David Pekoske, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said on Tuesday that if he is confirmed he plans to remain at the agency as long as he is “able” and to look for senior leaders that also are committed to staying on.
Pekoske said that he “committed” to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly that he wants to lead TSA as long as he is able, noting in his prepared remarks that during the agency’s 16 years in existence, it has had 13 different leaders, including acting administrators.
“I think leadership continuity in an agency like TSA is critically important,” Pekoske told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, his second confirmation hearing before a Senate panel. In addition to him staying on for “the duration,” Pekoske said it’s important for “the leaders that support that top leadership also have some level of continuity. And if confirmed, I will pay attention to that very carefully in the assignment of Senior Executive Service members inside TSA.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), the ranking member on the committee, said in her opening statement that employee surveys show that TSA is one of “the worst places to work in the federal government,” ranked 303 out of 305 federal agency subcomponents in terms of morale. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said he is concerned about the “churn” and “attrition” related to TSA employees and its impact on their morale and the agency’s readiness.
Pekoske, highlighting his commitment the senior leadership staying in their positions for the long haul, said he will be paying attention to the morale issue in order to increase “job satisfaction … and also reduce attrition, and both will improve security effectiveness and security efficiency.”
Pekoske last month, in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said that he would like to do more to bring technology to the field sooner, saying he would accelerate a year-old effort by the agency called the Innovation Task Force that works with stakeholders to rapidly assess systems in actual operations. He said on Tuesday that acquisition is “one of my highest priorities,” and is also the case with Elaine Duke, the new deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Claire Grady, who has been nominated to lead the department’s management office.
From my perspective, I really would like to see greater technology insertion in what we do in TSA and getting that technology insertion to the workforce faster,” adding that this will also help employee morale by providing the workforce with more useful systems than they currently operate with.
Prototyping is important and it’s critical that successful prototypes get deployed, he said. If successful innovations don’t deployed, “then innovation tends to wane a little bit,” he said, adding that there also needs to be “a little bit of risk with respect to acquisition process.”
There also needs to be process innovation, Pekoske said, noting that he will ensure that the frontline workers have a process available to communicate their recommendation “online.” He added that these innovations also have to be done quickly.