What does mail delivery have to do with national preparedness and homeland security? At the simplest level, every person, no matter where he or she is in the world, expects to be able to receive a letter or package from anywhere else in the world right at his or her doorstep—regardless of the circumstances.

On another level, the US Postal Service answers to a formal list of federal requirements, including a host of federal-level response and recovery expectations. These include: Executive Order 12656; eight homeland security presidential directives; the postal and shipping sector of the national infrastructure protection plan and seven National Response Framework Emergency Support Functions. There are numerous other requirements, but suffice to say, USPS is not only expected to maintain continuity of its operations in times of emergency but also is clearly expected to assist many other federal, state and local partners in preparing for, preventing, responding to and recovering from all natural and manmade hazards.

Meeting these expectations and requirements requires the Postal Service of the 21st century to not only face but also embrace a new way of doing business for now and in the future.

Managing expectations

The expectation that all mail will be delivered means that postal carriers have to overcome a range of hazards, from road blockages to bridge collapses, aircraft groundings to technical challenges. Add to this the possibility of mail carrying hazardous material.

The size, resilience and past record of the USPS combined with the centrality of its services to the nation’s social and economic health further increase the importance of reliable mail delivery despite natural disasters.

Indeed, following a disaster, many people see resumption of their mail service as the first key to recovery. For example, after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, the Postal Service was one of the first and most visible signs to the public of some type of return to normalcy and restoration of government services. One example of this was the comment of Ms. Angela Sallis of Bay St. Louis, Miss., in an MSNBC piece in December 2005: “We are very grateful for our mail carriers. They have a difficult time these days as the streets are often blocked by trucks picking up debris. I have seen our carrier dodging forklifts as she delivers the mail on foot. You do not realize how important the mail is until you do not have it for over a month. I will not take home mail delivery or my mail carrier for granted ever again.”

As ubiquitous and important as USPS is, many of our customers, partners and even employees don’t fully understand it. Some people think we’re just another government agency; some think we’re a commercial business; some think we’re a monopoly. In reality, although we’re a government agency, USPS must run like a business, at least breaking even each year and doing so while maintaining quality and efficiency.

Commercial principles, government environment

USPS has been involved in, and affected by, every major hazardous incident in America even before 2001. Due to our size and reach, we are also, by default, affected by or involved in nearly every significant local incident. We have had various structures to carry out our tasks, which are now all placed under the umbrella of “national preparedness and homeland security.” The events of 2001 were especially significant to USPS since we dealt with threats and vulnerabilities that were rarely imagined before. During our evolution, we mirrored much of the nation’s efforts to prepare, while implementing other programs unique to our hazards and environment, such as biohazard detection systems.

Within the overall Postal Service, the US Postal Inspection Service is responsible for preparedness and homeland security functions. It has played that role since the 1700s.

Prevention and risk mitigation for crime, terrorism and all hazards resides within the Homeland Security Team. The three primary tiers of this mission are offices covering Dangerous Mail Investigations, Security and the Office of National Preparedness (ONP). ONP comprises Incident Management, Infrastructure Protection, Public Health and Aviation Mail and Hazardous Materials Security. However, ONP also includes another key element that helps bring competitive commercial principles into our government environment—performance measures.

Through the use of a highly focused programmatic plan, we are embracing the all-hazard tasks of national preparedness and homeland security, which in many other environments might be considered either overhead costs or cost avoidance measures, and assigning weight and value to them. We are taking stock of all the tasks involved in national preparedness and looking for ways to measure for performance and cost benefit analysis to achieve the required operational results. Operational continuity and constant safety and security of mail from entry point to exit point in the Postal System (for both customers and employees) are two primary results with direct operational benefits that also have monetary value important for the bottom line results.

Achieving these results in a cost-effective manner relies primarily on: a) improving and streamlining mail flow; and b) establishing clear standards for processes and procedures and then meeting or exceeding those standards through measurable performance. The trick is that security and safety must have defined values to make hard assessments when necessary.

Because homeland security is an enabling function for USPS, all the processes and procedures within it must also be scrutinized in a way to maintain or improve our high overall operational standards. Since our homeland security activities are also tied to federal requirements and have unique aspects from a business process standpoint, both preparedness measures and performance measures are used to assess and improve our operations. while dealing with emergencies and disasters.

As we devise metrics for each aspect of our ONP activities, our most obvious goal is maximizing safety and security, while minimizing operational downtime or delays.

Analysis

It takes many jobs to get the big job done and that includes preparedness inside and outside USPS, depending on the hazards being faced by all of us in government. We believe this mission can be accomplished with a “can do” attitude at all levels and applying continuous improvement techniques to homeland security programs and processes, such as those used in our own delivery operations and the operations of many other government agencies and private industries that now realize that, when it comes to homeland security, we are all in this together.

Here at USPS, we’ll not only be delivering the mail this hurricane season—we’ll be delivering homeland security, too. HST

John H. Bridges III is executive director of national preparedness and homeland security for the US Postal Inspection Service. He was the incident commander for the USPS’ response to the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Assets and transformation

USPS is an independent establishment of the executive branch of the US government that makes deliveries to about 140 million addresses every day. It is the only service provider to deliver to every address in the nation. USPS receives no taxpayer dollars for routine operations, but derives its operating revenues solely from the sale of postage, products and services.

Meeting these delivery requirements takes over 700,000 career employees, over 36,000 postal facilities and more than 216,000 vehicles. In addition, 9 million customers are serviced at post offices daily. This mail is moved using planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, bicycles, hovercrafts, subways and even mules.

This huge network of people and assets must also be protected daily, even while being prepared to continue mail service in times of national or local distress and ready to help out the general public with response and recovery issues that fall into certain categories.

For USPS, delivery, like response and recovery support, is a legal obligation. Given the business expectations and realities of Postal Service operations and requirements, USPS has committed itself to “transformation,” meaning dedication to continuous improvement. The Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act, signed into law in December 2006, is a key example of USPS direction and dedication to transformation.

The key tenets of the USPS transformation include generating revenue, reducing costs and achieving performance-based results through a customer-driven focus.