San Francisco

I visited EPA’s regional office in San Francisco yesterday. Before diving into a solid schedule of meetings, the Deputy Regional Administrator, Laura Yoshii, asked me where else I would go in San Francisco if I had the chance. I didn’t hesitate, “The Exploratorium.”

The Exploratorium is a hands-on science museum where I always learn something new. On my last visit I discovered that no matter where you are in the universe, you always appear to be at the center. That is, the planets and stars in the universe seem to be receding from where you are, no matter where you are (because the universe is expanding equally everywhere, there really is no ‘center’ of the expansion).

But who needs to go to the Exploratorium when you can be visiting one of the country’s best places to work? Every two years, the Partnership for Public Service and American University rank the best places to work in the federal government. This year’s report rated 222 federal offices. EPA’s office in San Francisco ranked third – in the top 2 percent.

So, what did I learn from my visit to the regional office? More than anything I learned about collaboration. I already knew that if we are to make environmental progress, EPA must sit down with communities and other organizations to find ways to voluntarily pursue common environmental goals. Mutual respect and partnership are the paths to innovation and creativity and the EPA folks in San Francisco know that’s where the biggest environmental gains are. For example, we are making terrific progress in reducing air pollution from old diesel engines through the West Coast Collaborative .

But what I’ve taken for granted is the need for us to do more collaboration inside EPA. That requires some humility. For instance, the Region has a terrific Energy and Climate Strategy that brings different parts of the regional office together to coordinate efforts to reduce pollution and greenhouse gasses resulting from energy use. That’s not easy. For this effort to work it means sub-divisions of the office must give up some flexibility and resources and work together, outside traditional organizational boxes. Yet this is precisely what the Region is doing in a number of areas.

The staff in San Francisco don’t act like they are at the center of the universe, which is why the office is a center of environmental excellence.