…I want you to figure out HOW we do something.
Those words spoken by President Obama today sent chills up my spine. I’ll explain why in a moment. He said them today while speaking extemporaneously to workers at the headquarters of the American Red Cross while talking about the recovery from the impacts of Hurricane Sandy. Here is more of what he said (the added emphasis is mine):
Obviously we are now moving into the recovery phase in a lot of the most severely affected areas. New Jersey and New York in particular have been pounded by the storm. […]
This is mostly a local responsibility and the private utilities are going to have to lean forward, but we are doing everything we can to provide them additional resources so that we can expedite getting power up and running in many of these communities.
In places like Newark New Jersey, for example, where you’ve got 80-90 percent of the people without power. We can’t have a situation where that lasts for days on end.
And so my instructions to the federal agencies has been — do not figure out why you can’t do something, I want you to figure out HOW we do something.
The last sentence is almost exactly word-for-word what Incident Commander Rick Gale used to tell his Command and General Staff. I heard him say it many times in strategy and planning meetings on incidents. Rick, who passed away in 2009, had been an icon in interagency fire management and in the National Park Service for decades. He was one of the first Type 1 Incident Commanders and Area Commanders, was Chief Ranger at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area north of Los Angeles, Chief Ranger of the National Park Service, and the National Fire Management Officer for the National Park Service.
Many firefighters have can-do personalities, and that defined Rick perfectly. They will figure out how to get things done — usually safely, and usually within the rules. But they will get things done if it is for the betterment of the public and the agency.
When I heard Rick say those words, it sent chills up my spine. I served with him for several years as the Planning Section Chief on the National Park Service’s Type 1 All-Risk Incident Management Team. We were only assigned to the largest and most complex incidents, and frequently we had to do big things on big incidents. Agency employees in Administration, Human Resources, and Procurement are not used to doing big things quickly, but usually we needed to get them done in a hurry. Road blocks were common, but Rick implored us and the folks we ran up against to make it happen — to figure out not why you CAN’T do something, but figure out HOW to get it done.
We had remarkable success in accomplishing big things quickly.
I remember it like it was yesterday. We were helping the four National Parks in south Florida recover from the effects of Hurricane Andrew which hit the Florida coast August 24, 1992 as a Category 5 storm with 155 mph winds. The exact wind speed was difficult to determine because the hurricane literally destroyed the National Weather Service’s anemometers.
We had many challenges to deal with of course, but one, for example, was restoring electrical power and telephone service to Flamingo (map), a remote area of the park that had a visitor center, employee housing, and administrative facilities 38 miles southeast of park headquarters at the extreme southern tip of Florida. The power and phone lines had been destroyed by the hurricane and we wanted to repair them, but Rick thought, well, what about the NEXT hurricane? Are we going to have to do it all over again? So we brought in experts to draw up the design and specifications for an underground power line from the border of the park all the way, 38+ miles, to Flamingo. And not only that, we threw in a fiber optic line as well, to provide phone and internet service, which would also be buried and hurricane-proof.
This could not be done cheaply, of course, and pencil pushers in Washington were telling us it could be many months or years, if ever, that approval and the funds could be found to do something like that. But Rick kept pushing everyone — do not tell me why you can’t do it, I want you to figure out HOW we do it. Marcia Blazak, the Finance Section Chief, was used to working with Rick, and the two of them were an unstoppable force.
It cost about $9 million. And it was done quickly, in a matter of weeks.
When it comes to the federal bureaucracy and barriers to efficient and effective federal response, I’d vote for the first Presidential candidate who has the balls to break down all of the barriers and END POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS to the USFS, BLM, NPS, FEMA, etc.
The federal govt. is a mess of conflicting missions and direction.
The folks promoted from the ground up have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to lead the agencies… The political appointees??… NOT SO MUCH.
Asking for such an abrupt change in course as “…I want you to figure out HOW we do something” SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE WELL BEFORE ANY ACTUAL EMERGENCY.
IMHO
Ken, you said:
As you know, managing an emergency takes a combination of planning, managing what can be routine issues for an experienced incident management team, and dealing with emerging non-routine issues that cannot be anticipated or planned for. Complex non-fire incidents, such as haz-mat, hurricanes, and floods, have more issues that can’t be anticipated than fires. No amount of planning can anticipate every issue that develops, especially in all-hazard or all-risk incidents.
Some individuals, managers, and incident management teams are more successful than others in “figuring out HOW we do something”. If they are timid, under-trained, unable to learn, inexperienced, or if they are suppressed by uncooperative supervisors, pencil pushers, or agency administrators, they will have difficulty dealing with unexpected, complex issues.
Speaking of “getting things done,” after the South Canyon disaster, Chief Jack Ward Thomas saw to it that the kids were properly taken home. He ordered that they should be flown home in a USFS jumper ship, a DC-3, and that they were to be accompanied by a Regional Forester. That aircraft (J-42) was officially retired last week in Ogden. I sent JWT a photo of the ship and he told me: I WAS WARNED THAT IT WAS AN UNJUSTIFIABLE EXPENSE AND I WOULD BE LIABLE IF THERE WAS A PROBLEM. I DID IT ANYWAY. THERE WAS NO PROBLEM.
Sure, while the rest of us worked our asses off you ICP folks just lounged around. Sure do miss Rick. I don’t think he would like the process driven NPS of today.
Bill Blake Branch 1
Bill,
Thanks for posting this. It’s a little off your usual wildfire focus, but that’s what I like about your blog. It’s apparent that this touched an emotional chord for you and you communicated it well. All of us need to remember that to be successful in anything we need to figure out “How to do things.”
I had the pleasure of working with Rick when he was assigned California IMT-4 as his Deputy. When he promoted to Boise, I took over the team and on the Yellowstone Fires, Rick was Area Commander, he assigned us the North Fork Fire. That was the one that overran Old Faithful… I have so many great memories of working with him.
I was Ricks AOBD during the 80’s. He was a great leader and always enjoyed my time working for him. We fought fires from Florida to Hawaii and every where in between. Miss those days.
On the photo the unknowen information person, PIO is Pat Tolle, (deceased) a long time Everglades Public Affairs person who localy was a legend in her own right. She was one of the VERY few NPS PIOs who was honest, stright foward and able to get to know local media and reporters to the point they had a wonderful, honest and trusting relation ship. It generated a great deal of good press for the park and she was very well respected for her role with the local community.
I was working in EVER when the storm hit and Ricks Type 1 team was the right group at the right time. We struggled desperately along for about 48 hours till it arrived. After the first employees meeting with them everone knew we were in the right hands. They reached far outside the limited, conservative,archaic evenlope of traditional NPS thinking and bureaucrary accomplishing some very incredible things to help the park in its recovery. From EVER employees point of view you will allways be our Andrew heros.
And yes, figuring out “How to do things” was a very valuable lesson learned from him.
Thanks BMorgan, for the information and the kind words. I added Pat’s name to the photo caption.