let us not rest until we find it. We may 

have to compromise along the way. It may be a bridge too far 

today, but we can at least be working toward it. That is the spirit 

that I would bring to this, sir, if you honor me by confirming me. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you so much for your responses to my 

questions. Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. We had a chance to talk about this when 

you were in the office. I have been very interested in performance 

management, and I notice that the President has made a big deal 

out of the fact that he is interested in performance. 

One of the ways you improve performance is by performance 

evaluation and letting your folks know whether they are doing a 

good job or not doing a good job, but more important than that, 

folding them into the management and setting some goals for them 

in terms of how the various parts of your agency are operating so 

they really fully understand the role that they are playing. 

There are three areas where we made some progress. One is the 

Senior Executive Service where we went to pay-for-performance. 

We also extended it to some of the technical folks at the agencies. 

I would really like you to look at that because in some areas it has 

been really successful. In other areas, it has not been as good as 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
21 

it should be. I attribute that to the fact that maybe they did not 

do the training that they needed to do for folks. 

The other area that we worked on was the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). As I mentioned to you, I know there is 

going to be an effort made to change the TSA system. I would like 

you to publicly tell me whether or not you are willing to objectively 

look at that system before you would recommend any changes in 

it? 

Mr. BERRY. Absolutely, Senator. I can make you that promise 

right here on the record, not only in that case, but in all of the 

issues we have talked about today. I do not come into this with any 

answer in my head right off the top. I need to approach these 

gradually. I need to learn. 

I need to meet with all of the relevant parties and agencies, understand fully the complexities that are involved in these issues, 

and see if we can find consensus and common ground as to, again, 

what is the right way, what is the best way, and work together not 

only with people within the Executive Branch, but within the Legislative Branch, with you and your staffs, in determining those 

issues. 

Senator VOINOVICH. There will definitely be a move to take TSA 

and put it under Title 5. We have had it from the beginning. I have 

worked with former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley on several enhancements to the system, and I would really like you to look at 

that. 

I also think it is important that you find out about the employee 

satisfaction with the system. There are always people that are unhappy with it. You say you are going to look at it objectively; I 

think that is really important. 

The other area is the more than 200,000 civilian employees in 

the Defense Department that are part of a pay-for-performance system. The information that I have received back is that it has been 

quite successful, although I will say that I am going to be visiting 

installations in Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, to again touch base 

with the folks there to see how they feel about it and so forth. 

I just think that from my experience in government from a lot 

of places, including as mayor and governor, this has really made 

a difference in terms of our people and their job and their job satisfaction. 

I have talked with Senator Akaka. We have not introduced the 

bill yet, but again, we are working on legislation to improve performance evaluation in all of the Federal departments, and it does 

not necessarily have to be done with pay. One place you ought to 

look is the General Services Administration (GSA). The man who 

ran that agency was Steve Perry; he worked for me when I was 

governor. He was head of administrative services. 

Mr. Perry went over there, went to work, and really put a good 

performance evaluation system in place. The interesting thing is 

that if you look at some of the ratings in some agencies that people 

get, it is like 98 percent. It is a perfunctory kind of thing. What 

happens, I think, under that kind of system is that if it is just perfunctory, then people just figure, hey, it does not matter. You will 

get around and you will see agencies where some of your best hitVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:33 Oct 26, 2010 Jkt 050384 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\50384.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
22 

ters are people who would like to be recognized for the job that 

they are doing. 

One of the problems I think we have in government, and I have 

talked to one person after another who have left the Federal service, is they say, I go to work for an agency, I work my butt off, and 

I do not get recognized for it, and others just kind of come in and 

do their thing. 

Do you understand what I am saying? 

Mr. BERRY. Absolutely. 

Senator VOINOVICH. It is really not good. 

I really would like to have you spend some time in that area because I know you are going to be under pressure to abolish the system. But to me, it is something that is important for the future of 

our country. 

One of the things Senator Akaka and I did was a little simple 

thing like enhancing leave time for mid-career professionals entering the government. Employees are interested in knowing, if I come 

to work for an agency, is it going to be that much different than 

the kind of environment that I experienced in the private sector? 

Mr. BERRY. Senator, you have hit on many points there, and if 

I could just comment on a couple. We have to expect the best, and 

we have to figure out ways to deliver it. Appraisal systems are one 

of the toughest things. 

I think it goes to human nature, whether you are a parent or in 

whatever capacity, no one wants to be the deliverer and bearer of 

bad news. Parents are slow to discipline their kids often because 

they are afraid, oh, how are they going to take it? How is this going 

to impact them? 

Managers are just the same, and consequently they put it off. 

Often times we put people in management jobs or they are promoted up over time. One day they come in, we say OK, you are a 

manager, and we give them absolutely no training. And here is this 

person who is thrown into this complex environment of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) that is extremely complicated, appraisal systems that they are not given any training on whatsoever, no matter how important it is. 

And they are expected to manage. And so consequently, they fall 

back to what is traditional human nature, which is, try to make 

everybody happy. In appraisal systems, you cannot make everybody 

happy. My experience in the Federal Government is 99.5 percent 

of the employees are top notch, outstanding. But just as in the private sector, there are problem employees, and if somebody is not 

doing their job, if they are not performing up to the standard, it 

is demoralizing to everybody to see that, and it has to be dealt 

with. 

They have to be addressed, and we have to do that through fair 

appraisal systems so that if people are not doing the job and they 

are not meeting those core responsibilities, they should be removed, 

and we need to be clear about that. We need to expect the best. 

We need to ensure the American people that we are getting the 

best. 

We have to figure out how to do that in a way that recognizes 

that core human right, which is considered sort of like a human 

flaw, if you will, that we are afraid to tell people when they are 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
23 

doing the wrong thing or they are heading in the wrong direction. 

We need to let our managers know, in fact, you are helping that 

person. 

There are people who I have had to do that with, where I have 

had to say, look, you are on the wrong road and if you cannot get 

on the right road, you had better be updating your resume, it has 

gotten to be that serious, and I will work with you on this, but you 

need to know, I am taking this seriously now and I am watching. 

Twice people have come back to me in later years and said, 

thank you. Your doing that focused me. I did not realize I should 

have been doing these things. It is a manager’s responsibility to 

bring those out, and in fact, people will welcome it. 

It will make us achieve that goal of expecting the best. It is a 

tough one, and I do not know of anybody who has nailed it. So it 

is one of the things I look forward to in doing this, with the Defense Department, TSA, and other agencies. I do not come into this 

with any predetermined belief or any commitment to anybody on 

these issues. I will come into them with a fair mind and look. 

And if it is working and it is right, then we ought to ask, can 

we translate that? Can we transfer that? Can we expand on that? 

If we cannot, and if it is not working, then let us fix it and let us 

figure out what will work. 

But it is a tough one, and appraisals are tough. It has to be done. 

We have to figure out a way to do this and do it fairly so that it 

is not misused or abused; I am not defending that. But people need 

to know that their performance standards are set, they are agreed 

on with management, they are held accountable to them, and they 

are regularly checked and evaluated on that. 

And that should be not just for employees in the Defense Department and TSA. It needs to be for every employee in the Federal 

Government. And we need to make that work and work well because that is the only way we are going to be able to guarantee to 

the public that they are getting the best. 

Senator VOINOVICH. If you can do that in your shop, you will be 

able to lead by example. 

Mr. BERRY. I will do my best, sir, if you give me the job. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. Mr. 

Berry, there are no further questions at this time. There may be 

additional questions for the record, which we will submit to you in 

writing. 

The hearing record will remain open until the close of business 

tomorrow for Members of this Committee to submit additional 

statements or questions. I know you are anxious for your nomination to move forward. It is my hope that the Committee will vote 

on your nomination in the very near future and that it will be considered expeditiously by the full Senate. 

So with that, thank you very much for your patience, and for 

your family being here, and the extended family as well. This hearing is adjourned. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Whereupon, at 4:29 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER

ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
(25) 

A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

I am pleased our Committee has the opportunity today to welcome M. John Berry, 

nominated to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management. Mr. Berry has 

spent most of his career managing people and programs in the Federal Government, 

and he appears to be well qualified to serve in the position to which he has been 

nominated. 

Having come from a family dedicated to public service—with a father and uncle 

who fought in World War II and a mother who worked for the Census Bureau— 

Mr. Berry learned from an early age about the dedication, intelligence, and commitment of those who make a career in service. 

Mr. Berry has a record of success on federal employee issues from the policy, management, and employee perspectives. He started his federal career as the Legislative 

Director for Rep. Steny Hoyer, handling major legislative initiatives on the federal 

workforce. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Law Enforcement for the 

Department of Treasury. Then at the Department of the Interior, Mr. Berry served 

as the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget. For the past four 

years, he has been Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological 

Park. In these positions, Mr. Berry received hands-on experience managing tens of 

thousands of employees in a wide range of occupations and circumstances. He has 

overseen major capital projects and launched several innovative initiatives for training and overseeing the work of employees and managers and to improve work life 

conditions at the workplace. 

Throughout his career, Mr. Berry has worked successfully to improve employee 

morale and workplace productivity. He helped design the landmark legislation governing the structure of the pay system for federal employees and created an agency 

university for employee and manager training. And he has always worked to ensure 

an open line of communication between management and employees. 

As head of OPM, Mr. Berry would be responsible not only for the 4,800 employees 

under his direct supervision. He would set the human capital agenda for the entire 

federal workforce at a critical time, as we work to restore confidence in government, 

create the next generation of leaders as senior employees retire, and hire and retain 

a talented and dedicated workforce. Mr. Berry will also face looming human capital 

challenges. Many in the federal workforce are aging and nearing retirement. At the 

same time, many job-seekers complain about the tedious process of finding and applying for federal jobs, as well as the length of time it takes to get through the hiring process. 

The Federal Government has long been a leader in areas such as flextime, maternity and paternity leave and anti-discrimination rules. Despite this, employees often 

do not take advantage of existing policies, as a 2008 Government Accountability Report pointed out. I am pleased that Mr. Berry has said he would address these 

issues to help make the Federal Government an attractive option for job-seekers and 

to keep it an attractive option for current employees. 

Once again, I would like to offer my congratulations to Mr. Berry on his nomination, commend him on his record at the highest levels of government, and thank 

him for his agreement to take on these new responsibilities and challenges at the 

Office of Personnel Management. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
26 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR BARBARA A. MIKULSKI 

I strongly recommend John Berry for the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). John has been an extraordinary Federal employee for nearly 20 

years serving as a manager from day one. 

I first met John when he was Legislative Director for now House Majority Leader 

Steny Hoyer. Back in those days, John handled Federal employee issues and was 

the lead staff on the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act. From the Maryland 

Congressional Delegation, John moved to the Executive Branch serving in various 

management positions at the Smithsonian Institute and the U.S. Departments of 

Treasury and Interior. 

As the Senator from Maryland, I represent 130,000 Federal employees: from 

Nobel Prize winners at NIH to the Coast Guard who are protecting Calvert Cliffs’ 

nuclear plant. Federal employees are on the front lines working hard every day. 

They guard our borders and protect Americans at home: our Nation, our communities, and our way of life. Whether it is a claims processor at Social Security making sure seniors get the benefits they have earned, a weather forecaster at NOAA 

giving farmers the information they need to feed America, or an administrative assistant at the Department of Defense supporting our military, Federal employees 

are dedicated and duty driven. And I know John will lead them well. 

There is no doubt that John has the resume for this job. But what makes him 

the best candidate is John’s positive and enthusiastic attitude. This is something 

those of you that do not know John cannot gleam from his resume. 

John has my full support and confidence. He will bring new ideas, energy and expertise to OPM. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of his nomination. 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER
27 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.007
28 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.008
29 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.009
30 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.010
31 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.011
32 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.012
33 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.013
34 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.014
35 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.015
36 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.016
37 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.017
38 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.018
39 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.019
40 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.020
41 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.021
42 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.022
43 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.023
44 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.024
45 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.025
46 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.026
47 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.027
48 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.028
49 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.029
50 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.030
51 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.031
52 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.032
53 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.033
54 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.034
55 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.035
56 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.036
57 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.037
58 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.038
59 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.039
60 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.040
61 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.041
62 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.042
63 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.043
64 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.044
65 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.045
66 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.046
67 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.047
68 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.048
69 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.049
70 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.050
71 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.051
72 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.052
73 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.053
74 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.054
75 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.055
76 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.056
77 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.057
78 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.058
79 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.059
80 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.060
81 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.061
82 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.062
83 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.063
84 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.064
85 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.065
86 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.066
87 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.067
88 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.068
89 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.069
90 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.070
91 

Æ 


ph44585 on D330-44585-7600 with DISTILLER50384.071