As DHS prepares for its first change of administration, a handful of career civil servants are guiding the transition—and the future of the department.

Since its inception, critics of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have contended that the agency was politicized to the point where it didn’t function effectively.

Concerns revolved around the number of political appointees at the young agency, particularly at the headquarters level, and questions about whether political connections have carried more weight than quality in key appointments. The worst example was former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Michael Brown, whose only professional credential prior to joining FEMA was as a top official at the Arabian Horse Association.

This year, DHS officials are acutely conscious that all eyes are on the Nebraska Avenue headquarters as it prepares for its first presidential transition since opening its doors in 2003. Next month’s elections will not only herald a new era in American political leadership but will also serve as a test of whether this agency can avoid the typical pitfalls of appointee exodus and a tediously long confirmation process while ensuring continuity.

“They have a mission-critical function in providing for the national security of our country. We have to have trained, experienced people ready to go, immediately and decisively, should a crisis happen,” said Frank Chellino, chairman of a panel assembled by the National Academy of Public Administration for DHS and the Congress to look at 2009 transition issues. Its July report, Addressing the 2009 Presidential Transition at the Department of Homeland Security, focused on the agency’s many challenges, not the least of which was filling vacancies among executive staff—139 out of 775 as of March—and making sure career people are moved into deputy-level positions at headquarters and at various DHS components, taking the reins until new assistant secretaries, and the DHS secretary, are confirmed and sworn into office.

Chellino told HSToday that over 83 political appointees are expected to leave DHS with the administration of President George Bush and that the panel remained concerned about whether the executive office, faced with empty holes and the biggest number of political appointees of any of its 22 individual component departments, was equipped for the transition.

But DHS officials insist they are successfully pursuing a “five-pronged” transition plan that includes filling vacancies and engaging in a host of intra-departmental leadership and gaming seminars to get all the components working from the same playbook ahead of the big changes expected next year.

They know that some of the biggest terror attacks and foiled plots in recent memory have happened during transition periods—whether it be the first World Trade Center bombing a month after President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 or the Madrid train bombings three days before Spain’s general elections in March 2004. Getting caught unawares would not only be bad government but could be fatal.

“We can’t call a time-out for six months, because the world isn’t going to call a time-out,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told The Associated Press last spring.

Looking ahead, here are some of the career people at the head office and throughout key agencies under DHS who say Nebraska Avenue will beat the wary expectations. They’re currently shadowing the political appointees and ready to step into the vacancy when the time comes:

John Torres: ICE man

John Torres’ resume sounds straight out of a movie script. He was a federal agent during some of recent history’s most dramatic events: the Los Angeles riots in 1992, the deadly 1996 attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the first post-Sept. 11, 2001, Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, the massive manhunt for the so-called “railway killer” in Texas in 1999. He served on an investigative team at the Federal Bureau of Investigation after 9/11 and participated in numerous other overt—and undercover— operations.

Having all that experience gives Torres—now at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—a firm understanding that times of transition spell vulnerability for the country and that the proverbial ball cannot be dropped while future assistant secretaries shuttle through the nomination process. “Because of what we’ve learned from history over the years, for those people who want to do us harm they will try to take advantage of us when we are most vulnerable,” he said. “They will look to the path of least resistance.”

As part of a revised “DHS Succession Order and Order for Delegation” issued by Chertoff in January, the majority of the top staff in ICE are now career people like Torres. He was promoted from director of the Office of Detention and Removal Operation to deputy assistant secretary for operations, right behind Assistant Secretary Julie Myers. Like most department or component heads, this is a political appointment and days in the position are numbered.

“We work together,” Torres, 44, insisted. He and Myers are bringing down the number of vacancies in the department and engaging in leadership conferences and “table top” exercises to game out responses to potential security events ahead of the administration changeover.

Torres’ area of operations is broad—the largest investigative arm of DHS— and no doubt represents some of the most hot-bed, controversial issues on Capitol Hill, if not for the whole American public. It includes oversight of the Federal Protective Service (FPS), which provides security for the nation’s federal buildings. The FPS has been under congressional scrutiny lately for a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report (www.gao.gov/new.items/d08683.pdf) that found that a reduction in manpower and lack of planning were leading to security gaps at federal sites.

He is also in charge of the Office of Detention and Removal Operations, which was in part the focus of a recent four-part investigative series by The Washington Post about health care in the detention centers for individuals who have come into the country illegally. The federal government’s ability to apprehend, detain and deport illegal immigrants effectively has also come into question, particularly in the current election cycle.

With the immigration issue having so many political implications, there is naturally a question whether a new administration—Republican or Democrat—will bring in an ICE chief with very different policy ideas than the current one.

Torres isn’t worried. “Ultimately, the law doesn’t change. People will question whether the priorities will shift.” However, the core mission, protecting national and public security, “will continue without a doubt” whether individual priorities change or not, according to the ICE website.

Alan Cohn: Policy

When a car bomb detonated in the garage of Tower One at the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, Alan Cohn responded as a New York City Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). Fifteen years later, after terrorists were successful in taking down Tower One and Tower Two in a second attack on Sept. 11, Cohn came to Washington to help reform and establish federal prevention and response policies in anticipation of more terrorism, more natural disasters.

“[DHS] is still young—we’re still developing,” said Cohn, 37. Cohn served as a rescue coordinator for the initial FEMA response to the 9/11 attacks, as well as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Between those times, DHS was born, bringing with it the innumerable challenges for its sub-agencies—from border patrol and customs enforcement to disaster response and transportation security. Cohn now helps shepherd policy that seeks to help DHS move ahead with coherent strategy and policy.

“Having worked on the operational side—and my operational experience pales in comparison to most people in the department—it’s important to understand what the needs really are,” he told HSToday.

In early January, Cohn was promoted to deputy assistant secretary for policy, overseeing strategic plans in the Office of Policy Development. He’d previously been serving there as director of emergency preparedness and response policy since December 2006. In anticipation of the big transition, the DHS leadership made Cohn the first and only career civil servant to serve as a deputy assistant secretary in the policy shop. They also made him the senior transition officer, capable of steering the department when the political appointees—particularly Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker—start leaving.

That’s important, because the policy shop has attracted the attention of critics and insiders due to its high concentration of political appointees. Until Cohn was shifted into his new role, there was no career staff in the top leadership, leaving it vulnerable to gaps and atrophy.

“Both from an internal and external perspective,” he said, “I think it’s very important there is some continuity of leadership in the offices that help the department act like a department.”

Aside from “shadowing” Baker, Cohn has been overseeing three major plans for DHS: the first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, the DHS Strategic Plan and the Strategic Requirements Planning Process. The first is congressionally mandated, due at the end of the current fiscal year, and focuses on long-term strategy, planning and priorities and allows for guidance on topics like the budget. The second looks at the five years ahead and assesses “goals and objectives.”

The final, the Strategic Planning Process, distills the insights and recommendations from the first two and puts them in “actionable” terms, said Cohn, noting that the policies provide a framework, as well as the tools for the various elements within DHS, to operate effectively in crisis. “What we focus on is what we’re trying to do together as an enterprise.”

What if the incoming administration were to seek radical change from the current policy course, still guided by President Bush and Secretary Chertoff?

“I think it would be shortsighted to think a new administration would not want to come in and put their own stamp on the department, no matter what party they are from,” said Cohn. “We need to document what we’ve done and offer a sound, analytical basis behind the decisions we have made and show that we have alternatives and options.

“The way the new administration reacts to that may vary widely, but the need for sound, forward-looking analysis doesn’t go away,” he pointed out.

Jim Howe: Legislative Affairs

It appears that Jim Howe is as comfortable navigating the choppy waters of Capitol Hill as he was for 11 years as a cutter man along the eastern seaboard for the US Coast Guard.

It certainly works to the advantage of DHS, which needs a career official with the dedication—and, no doubt, patience—of a military man in its legislative shop ahead of the next administration.

DHS’ Office of Legislative Affairs acts as “the single point of contact between members on Capitol Hill” and the agency, said Howe, 49. But here again, political appointments have left it more vulnerable than other departments, with 11 of its 36 full-time staffers political. Howe was brought in to fill a newly designed, career assistant secretary position to concentrate on making the looming transition—not only for legislative affairs but for all of DHS’ 22 component agencies—as smooth as possible.

“We don’t want there to be one microsecond of slow-down,” said Howe, who was brought on as deputy assistant secretary for operations at Legislative Affairs in July.

When the Legislative Affairs shop was established as part of DHS in 2003, it was outfitted for four political appointees in the top slots—the assistant secretary and three deputies. Depending on what happens in the November elections, Legislative Affairs could face a staggering lack of management if these top people were all to leave and the reinforcements were left at the mercy of a laborious vetting and confirmation process.

Fresh from a three-year stint as chief of Coast Guard Congressional Affairs, Howe previously served as a special advisor for the Office of the Vice President, dealing in border and transportation security issues. He spent a total of 27 years in the Coast Guard.

In addition to overseeing day-to-day operations, Howe will be expected to help shepherd nominees through the thorny confirmation process on Capitol Hill—lots of calls, lots of introductions, more than a little handholding. He will be seeking to have the nominee for DHS secretary prepared and ready for confirmation.

Until then, Howe said he has been “shadowing” Assistant Secretary Donald Kent Jr. “to learn everything I can from him. … If he were to step aside today, I would fill in for him right away.”

Gail Rossides: Transportation safety

Gail Rossides knows that for the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), January’s transition is a double test. That’s because not only is DHS expected to weather its first White House shift but TSA wasn’t even a blueprint when President Bush took office nearly eight years ago. Other agencies or components within DHS today may have been shifted around, renamed or split up or brought together when DHS was created, but TSA was made out of whole cloth and is only a year older than DHS itself.

“I was actually the third career executive that the department hired. I was there when they were there with a black marker and paper, putting together worksheets on how the agency should be built,” said Rossides, now the deputy administrator of TSA, the number two executive and the highest-ranking career staff member on the team.

She said it was a “wonderful opportunity” to help “build something that doesn’t have a 50-year legacy that has always been done one way,” and while she thinks the newness of the 50,000-employee agency presents a unique challenge in terms of transition, she also thinks the incoming administration will find some of those challenges potentially exciting.

“TSA is so new that, in some respects, we are still building the organization,” said Rossides, who was promoted in January. “I would hope that the next administration knows that what they’ve inherited is actually something that can very much be developed and nurtured and grown.”

Of course, that new administration will be also be inheriting one of the more controversial post-9/11 operations outside of the DHS itself. Since its inception, TSA has battled one public relations muddle after another, particularly in the realm of air travelers’ personal data being taken unwittingly from the airlines for security pilot programs, invasive checkpoint procedures and the ongoing issue over innocent Americans being flagged by the terrorist watch and no-fly lists at the nation’s airports. Calling the criticisms overblown, DHS and the TSA have nonetheless had to defend themselves against charges that their policies are not transparent, violate privacy rights and offer little recourse for unfairly singled-out fliers.

TSA has also been criticized for failing multiple covert screener inspections and for not getting proposed programs—like Secure Flight, which is supposed to improve the watch list screening procedure—off the ground sooner because of ongoing privacy concerns.

The fourth TSA administrator since its inception, Kip Hawley has been in place since 2005, and Rossides said he is providing the necessary direction missing in the early years. “We’ve really learned and grown together as a team,” she said of her fellow officials.

“The continuity of Kip for three and a half years as administrator, the whole approach to a leadership team effort … and maturing our processes are the key things that are going to give us a running start [in the next administration],” she noted.

Considering the role air travel security played in the 9/11 attacks, TSA screening operations are considered one of the first lines of defense against another terror incident. Though daily operations will likely feel no blip in activity when a new president takes over, it is important that Rossides be able to step into Hawley’s shoes during the transition. But the pressure will be on for the new leadership to hit its stride in key areas.

For example, TSA has been mandated by Congress to screen 50 percent of all cargo on passenger flights by February 2009 and 100 percent by August 2010.

Rossides, who before coming to the TSA was the first assistant director for the training and professional development of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said she is “confident” that not only is TSA ready for transition but it’s handing over a “very strong” head office with “the benefit of some real experience.”

“When the next administration comes in, it is my job to educate him or her about the tremendous value we have here. We have a very, very progressive leadership here, and it is very much about empowering the front-line worker. I think those leadership styles are behind the success we’ve had over the last several years.”

Nancy Ward: Disaster relief

The post-Katrina days for FEMA were a dark time. Not only had the agency taken licks for its relief efforts after hurricanes hit the Florida coast a year before but its response to flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina knocked its lights out.

Almost.

The forced resignation of Michael Brown led to a lot of finger pointing and questions of whether the federal government was capable of rescuing its own citizens after a natural disaster. “After Katrina, FEMA was, for all intents and purposes, broken,” Craig Fugate, Florida’s emergency management director, told The Los Angeles Times in April 2008.

But in the face of potential implosion, new FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison poured his experience as Miami-Dade County fire chief in Florida into changing the culture and rebuilding FEMA’s confidence and reputation. His “shadow” these days, Nancy Ward, Region IX Administrator (overseeing Arizona, California, Nevada, Guam, Hawaii, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas Islands), was one of the few FEMA leaders who were actually given credit—albeit a while after the fact—for trying to expedite assistance to the hurricane victims back in 2005.

In a report last December, the Associated Press said that in early September, just after the post-Katrina flooding, Ward ordered that money for individual recovery projects over $1 million be released within three days of their approval by the White House. Her order was countermanded by a higher FEMA official who said the projects must go through additional layers of scrutiny.

The result, according to the report, was that instead of three days, approvals were taking an average of 34 days—and as long as 100 days—before the money could be released, creating a “black hole” where all the projects were sent.

While the report said Ward stood behind her original directive, she has little time for debating the past. In an interview with HSToday just 18 minutes after a 5.4 magnitude earthquake hit Southern California on July 30, Ward no doubt had aftershocks and the ongoing California wildfires on the brain, but was happy to talk transition and FEMA’s fate, too.

“I’m very confident in FEMA. We’re been through an extraordinary last couple of years, but I think the leadership this administration has given us—Paulison and Deputy Administrator (and Chief Operating Officer) Harvey Johnson—have really set us on a very solid path,” said Ward, 52.

By congressional mandate, FEMA’s deputy administrator must also be a political appointee, so while Ward is “way down” on the totem poll in the FEMA leadership hierarchy, as she puts it, she was catapulted by Paulison not only to serve as a senior transition leader for all of DHS but to be his interim career successor when he and Johnson leave.

She certainly knows how important it is to have disaster plans in place and people ready to jump whether the new political appointees are in place or not—and she has served in “various management positions in more than 20 disasters,” according to her official biography. Her previous experience was gained in a state with no lack of natural threats—California—where she administered the state’s Natural Disaster Assistance Program.

“Everyone here has the same information, from each component level, on how we are going to get through this transition,” she said, speaking from her team leader’s perch. “In turn, we know how we are going to collaborate. It is very deliberate.”

As for FEMA, she said, “any transition is extremely important. It’s probably more important for us.” HST