Letter from Assistant Director Paul Henne

Building on Success - Charting an Innovative Course to the Future

Our business plan for 2009 embodies a robust array of new management challenges such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) coupled with our continued work to build upon last year’s record of achievements. Working cooperatively with the Department and the new Administration, we will continue our strong support of Presidential Directives in the areas of Environmental Stewardship, Energy Management, Transportation Management and Improved Financial Management. Our overriding goal remains to incrementally improve or replace aging business processes through innovative policy, implementation of best practices and to direct-drive permanent business improvements to lessen the burden on field personnel.

The five divisions that now comprise Business Management and Operations collectively contribute to our mission and provide the functional foundation for Service programs nationwide. We provide the Service’s natural resource programs with the necessary management and administrative tools to accomplish the Service’s mission. Much of what we do happens behind the scenes and is transparent to Service employees. However, as you will see in the following pages, this organization entails many complex organizational units that are designed to ensure that the Service complies with Federal law and that we effectively execute Presidential Directives. What we do is not optional.

Our initiatives include strengthening our management processes for achieving and maintaining “green” on Departmental Scorecards. The Division of Financial Management aims to obtain clean audits on financial statements and to conduct a best practice review of our A-123 program to ensure program effectiveness.

Our Division of Contracting and Facilities Management works diligently to provide the Service with the most up-to-date policies for acquiring goods and services, while offering the public user-friendly tools for electronic acquisitions. They will work to attain “green” on the Department’s scorecard on Transportation Management and develop an effective monitoring technique for timely and accurate disposal of surplus assets.

Our Division of Engineering is leading the Service’s challenge to score “green” on the Department’s Scorecards in the areas of Environmental Stewardship and Energy Management and will focus on selected resources to assure our targets are met. The structural integrity of bridges and dams located on Service lands is given the highest attention through the development of the Construction 5-Year Plan.

Safety and good health for Service employees are the highest priorities of our Division of Safety and Health. Their leadership is constantly on top of the latest policies, and works closely with the Regional Safety Programs to formulate policy for the awareness and training of all Service employees. They will work to complete safety management reviews to ensure program compliance and effectiveness of Regional safety programs.

Our joint efforts with program officials to promote their work includes our focus on the critical habitat of threatened and endangered species as our Division of Economics staff analyze the economic conditions of their designations.

These are some of the examples that demonstrate our commitment to offer behind-the-scenes guidance to the Service as we continue to chart an innovative course to the future.

Paul W. Henne
Assistant Director