Post by williethewelder on Jun 6, 2007 21:27:46 GMT -4
Monday, June 4
You should know up front that Monday’s are never as much fun as Saturday’s, particularly this most recent one. Today was no exception, yet the activities of the day really did give insight into my world of fishing and boating. Two main activities consumed the day; our executive staff meeting and a full afternoon of working with the legislators in the capital. Now, its pretty well understood that staff meetings, if not done well, can suck the life out of an organization. Long, boring, nothing ever getting done; simply a waste of time and money. Anyone who works in any organization deals with these beasts sooner or later. Yet, communication and coordination is absolutely critical in even the smallest of agencies or businesses. We always work to find ways to make us work better and more efficient.
In our case, the staff meetings consist of 12 people that represent the agency leadership. This includes our five bureau directors (Fisheries, Boating and Education, Engineering, Law Enforcement, and Administration) as well as my key staff (Chief Counsel, Press Secretary, Legislative Liaison, Chief of Staff, Human Resources Director, and Executive Secretary) and myself. This is where we run through the events in the upcoming week, coordinate any staffing issues, touch bases and exchange information on any actions that need attention with each of the staff, and then spin off any follow-up meetings that need to take place. We also identify topics that are more complicated and require a different mix of people. To the best of my knowledge, so far nobody has had the life sucked out of them and we almost always get done in 90 minutes and then are back to work. For me that meant heading down to the capital with my legislative liaison, Gary Moore.
Working in the capital is simultaneously no different than any other work place but also fascinatingly unique and challenging. It’s all about people, their aspirations, faults, petty differences, deeply held values, moral convictions, but also a smattering of greed and the need for power and recognition. It’s also about family, making a difference, dedication to a cause, and sacrifice and there is a lot more of this than people want to recognize. There is absolutely no way to describe the place in simple, one-dimensional terms or to categorize the people or the institution with a simple label. But to work it well you need a good staff and Gary has some skills that really help. One of the key skills is, of course, to understand people, be observant, and notice and remember details. You should know that Gary was trained as one of our conservation officers and, as with all of our officers, he has those skills down cold. Here’s an example. During one of our travels to visit legislators in their district offices we stopped by a convenience store to get gas and something to drink. After we both walked out of the store I asked Gary to describe the clerk, customers, and the layout of the store. He had everything down cold; clothes people had on, height, location, hair color. I could barely remember the name of the store. These same skills are useful in the capital because we need to keep track of the names and interests of 203 representatives, 50 senators, hundreds of staff and others. And you don’t just want to know their names, you want to know where they are from, a little about their kids or family, their interests, and other little tidbits that make life tick.
The bill that we worked on is one that is necessary to support our new electronic fishing license system, the Pennsylvania Automated Licensing System (PALS). A great place to find out about legislative bills is their web site (http://www.legis.state.pa.us). In this case you can search for the bill by using the “Find Legislation” tool and search for HB1109. Our agency is switching from the old paper licenses to a new computerized system this year. About 1/3 of you have purchased your license with PALS this year (easily noticed because they are bright yellow as opposed to the paper licenses of the past). The legislation cleans up some of our laws that describe how we run a fishing license system and, importantly, help us to pay for PALS.
So what do we do at the capital? They key is to work with the members of the committee that have the responsibility for our agency. In this case, the House and Senate have Game and Fisheries Committees and we focus on the leadership of the committees and their members. Since this bill first runs through the House, we tracked down Representative Ed Staback, the democratic committee chairman, who we found walking from one meeting to another in the east wing. We then met with Representative Sam Rohrer, the republican leader on the committee (minority chair). With each of them we ran through the key points of the bill and answered questions. Both are dedicated to the mission of the agency and are a pleasure to work with. On Wednesday, their committee will meet to discuss the bill and we needed to ensure that the votes will be positive and we get passage, hopefully unanimously. A key part of this process is also working with their staff. In this case, Rep. Staback’s key staff is Steve McMullen, who has responsibility for keeping Rep. Staback informed, collecting and disseminating information to the committee members, and ensuring that the committee functions well. Steve is one of those guys who has been around for a while, knows how things work, and keeps the wheels moving. There are many good staff like Steve in any organization and we try to work with them to get the work done.
Monday was a good day, different than what would be expected for National Fishing and Boating week, but yet a critical part of the process of managing our resources and keeping the agencies and our programs working well.
You should know up front that Monday’s are never as much fun as Saturday’s, particularly this most recent one. Today was no exception, yet the activities of the day really did give insight into my world of fishing and boating. Two main activities consumed the day; our executive staff meeting and a full afternoon of working with the legislators in the capital. Now, its pretty well understood that staff meetings, if not done well, can suck the life out of an organization. Long, boring, nothing ever getting done; simply a waste of time and money. Anyone who works in any organization deals with these beasts sooner or later. Yet, communication and coordination is absolutely critical in even the smallest of agencies or businesses. We always work to find ways to make us work better and more efficient.
In our case, the staff meetings consist of 12 people that represent the agency leadership. This includes our five bureau directors (Fisheries, Boating and Education, Engineering, Law Enforcement, and Administration) as well as my key staff (Chief Counsel, Press Secretary, Legislative Liaison, Chief of Staff, Human Resources Director, and Executive Secretary) and myself. This is where we run through the events in the upcoming week, coordinate any staffing issues, touch bases and exchange information on any actions that need attention with each of the staff, and then spin off any follow-up meetings that need to take place. We also identify topics that are more complicated and require a different mix of people. To the best of my knowledge, so far nobody has had the life sucked out of them and we almost always get done in 90 minutes and then are back to work. For me that meant heading down to the capital with my legislative liaison, Gary Moore.
Working in the capital is simultaneously no different than any other work place but also fascinatingly unique and challenging. It’s all about people, their aspirations, faults, petty differences, deeply held values, moral convictions, but also a smattering of greed and the need for power and recognition. It’s also about family, making a difference, dedication to a cause, and sacrifice and there is a lot more of this than people want to recognize. There is absolutely no way to describe the place in simple, one-dimensional terms or to categorize the people or the institution with a simple label. But to work it well you need a good staff and Gary has some skills that really help. One of the key skills is, of course, to understand people, be observant, and notice and remember details. You should know that Gary was trained as one of our conservation officers and, as with all of our officers, he has those skills down cold. Here’s an example. During one of our travels to visit legislators in their district offices we stopped by a convenience store to get gas and something to drink. After we both walked out of the store I asked Gary to describe the clerk, customers, and the layout of the store. He had everything down cold; clothes people had on, height, location, hair color. I could barely remember the name of the store. These same skills are useful in the capital because we need to keep track of the names and interests of 203 representatives, 50 senators, hundreds of staff and others. And you don’t just want to know their names, you want to know where they are from, a little about their kids or family, their interests, and other little tidbits that make life tick.
The bill that we worked on is one that is necessary to support our new electronic fishing license system, the Pennsylvania Automated Licensing System (PALS). A great place to find out about legislative bills is their web site (http://www.legis.state.pa.us). In this case you can search for the bill by using the “Find Legislation” tool and search for HB1109. Our agency is switching from the old paper licenses to a new computerized system this year. About 1/3 of you have purchased your license with PALS this year (easily noticed because they are bright yellow as opposed to the paper licenses of the past). The legislation cleans up some of our laws that describe how we run a fishing license system and, importantly, help us to pay for PALS.
So what do we do at the capital? They key is to work with the members of the committee that have the responsibility for our agency. In this case, the House and Senate have Game and Fisheries Committees and we focus on the leadership of the committees and their members. Since this bill first runs through the House, we tracked down Representative Ed Staback, the democratic committee chairman, who we found walking from one meeting to another in the east wing. We then met with Representative Sam Rohrer, the republican leader on the committee (minority chair). With each of them we ran through the key points of the bill and answered questions. Both are dedicated to the mission of the agency and are a pleasure to work with. On Wednesday, their committee will meet to discuss the bill and we needed to ensure that the votes will be positive and we get passage, hopefully unanimously. A key part of this process is also working with their staff. In this case, Rep. Staback’s key staff is Steve McMullen, who has responsibility for keeping Rep. Staback informed, collecting and disseminating information to the committee members, and ensuring that the committee functions well. Steve is one of those guys who has been around for a while, knows how things work, and keeps the wheels moving. There are many good staff like Steve in any organization and we try to work with them to get the work done.
Monday was a good day, different than what would be expected for National Fishing and Boating week, but yet a critical part of the process of managing our resources and keeping the agencies and our programs working well.