Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
I forget the context in which we were talking at the time. This came out of our discussions
when you were deputy.
A:
Interesting comment. While I was at USACE headquarters, sometimes some people wanted
to get into execution, which basically should be down at division and district level. At
USACE we've had difficulty really coming to grips with what is our role, and what is policy,
and making the program decisions, and coming to be definitive in a responsive time frame in
the fact that resources have to go up and down hill, as I've described--that is, from USACE
back to divisions, and then reallocated and impacts developed from below, and then
communicated back up. I mean, you shouldn't dawdle over that kind of a process because
you forget, and then it all has to be re-explained, and then that's lost effort.
So, the more disciplined--precise is not the right word--you can make the process so that
each level is doing the right thing and have to address the realities, then the better off you are.
This really means for resources you want to allocate bogies, get the impacts back in, get a
decision at the top, communicate that decision back, ask for impacts, get the impacts back
up, adjust your staff level decision recommendation, send it to the decision maker--the Chief
of Engineers or deputy, whoever it is--to make the decision.
Dragging out the process doesn't usually make the inputs any better. What you really need to
do is to make sure you coalesce the folks to make the decision in a time frame that's right. I
think, as complex and difficult as the Army Staff process is, they do it right with Program
Analysis and Evaluation who puts it together, and they meet time frames because they get a
program/budget schedule from the Department of Defense and have to go back up in a
certain way and time frame.
So, Program Analysis and Evaluation gets the people together and they make their decisions,
ask for input, and have to meet certain windows. You don't mess with the process. If you
want to play the game, you'd better sit up and have a program and playbook and do it
because the defense process will leave you behind.
With the Corps, I think we have the capability of being a little more flexible in our process,
but then probably we get too sloppy at it and say, "Well, okay, so we didn't get it Tuesday;
we'll get it on Thursday." Then at the headquarters there is not the recognition that that has
an impact downstream in the division. When you do go back, then, on Thursday, maybe that
doesn't give the division enough time to develop their impact and turn it around.
So, the Army/defense system takes care of that by putting the whole calendar out and staying
disciplined to it. Everyone knows the key dates from the start. We're a little more informal in
the way we've done it in the Corps, and that leads to not always doing it in a good,
disciplined way.
Q:
Compared to other assignments that you had--not just Ohio River, but being a division
engineer--how did that measure up?
322
Previous Page
