FCC Hiring Associate Managing Director New Media None Too Soon

The above job posting, DEU-OMD-2010-0008, can be found on the FCC website.  The job description reads 

"As the Associate Managing Director New Media, the incumbent is charged with managing the Agency's new media efforts including responsibility for the Commission's web design, information and data architecture, data transparency and search operations. Advises the Managing Director and Chairman and Commissioners, on matters pertaining to new media issues.  The work involves identifying, planning, designing and recommending actions that will contribute to changing the existing systems and technologies into integrated enterprise systems that support the Commission's strategic goals and policies.  Oversees and leads the revitalizing and re-tooling of web and search services to increase participation and communications through the Agency's web site and other network services. Manages a team of data and web application developers in the execution of this effort.  Initiates and/or is apprised of all FCC's data transparency and web system architecture projects and assignments and advises the Managing Director on matters of major concern.  Coordinates routing matters and projects among the New Media and Technology staff where such coordination is required and in the day-to-day relationships acts for with the full confidence of the Managing Director.  Formulates, develops and implements policies, standards, criteria and guidelines for the implementation of online media initiatives; and defends the Agency's position on key/critical policy initiatives and issues.  Formulates, develops, recommends and implements long-range strategic plans for the evolution of the Agency's overall web design, information transparency, and open data initiatives.  Plans, manages and conducts comprehensive risk analysis and assessments of critical systems operations, to identify and quantify threats to the integrity and security of sensitive new media technology resources. Conducts continuous evaluations of the Commission's business needs by ensuring that the Agency can use the internet and other new media tools to broaden and strengthen the Agency's reach and presence.  Represents the Agency in conferences, planning and briefing sessions, etc., relative to plans and policies affecting new media technology." (Emphasis added)

Of course, it is almost impossible to read on the website itself because the text keep rolling on and on without a return (viewed in both Firefox and Google Chrome).  Thus new leadership for the website part of the FCC is desperately needed.  Note also who several fonts are used on this page without any particular logic.  Note the special instructions for "ICTAP eligible candidates" without any indication what that refers to.

Finally, since you have gotten this far on the web site, note that there are no vacancies listed for any entry level employees, engineers or otherwise.  This no doubt means that FCC has yet to start any college campus recruiting.  This is not the first time I have written about recruiting at FCC.  

FCC's ambivalence about recruiting top new graduates probably comes from budget watchers who don't want to do any recruiting until they know exactly what the new appropriation is.  Budget wonks: FCC has been around since 1934, its predecessors even earlier.  It will be here next year and for the next 10 years. How many entry level engineers will it need?  I don't know.  But it will certainly need at least 5 this year and possibly 10-20.  The personnel mess at FCC and many other federal agencies with an unbalanced age distribution, did not happen by accident.  It results from odd staffing decisions during the Reagan years when year after year hiring was deferred.  We are now seeing the inevitable consequences of not hiring then.

I was in the Air Force at the end of the Viet Nam War.  I was puzzled why the military was "hiring" lieutenants and privates while it was RIFing all sorts of other people.  A wise colonel explained that the only way to keep the long term personnel pool balanced is to continually have entry level hiring at some level.  FCC needs to learn that also.

Learning from the Past:

It Rarely Happens at FCC

I attended Comm. McDowell's talk to the FCBA yesterday as it marked a welcome change from the ancienne regime. In his talk Comm. McDowell said,

"Many of our most valued team members are nearing retirement age. We need to do more to recruit and retain highly-qualified professionals to fill their large shoes. I hope our next budget will give us adequate resources to address this growing challenge."

This was a noncontroversial statement similar to statements made by many others. But what struck me that here, as in many other issues, FCC never seems to want to address the root cause of the problem and possible long term solutions.

Why are so many people at FCC nearing retirement age?

(This is similar to the key social problem in Japan called the "aging society". People all over the world get older, so this is not a new phenomena. The population in Japan is decreasing because for more than 20 years the birth rate is one of the lowest in the world and there is virtually no immigration.)

FCC is having a staffing crisis due to retirement because during the Reagan Administration there was virtually no hiring of entry level career civil servants. I was in the military at the end of the Vietnam War when the military had to downsize similar to the downsizing at FCC in the 1980s. But the personnel managers in the military knew that they had to still keep recruiting privates and lieutenants even though the force size was decreasing. Why? A personnel system is a big pipeline with people going in one end and coming out the other end. One wants at a given time a certain ratio of colonels to lieutenants and GS-15s to GS-9s. If one cuts off entry level hiring for a short period there is no major harm, but when this is repeated year after year it inevitably leads to a misbalance of ages and work experience in the staff. That is the root casue of the present staffing problem at FCC.

During the Reagan era input was cut to essentially zero. No one wanted to make hard decisiosn about pruning the existing staff so it continued to move through the pipeline with no new input. Because there was virtually no outside hiring, middle management jobs were filled almost solely from within without the benefit of the real competition that is the theory of the civil service system. While this was viewed favorably by those lucky enough to be eligible for promotion, the lack of personnel Darwinism further weakened the staff pool.

To save money even more, the Commission refused to pay relocation costs of non-Washington employees to move to headquarters. This cut off an historic flow of people with practical handson experience dealing with licensees and problems in the field in the former FOB. Historically, these FOB alumni in policy positions added a needed touch of reality to policy deliberations. (Sadly, this false frugality in forbidding relocation cost payments continues today. Is it legal? I am not sure.)

Training funds were also cut during this period. Most government agencies that employ engineers offer master's degree programs. FCC stopped doing so in the Reagan era and only began again under Chairman Powell. Thus for 20 years there were few, if any, FCC engineers getting the advanced training they needed to follow technological trends.

The root cause here is yo-yo budgets that lead to massive mood swings in personnel policies with no attention to their long term implications after the incumbent chairman leaves. FCC needs a long term personnel policy with enough flexibility to deal with budget problems. It needs to sell OMB and the appropriations committees on such a strategy to ensure long term staffing requirements are met. What is the optimal size for FCC? I don't know. But turning off hiring and training for years at time does not lead to a better agency.

Burrowing in at FCC

News reports have contained stories of burrowing - Bush appointees converting to career civil service jobs to either preserve their salaries or perhaps frustrate the next administration. This is really nothing new.

Indeed, FCC for decades seems to have had an unwritten policy that commissioners' assistants can stay on after their 8th floor job ends and move into a career job. I, for one, think that this special case has been successful as the number of people involved is small, it allows commissioners to recruit very good people, and allows the staff to include people who have worked in the circles of the 8th floor.

To shed light on how much, if any burrowing is going on at FCC now, SpectrumTalk encourages people with direct knowledge to post information anonymously on burrowing. Just click on the word "comments" below to make your posting. While you can sign such a post, you can also do it anonymous to both me and other readers of SpectrumTalk. So tell us, what is really happening on 12th St., SW?

Election Time Means Outplacement and Burrowing at FCC

On August 12, xchange magazine's website reported that Andrew Kreig was "stepping down" as president and CEO of the Wireless Communications Association and that "Fred Campbell, a former wireless bureau chief at the FCC, will take over in the interim while the WCA looks for a permanent replacement." Telephony Online reported that "Campbell is a likely candidate for the position, saying he would accept the role if offered." The Japanese call this type of outplacement amakudari (天下り), meaning "descent from heaven".

The item shown at left from the FCC web site confirms this news and shows that my former OET colleague, Jim Schlichting, has taken over as Acting Bureau Chief in WTB. Just as I had been exiled from OET many years ago (for the audacity of creating the foundation of Wi-Fi) , Jim had been exiled to OET in 2003 from WTB. Congratulations, Jim, on your triumphant return to the top rank in the bureau.

An interesting question: Why is there not news of any of this on the FCC website?

WTB Headlines for August 2008

Also to watch out for in this season is political types "borrowing in " to career jobs at FCC. While FCC has a longstanding unwritten policy that commissioners' assistants can convert to career jobs - many have become outstanding civil servants in the past - this does not extend to other noncareer employees who are supposed to apply through the merit system. There are increasing reports of odd people from the White House and elsewhere magically showing up as career civil servants at FCC in this election season.

FCC Has Started Recruiting Lawyers from the 2008-9 Academic Year Class

When Will Engineer Recruiting Start?

Last week a press release announcing the recruiting of new lawyers for next year at FCC appeared on its web site. This is a reminder that in recent years FCC has been much more systematic about recruiting lawyers than recruiting engineers. Experienced lawyers and engineers are critical for effective policy deliberations at FCC. Most people agree that a mix of people entering at entry level and entering midcareer is helpful. Entry level hiring is also important for an agency with perpetual budget problems in that entry level salaries are less than midcareer salaries.

Readers may recall that I previously reported that 2008 entry level engineer recruiting began in March and in 2006 it began in in August. When will it begin this year? A high level staffer told me recently he expected it to begin soon, but the lack of any visible sign makes me fear that there has been a bureaucratic hangup. However, the lawyers are marking full speed ahead with their hiring. I hope regulatees and the press put pressure on FCC in this area.

FCC has to compete with other federal agencies for civil service engineers. Many of them will guarantee funding for master's degree program. Some have permission from Congress to pay at higher rates than the normal federal pay scale. FCC has a limited master's degree program because of continuing budget uncertainty. Technical conference attendance by FCC employees is also problematic under usual prioritizations of travel funding within FCC. (It is much easier to get funding to attend an industry trade show than to attend an IEEE or similar professional conference.)

At a meeting sponsored by George Mason University today, both Chairman Powell and Chairman Kennard spoke about the urgency for the Commission to rebuild its staff and motivate them. I hope FCC starts engineer recruiting promptly for this academic year and starts preparing an effective training programming, like it used to have, when the new graduates arrive in the Summer.

Why the

Secrecy

About

SES Bonuses

at FCC?

Although you would never know it from reading the FCC website and FCC public announcements, the 40 or so FCC career employees* who are members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) are eligible for annual bonuses based on their performance under the provisions of 5 USC 5384.

In the 1980s when Mark Fowler was FCC Chairman, these were awarded at a major public ceremony, sometimes complete with a military honor guard. Indeed, I recall that Bob Foosaner, Chief of the Private Radio Bureau (WTB's predecessor) used to brag publicly that he got a big bonus every year! More recently, Broadcasting & Cable magazine somehow got tipped off when the bonuses were given and pressured FCC for a list that it then printed annually. But for several years even this source of information has dried up.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) publishes an annual report about the SES bonuses throughout the government, but FCC is not large enough to get itemized treatment.

SES bonuses come from the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 that, among other things, created the SES. Also in the same legislation was the present 5 USC 4507 that created special awards for the very top of the SES: Presidential Rank Awards:

Distinguished rank recipients receive a lump-sum payment of 35 percent of their basic pay; Meritorious rank recipients receive 20 percent of basic pay. All recipients receive a framed certificate signed by the President.

These are usually awarded at a White House ceremony by the President. Thus the granting of such awards to FCC can not be slid under the carpet. Oddly, in the almost 30 years since such awards have been given, only 2 such awards have been given to FCC employees: James McKinney, former Chief of the Broadcast Bureau, and Jerry Vaughan, former Deputy Chief, WTB and a key figure in organizing the first spectrum auctions. By contrast, OPM records show that last year the smaller National Transportation Safety Board gave out one distinguished and one meritorious award, the National Science Foundation**gave out 2 distinguished awards and 3 meritorious awards, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave out 2 distinguished awards and 8 meritorious awards.

So why does FCC have such an odd track record in recognizing the accomplishments of its senior managers? 8th floor readers - I hope you ask this question.

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* SES employees come in two flavors: career and non-career. Career employees need not be lifetime civil servants before getting the job, but must be vetted by both the agency and OPM for qualifying professional and management experience. Non-career appointees are basically political appointees. Only career SESers are eligible for bonuses, but FCC in the past decade or so has appointed some people as career SES without any obvious management experience. Apparently the OPM review has become rather loose despite the statutory requirement.

** NSF is smaller than FCC, but due to the nature of its work has more SESers. NRC is somewhat larger than FCC and has many more SESers.