After more than 35 years in government -- as a career official at the Office of Management and Budget and director of the White House Office of Administration under President Clinton -- Frank Reeder built on his information security and public management expertise by founding a consulting company, The Reeder Group.
He's continued to share his knowledge as a fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration and as a principal of the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government. But this past fall, he took on a new challenge -- serving as a member of Barack Obama's agency review team for OMB.
Reeder spoke with Government Executive staff correspondent Alyssa Rosenberg on Wednesday. Edited excerpts follow.
GE: What made this transition different from others you've experienced?
Reeder: My sense is this was a dramatically different transition for I think three reasons. Number one, these are extraordinary times. The administration had to be ready go, not simply take the honeymoon period to look around and see what needed to be done.The second reason was the incoming administration was an order of magnitude better prepared in two ways. One was a very clearly articulated agenda throughout the campaign. The only thing remotely comparable to that I experienced was the Reagan transition. There was a clear understanding of what the transition team wanted. The principals understood key things like who are the key appointments to make [and] the talent bank was well under way, which allowed them to do things in November that normally don't happen until December.
The third factor -- and the last time I can remember anything approximating this might have been in 1960-61 -- was a set of public expectations and good feelings that [Obama] was a candidate who said he wanted to make government cool again, as opposed to [Ronald Reagan] who said in his inaugural that government isn't the solution, it's the problem.
[In addition, President] Bush said to his administration on Nov. 5, "I want you to cooperate." He said it like he meant it. It's one advantage of having a well-disciplined administration. By golly, they cooperated. The agencies I worked with were, with minor exceptions, extraordinarily cooperative. The appointees got out of the way [and] made it possible for the transition team to interact directly with the career staff.
Continue reading Transition Adviser Looks Back On The Process.
