…following up from the previous LOTRW post, recalling an occasion from nearly forty years ago (stop me if you’ve heard this). The event? An annual NOAA/OAR management retreat sometime in the 1980’s. The NOAA Environmental Research Laboratory directors had gathered in Rockville from across the country, along with DC-based OAR leadership. I was a newly-minted and not-quite mainstream member of the group. The ERL lab directors were all in the Senior Executive Service – they’d been grandfathered-in when the SES had been established a few years prior. I was head of a newly established entity by the name of the Environmental Studies Group. It was a stuff-bag of diverse pieces of research that formerly had been reporting directly to the ERL Director, cluttering his organizational chart and distracting him from larger concerns. ESG comprised a climate research group, busily developing and curating the COADS data set; a weather research program area, studying warm-season mesoscale convective storms; a Weather Modification Program Area (a Congressional earmark); and PROFS, an R&D program actively shaping development of the 1980’s NWS Modernization and Associated Restructuring (and now imbedded within NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory). In aggregate, ESG was larger than any of the formally titled laboratories, both in terms of budget and staff. However, I was not SES. I was a lowly GM-15[1].
The laboratory directors and OAR management had spent the first full day hearing from NOAA management on agency priorities; highlighting ongoing research programs and budgets; scheduling the mandated periodic reviews of the individual laboratory activities; considering possible budget initiatives to propose for the coming year, and more. At the end of the formal day, they adjourned to another conference room in the meeting hotel, there to enjoy a dinner, followed by an evening session. This latter was more relaxed, contemplative and forward looking – discussion of other-agency R&D; the national and international political scene; etc.
One topic that came up was the abiding challenge of maintaining and improving coordination and cooperation with the other, more operational NOAA Line Offices (NWS, NOS, NMFS and NESDIS –dealing with weather, ocean, fisheries, and satellite services respectively). The problem was framed as the challenge of balancing the long-range, basic-research mission of the laboratories versus the short-term, often crisis-driven priorities and concerns of the service organizations. A real conundrum.
As a distinctly junior member of the team, I’d been silent most of the day, but at this moment I thought I had something to offer. Taking a deep breath, I spoke up: “You know, when we are considering promotion of one of our individual researchers, we ask for six letters of reference from academic researchers in the same field. We seek feedback on creativity and originality, the presence or absence of guidelines on their work, their national and international reputation, etc. One key question the academics are asked is this: ‘at your university, would you would consider this government researcher to be at the level of full professor (if we were considering a promotion to GS-15)? An associate professor (if we were considering promotion to GS-14)? Or assistant professor (GS-13)?’”
I continued: “We know in our hearts most academics look down on government researchers anyway (at least this was true in the 1980’s). And how much new information does that sixth faculty letter supply on the margins? How about we replace that sixth letter with the requirement that our researcher in question get one letter of similar assessment/support from someone in the one of the service line offices of NOAA? We could ask whether this person’s work has been useful to their past and present services? Whether they consider its continuation critical to Line Office goals and efforts? Just one letter out of the six! The effect of this on the work and priorities of our researchers would be essentially instantaneous. In the same way they’d been cultivating a support group among academics, they’d start to build a following somewhere in or across NOAA. And this change in behavior would be accomplished at zero cost.”
As I said, the laboratory directors were a senior, strong, fiercely independent bunch. Some were members of the NAS or the NAE. Some had honorary degrees. They weren’t shy or timid. They had the strength of their convictions. As a result, whatever the topic throughout the day, they had been arguing – no, let’s say “animatedly debating”.
Maybe it was the end of the day. Perhaps the convivial dinner conversation had had its effect. But, whatever the reason, my humble suggestion brought them together, created unity, for the first time since the sun had come up that morning.
They all quickly agreed it was the worst idea they’d ever heard.
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As you might guess, my idea had no impact, at least at the time. Today, with emphasis on or application readiness levels, as adopted not only by NOAA but other agencies, and additional metrics, the problem may have taken care of itself. But to me, the idea still seems sound.
And speaking of impact (the subject of this post), as you can also tell, the incident didn’t have a negative impact on me personally. I wasn’t wounded. I’m not still talking about it forty years later. I’m not still nursing a grudge… 😊
[1] Management blamed the ceiling on SES slots; initially I chafed at this, but it turned out to be a huge positive. During that period of years, when it came time for annual performance reviews, my leaderhip was compared against SES’ers, and my performance was always deemed pretty good for a GM-15.
