category of high, medium and low. the border patrol also evaluates these risks to ensure they are based on current risk. in closing, i will leave you with a few thoughts here that became evident as we wrote these articles and i spoke with dozens of agents representing thousands of years of border patrol experience. border security is not an end state to be achieved and revisited every five or ten years. rather, it's a constant battle we fight every day and one609% which we must be vigorously engaged. there is also no panacea for border security. no silver bullet is out x96ñthere. in his description says it best. there is no solution, there is no better or worse, there is only a system. that's what border security is a continuous struggle. resources will be needed to secure the national border. however, using a risk-based view of border security and continues to work with inter-agency

partners to combat the greatest risk to border security national security and public safety. and)ygñ ultimately the articles answer those big three questions. why we changed how we changed and how to answer whether we're winning or not. with that i'll turn itb+j)ñ back over to stephanie. thank you. >> thank you both. i'm going to exercise the moderator's prerogative and ask each of our guests one question first before opening it up to the floor. the first question i have is for chief fisher, and that is regarding your hopes for this trilogy of articles. as i mentioned earlier i've been impressed with thought leadership and strategy and having authority for the border control. i can understand from an audience perspective i'm not in the border patrol i can take these articles using my own experience. but your hope for what folks in the field will take away from these articles what was your

intent from a border e(g patrol-specific perspective. >> thank you stephanie. for the border patrol agents, my intent was for every border patrol agent regardless of how long they've been in the border patrol, where they currently were stationed regardless of what rank they may or may not hold is to read it first and foremost, which was mandatory, by the way,9l for all the chiefs. and have a better understanding of what we as an organization are asking them to do, first and foremost. secondly, i would hope that they could envision that which they are doing plays a much larger ] in border and national security. because many times and oftentimes when i talk with border patrol agents in the field, we talk about kind of network operations and we talk about the threat of terrorism. that's been out on the line form çc instance, for five years will raise his hand and 3"c i've never seen a terrorist here, what are you talking about? making them understand that what

we're asking them to do day in and day out plays into a much larger, very complex security system that we're not going to solve on our own. so for the internal audience, hopefully they can understand, one, where we are and where we're going, and their contribution to that overall mission. >> i appreciate that. mr. schroeder, i have a question about the risk-based stralt jitegy you outlined in your three articles. you mentioned in your remarks just now that it's not a resource strategy because throwing resources at this set of challenges won't necessarily lead to the outcome we're ÷4o$jt to pursue. can you talk a little bit about the risk-based strategy its limitations? you mentioned also there is no panacea or silver bullet short-term fix, that this is the longer term strategy. there are gaps there will be vulnerabilities. so how does one think about a risk-based strategy? how does one wrap one's head around the idea that there will be gaps and, you know,

eventually we'll try to address those gaps, but first things first. what's the strategy? >> situational awareness, b gz a-number 1. the resource-based strategy we talked about, through resources at the border are based on activity levels. in the article we talked about the deployment of the international space station. i wanted to draw real world parallels to what was going on and what we were doing. this space station was designed in certain areas thicker in some areas, thinner in other areas to specifically combat risk of impact. and the same way on the border. the articles are probably the first step. reading those articles understanding those articles, understanding the risk-based concept in that we address the threats, we use those three tools, the intelligence the analytical process and the planning process, it's not an end state, it's an endurging state. it's a continuing progress and

the border patrol has changed for us. the article talks about prohibition, it talks about smuggling alcohol. we don't smuggle alcohol anymore, we don't have that. it's drugs and alcohol and other aspects on the border. things change over time and the border patrol had to do things to dictate how it was actually changing. the articles kind of hint towards that. >> the follow-up question, then, would be measuring that. as you try to quantify risk and you try# x to quantify you know -- i know from a hill perspective the demand is always what metrics are you using so how can we figure out whether we're getting to where we need to be? so what is your reply to folks on the hill or elsewhere who say, you know, the metrics of the past, you know were not useful because if the numbers were high you were winning if the numbers were low you were winning. it didn't really tell you anything. what's different about the

system going forward that you can actually measure success? >> measuring success for us is different in that we take the border environment holistically. we compare everything, not just the apprehensions. we go back to the articles. we talk about the inventory of assets and the reactivity of what we were doing. we were apprehending we were doing everything we could but there were things we knew were getting past us. we never consideredl plan. typically the border patrol before this, we would look at traffic, we would look at activity in a given area and we would create an operation specifically for that traffic just in a reactive posture. looking at the border patrol realistically, we needed to understand apprehensions alone meant nothing to us. if you're apprehending a thousand and 10,000 are getting away what did you really accomplish? so we needed a way to understand the entirety of the environment and the ttoa and our analysis will do-(la that for us.

>> i would now like to open it up to the floor$mk for questions. just a couple ofq6z reminders. i will call on you. if you would wait for a microphone to come to you state your name and affiliation if you have one and please do ask a question. i encourage you to make sure it's statements but at the end of the day ask our guests a question that they can answer. first up anybody willing to -- if we could go to that gentleman?gentleman in the back? >> thank you.4!:!ñ just as an outsider's question when the thing happened with the children last year at brownsville, i'm fairly familiar with your operation but i just was really curious to find out, did the border patrol back off on methodology in order notrzz5 to turn away thousands of kids? how did these kids getírwe over at that brownsville crossing? >> well when we started seeing

the trend increase in the spring and it peaked right around june of last year, and really, i mean, it's happened before. we haven't seen it at least inòzb(t&háhp &hc% the south texas, and greater numbers as it related to other countries, in mexico, for instance. our methodology didn't change. we were stillfg9k making the &fh @r(t&háhp &hc% apprehensions once the detections were made. if you haven't been to brownsville, texas, get up on the levee and look. a lot of what people think about the area is different. so crossing in that area is not practical. what we want to do is be sure, that once we detect them, make an apprehensiok7t-ç in a higher0bcl proportion than what wii donee've done in the past. when the numbers started going down in july, we didn't just say, whoo glad that's over right? we said, let's look at this and find out what we need to do.

and the secretary in the spring was talking about the unityñ of effort. some of you may have heard that. if some of you were here a couple months ago the secretary laid out i thought quiteñ clearly, the introducing the borders campaign plan and introduced a couple weeks ago the task forces that are going to stand up that effort. all of that was part of this learning process. it wasn't just, hey, the kids are coming across, what do you do? that was our typical reaction. what's really important is when the numbers go down,/s the question should be, now what are you going to do? we tend to go from crisis to crisis. in some organizations, and< especially in the environment in which we operate now in terms of information, the instantaneous, everybody understands what's happening in the field whether you're ahd municipality or you're at the border. people get very reactive and that somehow feeds and is very contagious at times. that's just my own personal experience here in washington but that's not an organizational

position, that's just the reality in which we have to but we have to you know, stop going from crisis to crisis and really think these through, and the secretary and his team have done a really good job of pre positioning the department in the future, whether the unaccompanied children come back or not, this is just ano@pñá incremental, evolutionary step to do integrated network operations better than we have before. but thank you for that question. >> thisi'd like to call on this gentleman up here. >> thank you very much.ds/a ted alden with operations. you noted there is an internal and external face to that. there is what you want to measure within your organization to get the results you want and then there's this story you give to the public. is it critical the metrics you're using be the same for internal and external purposes?

is it okay to have a set of internal metrics you don't share, putting aside any confidential information, but putting that aside,9rceñ is it important to have a single set of metrics for both internal and external facing purposes? >> ted, that was a question i was going to ask you in about a week or two, so i'd like to get your answer to that by the way. now. ib:á0heard both sides of the argument. i'm going to hold back on my vote until i get&f]tx a little better informed. i come from the everybody everything. just give it to them. whether they can understand itócfaw or not. if they misinterpret it or use it tox;q[ñ bash their organization, that shouldn't limit it. i think if we do more and more engagements like this or have a session where you say tell me again whyna

explainñ tell me mathematically how you calculate that. i'm not a math genius by any stretch. i've got some very smart folks who can walk folks down. but we shouldn't just give it to people because they won't understand fyoit. but i also heard if,úccu in fact you give everybody everything, the security notwithstanding in terms of we don't want to divulge everything, but when it comes to the actualk

specific audience and try to8uaw tailor what4[ub that message should be but we're still having those discussions and any insight into that would help in the cause, i'm sure. thank you. >> the gentleman across the aisle from him, please.a9xwç >> i'm wondering, you say you don't want to pin the metrics on one particular metric, you want to spread that out. great. you're going on a risk-based strategy, but that sort of begs the question what is an acceptable level of risk? >> that is an excellent question. you know, let's take a look at the different types of threats. if you saygç what is acceptable in allowing a terrorist into the united states along the southern border? that level of risk is very small, in my mind, right? we have to do everything and anything which, by the way, the reason why when we look at how do we assess that risk, right first we take a look --í,r(÷ ifh

anybody askedë6=ime, chief,6m v is the border secure or not, we transition it ;2 state of the border? if you're talking about the arizona corridor, let's have that discussion about arizona. because what i'm about to explain in arizona may or may not apply in a state like south texas. so the first thing we do and this is a continuous process by the way, we'll take a look at what the intelligence excerpts are. what is the internal telling us about the intent and1i) capability of any adversary, regardless of who they are in& that spectrum and define the threat for us. the border patrol doesn't do that. we don't own that, we are the consumers of that. then we assess vulnerability and consequence on our side, and we try to identify what the risk is. that's one whole section, right? the second section is ┌ )pjuáup'ding those risk indicators that we were just discussing, about 12 or so of those. what do they mean in the geographic area in comparison to other

first,4o./ how well do we think we know what's happening in the environment, then we can assess that level of risk. but the level of risk for allowing a terrorist in this country is a lot different than allowing 6,000 unaccompanied children coming through south texas. we have to really start thinking about threat differently, because they're not all npñequal. and yet throughout history, again, it's just because as we're evolving, we used to just look at the border because not only was it resource-based we took the approach that we're going to grab and hold terrain.á5b!í independent. it was just get him on the line and once we get a piece of that dirt, we're going to hold onto it. lo and beholdtl dirt to hold onto. what now do you do? that was part of it. not all risk is equal, and again, we're not he isespousing that we're the experts at understanding risk and mitigating risks. there are perhaps those in the audience who can help us in the out years to help us implement

and manage this. we're really in the infancy in understanding this shift in our strategy and how do you assess risk? and by the way, the border patrol is not going to be the only one dictating what is acceptable. there is a whole bunch of voters out there i'm sure, will have a voice in this. >> if i could follow up on that and ask robert a question regarding not all risks are created equal, and when you have a risk-based strategy you have to take several factors into consideration. oneemw your articlesa#v2 talked about a taraditional approach and traditional capabilities and technology. could you talk a little bit about capabilities in approaching the risks as identified in the strategy and the sort of integration of traditional and technology as methods to approach this kind of risk? >> so when we talk about traditional andxí( assets traditional we're talking about a sign cutting.

it's the tracking of individuals across the border. on border wars it's the tv that you see, it's the young border patrol out there in green uniforms actually tracking them individuals. traditionally that's the way it's been done for the majority of our history. the chief talked about our environment and our capabilities that are changing. that comes with underground sensors, fixed towers, radar. all types of technology. specifically web1lç talked about uas and the capabilities they bring, especially in the face of picture taking. s?"gáátj over, takes a picture, flies over takes another picture and we compare the two. we've never had the ability to do that. that, in and of itself has given us a better situational awareness, including the metrics we have today to help usv1[ understand what's happening on the border in a more consistent manner. >> you mentionedn(f=z uas. i know a lot of technology has

been developed for the military that's being appliedp3""'ow at the border patrol but some things have been developed specifically for border patrol or for law enforcement, generally speaking so it's not always military style technology. one thing that i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about is sort of inter-agency partners. you mentioned the border patrol is one$ñf use technology and you talk about interoperable ability, but being able.1hñ to work with other marines or a piece of things, about -- youl inter-agency partnerships, but expand upon that in terms of how that impacts the thoughts behind your articles. how do you integratebzo inter-agency folks? >> inter-agency folks, when we talked about énfsz)ut second article talks a little about the black swan theory. it's one of the more commfc=

questions i get about the second article. what was that for us? it was literally unrestrained integration. it is the ability we have through the inter-agency process when we want to when we focus on individual targets, to stop crime, to stop illicit border activity. that no doubt came fromnl÷ rob rose's murdejg'ñ inb81çl 2009 but also the south texas campaign. when thev,fx÷ south texas campaign was developed, it had to bring everyone in the same room, and it had to go beyond co-location or cooperation. it had to be true integration. it had to have everyone in the same room, all the intelligence on the table. we had to pick specific targets we had to vote on those targets and we had to not only tell each other what we're going to do against them but we had to focus on individual targets. of course, we've had d.o.d.l on the board, title 30 for quite some time. so that lesson that came from the integration of rob rose's

murder and how we brought those individuals to justice led that he evolution of how thel worked. >> thank you. this gentleman up r@ç (shere, please? >> first, chief, the reason for the visit you hosted on the border, i would say we've seen clear evidence that the thought process of the agents is changing, and everybody is talking about risk based and developing their own metrics andrs:÷ stuff, so i want to complement you. i think it definitely deploys down to the troops on the border. my questionúáh] you look more strategically at risks in the future, what do you secure border environment from a strategic perspective? and regarding the metrics what kind of lead metrics are you.?fz÷ looking at in order to help you predict and foresee what's going

to happen in the next two, three, five years ahead that you really need to get ready for? >> that's a great question. thanks. for the first part of the question, i think -- everybody was so focused on unaccompanied children, i'll kind of go back to that example, and there was a lot of discus .w about what are you going to do with the kids and, you know is the border patrol feeding them and there was just hordes of people, thousands a day, right? what we were looking at was who was mixed in with that group. when you start looking at groups of 50 just coming across, and a lot of them weren't running away from border patrol agents. it was añ)nsñ smuggler's paradise. smugglers were saying, when you get to the levee, sit down. a there within 20 minutes. they were making no money no risk, and all these people came across. there was no impediment to stop

people from crossing. when you look at the strategic, whether you couch itvbnñp as a mass migration or not, where you have a lot of people infiltrating a specific area, you don't know who these people are at least we don't until you do the biometrics and you sit down and talk with them. when you have that many people coming across a specific area now you have to be able to move some of those agentsg)s1w that were response to the detection to make and now you have to get them away from the:c1#t border. you're trying toaufe thin the force for a potential exploit not that the kids are a threat necessarily when

buy biometrically for the very first time. it's not about individuals. if you take a áî=- at that third article, it's not about people it's not about marijuana. it's about the business model of these transnational organized criminals. it is a r

particular area. lo and behold, for a three-yearfbsmy period, the vast majority of individuals,2s%ujuár'g the southern border for the very first time were showing46 south texas two years before south texas was a blipnmk0a:vñ everybody's radar. but that was one leading indicator. and we were looking at others to be able to make those judgments to talk about in the future what our resource requirements may be. and how about we start shifting border patrol agents and" $ñ beefing up a particular area in advance of a potential surge instead of reacting to it. so we're starting to look at the data ay in the past. great question.z,ñ thank you. >> lady over in the x4ê÷corner, please. >> may nameyhép3÷ name is laura sump. i have a question of border communities. people who live on the border from wanting more policing,

wanting more patrol, and people who have a lot of grievances on border patrol and increasing military in their communities. from your perspective, how do you see that the opinion andrimkñ dialogue has been carrit out -- i mean the opinions of the communities have been taken into account in rn)upstrategy, and how do you plan to includep áuz in the future? >> again another excellent question. i think the communities in which we serve are paramountye&v helping us think through. it's one thing to think about looking at the border ç from a strategic context and going out to a rotary club and saying, we're from the border patrol, we'rep91jy the experts deal with it, all right? we don't do that. at3íjip r(t&háhp &hc% what we want to be ablejhk to do is understand, because thexfsq constituency out there aren't inconvenienced by the pz$yç checkpoint. they're not -- just because the border patrol is tracking a group through theirdv2?g yard=s"nu and a dog is barking, we don't want to be the nuisance. we want them to help us understand that border environment, add to that situational awareness. we rely on those communities, and the leadership in the field

meets with them frequently because they're a really good source of information. i'm not talking about as confidential informant, but,b hey, i noticed the dog started barking the last couple weeks and that hasn'tç0eñ happened in the last three months. we want to be able to involve them, first and foremost, have them understand what we're doing in terms of our deployment. i'm not saying they all have to agree with the way they're doing it, but at least give them the opportunity to understand, this is what we're doing why we're doing it and get their reaction to that. understand what their concerns are so we can adjust as needed and recognizing that we don't want to be on their property any longer than we need to, right? but it is ap critical component -- when robert is talking about integration, looking at our federal and state partners, that's going to be critical but that's not to the exclusion of the communities in which we serve. they ultimately are going to8l)z encroach upon encroach upon their property, and we reallyó!=b@%ñ wantgladñ to

be good stewards in that regard as well. >> a question in the back. >> my name is eric with continental consulting. i had a@t!v question regarding, gao did a study, i ,hjsbelieve a few unmanned intelligence capabilities, and i just wanted to know if you could explain some of the differences between those two capabilities. aer#diñkur recently started that. >> i'll be honest, i'míkvrkot really very familiar gao study butí

ground :+support. $z ifn1 wñ it's deployed and only being flown when we have a target to go after. if you say what's the mission and we say, we want it to go up and down the border and detect people going across my answer is it's probably not the best utilization of that w sset. the same could be@'-. true of a uh 60 black hawk helicopter. it's not one size fits all. again, not familiar wlt study and whether it's cost effective we just wantv÷ to make sure we're utilizing the capability in its best intended use and not just using it because we have another platform out there so let's get it up in the air and start looking for people. which by the way, 10 years ago, have a lot of detection capability. and robert can attest to this, as a patrol agent in the middle of nowhere and not able to get communication out when i

started hea4ú6 the helicopter blades coming from the north, and i would hear at /s/b s pilot get on and say, 621 do you have any /0f1ñ traffic? i'm here to support you. that person was my best friend. border patrol agents always want air because that's sometimes the only way to relay out, but if something o0 sappens. that pilot is going to land and help them. >> i'd like to just ask a little about the changes that have happened in the border patrol in the last 10 years. the growing use of unmanned systems, whether they're pilotedy or, you know, aununmanned systems dronesñ 7& surveillance things that you can use a truck tof÷ñ go ahead and shift spaces. the fact that the border patrol has grown so much since 2004, robert mentioned over 21,000 agents. that's something, i think, a lot

of people would be surprised.qyìáhp &hc% you go back to 2004evb> that's a great point, and my quick answer is it's an z :crt, not there is not a set of instructions that comes with an aerostat when we get a hanjj from d.o.d. and say, hey, this is how you should deploy it, and you can reduce your level of staffing by 30%, and that's what happened to us when wecs2ypdeployed it. i want to thank general swann since he's here and the great work he did with ] j-comm and jft north. oftentimes they would takep'(qz emerging technology and come on out to the border, one, because the environment in some of our

border locations were very comparable to what they were going to be facing. they wanted to mbw test and evaluate ( some of the equipment. on the other hand,2u"ñ we had between 90 @ié880 days at times÷2l0vo ilfñ some additional detection and monitoring capabk-índ9ñ so it helped us out. and the military in those instances really taught us on how to absorb different technology. because if you give a border patrol agent any piece of ==wiu'q r she is going to use it to the equivalent of what they're used to right? a real quick example on one of the first eaunmanned aerial systems we got. border patrol was like, get that up there and when the border patrol agent calls, they're going to slew the u.s. and tell the aus and tell the agent whether he's close to the group or not. as we were getting more and more equipment we had to teach the organization how and we're still learning ourselves on what is

the best fusi$ of all these different types of capability. ten years é arizona, there was no command center. i wouldn't have the responsibility as some of those agents do now is try to -- there's going to be a shift tonight that starts at 4:00. we'll run that shift for ten hours. there's one watch commander who has toey 15 mobile surveillance systems going to be located. which one of the unattended grounda%y%ç sensors are not working and how will wef2bafeuju that gap. i have two fixed wing#g&)h that are running jf9?eory, two helicopters, four deployed on stand by. two aus7p#hrs.l3 r(t&háhp &hc% asms#x border patrol agent i have to figure out how to deploy that because there's 500 border patrol agents that are depending on me.2axwf thank god that didn't happe while i was in that position. we have border patrol agents

that are notks intimidated by that but they have to learn. ten years ago as robert mentioned, we're learning at a very fast pace. some of it is trial and error which is okay. but, a lot: able to+pp close those gaps and the military continues to be a great partner in helping us flatten out that learning curve. >> the5 +k gentleman near you, madison. >> hello, my name is dan i'm from tucson. i work with an?ñ organization called no more deaths. i'm glad you've heard about us. we're5rn about the my grant deaths. we had 128 deaths. i'm curious in your plan it doesn't mention anything about goals to

sexual abuse. where in the plan does it include those < aspects to.ksçyñ!s?ç remedy the problem we're bringing to your organization. >> thankb you for that quest)" j don't discount the fact that you don't find it in the pages that somehow we're not as concerned as you are with deaths along the border. other indicators we track over time i'm happy to report those are down for the second year insx a row rescues are up. i think the overarching deployment -- remember when you look at something specific like either border patrol reduces out when you look at the> operational plans that support the strategy. the strategic document, as a matter of fact therg" article that robert wrote really talks about what those shifts were. it doesn'tp dq1- about the tactic techniques and a"[lejuáu the pages what the strategic objectives are. the intent of the article wasn't to do that.

&tz if you're inned and,éi[v want to look at the campaign plan for arizona there are publications available that we wo you through. iing all deaths whether drownings or exposures in the elements that's the extent we can control that. oftentimes we cannot. right? because oftq- these organizations oftentimes will exploit people. they will tell them for instance, we'll cross the west desert. you're from tucson you're very familiar. they will tell them we'll be walking for an hour so don't worry about carrying any water. we know that's not r m÷true. these people coming from central and south america don't know that. help us, as we continue our messaging campaign how dangerous it is. it's not worth the risk of your life or loved one's life. don't pay a smugler to smuggle someone into the

it's too dangerous. those profiting] l from this have no record for which you and i hold deer safety and security of everybody around the border. thank you forhq3]ñ the e@f question. [ inaudible ]7/9iz >> as it relates to in custody whether there are allegations of misconduct or deaths, not just the borderú)a and border protection and centerly the department of homeland security takes those very seriously. the commissioner j p recently received the authorization for 1811 positions which are criminal investigators. we'll be doing thoseo& ìáhp &hc% investigations as soon as we, as 5gd4m allegations come forward. there's a whole host of folks that do those investigations now currently. the office of the inspector general, you have i.c.e. does some of those &fñyinvestigations. any allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated and we'll continueáqh to do so.

>> with all due respect, sir, you've asked two questions now. if you wouldn't mind we'll turn to someone("s thank$÷/ñ you very much. [ inaudible ] >> with all due respect, sir, thank you very much. get a microphone up to him, please. thanks. >> first of all, very informative discussion. i'm the director for vietnam>úy + y southeast asia and washington, d.c. for the interstate traveller company in detroit. so we're business people not really concerned professionally with border security. but my question is this. the allegation( representative and maybe more but one i read about in "the washington post" today that islamic0 some of their people to quote

imitate hispanics unquote to cross the southern border.$r(t&háhp &hc% my questaka!÷ is, is there any cres1tw&ñ intelligencez6xaq that's happening to your knowledge? >> no.b >> if we can turn to this gentleman over here.ov:lñ thanks. >> thanks again for putting i think it's tremendous. i'm glad you guys are doing it. i'mqe=>÷ wondéhaz9ñ if other components within ba4cdhs have come to talk to you about doing something similar or putting together a collaborative paper how you work together at the borders. >> yes and no. and a session. robert, please elaborate.2ty >> yes, they 9÷ ÷have.

i believe the importance is with the articles, like a first stepqcfp right? even just speaking the border patrol ÷ in general or dhs we're very good at telling stories. you can sit÷q with a border patrol for 20 years and hear some of the best law enforcement stories in the world. throughout dhs those things exist. i'll carry the suggestion8+íñ back and encourage them with aldo haste to do that. thank you. >> if we can come up to one of our csi seniorui affiliates here, josh christman. >> good morning chiefs and thanks for being here. quick question. i think a lot of folks myself included have been disappointed about the level and quality÷68b of the public and political dialogue in the last decade or so around border security. i think there's$(bcd some notable exceptions csis and council on foreign relations does some very thoughtful work but generally the level of dialogue has been less than, i think, the

seriousness of the issues would - warrant and so, firsí# of all as a remark i want to congratulate you guysf nq because i think the work that chief schroeder you have done has the potential to reallyzc elevate the dialogue going forward and so my question is as you said you see this as opening the door to further conversation. how do you envision that dialogue moving forward and if someone is on the outside either a think tank or in the public or and wants to contribute how t#jr/ contribute to the discussion and the dialoguesaep moving forward. >> thanks josh. i'll let robert talk a little i'm as disappointed as you are. let it be clear. we'll continue whether it's forums like this. i think getting the publication out, getting it on the website should at least generate more interest if6#;h"on't understand what you're talking about on page 18 can you talk about it. it always seems when we want to

do this and there's some momentum building, younr now, within the organization, that the timing just isn't -- i was really surprised.=0zíñ touche to stephanie. you scheduled this for 6th of january the first day congress is back and everybody is tazat @r(t&háhp &hc% about a potential border security bill. all of a sudden the antennas are up. that's the nature it. it has been over the years. you know that. we can take two p7oep,kjj right. this is my personal opinion. one we asked a thousand times i'm tired of asking. and let's >víxa6&eñ go@5rq bu 5)y+ do our job and forget about it. that's the easy way out.loñgñ one, the organization$v internally. we owe it to them to talk about how proud we are of the work they are doing and wel @ñ owe to it the citizens and people that aren't in uniform just trying to figure it touched about it. so i'm not dissuaded, i'm notvhtnb

chagrinned and i'll continue♪ to try whether it's venues like this, opportunities in the media. i say yes to every opportunity although rare and infrequent as they are, i want to talk about the mission and the men andfcm" women of the organization. and we'll continue to do so. sho,sfñ be doing wy let us$bamñ know. right. a lot of times people say when will you come out here and talk and do this. give us the opportunities. everyone2 nh that comes inp4zsñ request i advocate withinágs.x the opportunity this is a good opportunity, it's an opportunity to talk about the campaign at the secretary's level how that is meshing what we're doingñl?) at the portsv we want to make morrow bust in the future. so help us t"+wout. >> if i,(qcould turn é +÷ robert to follow up on that r2çquestion. robert, you're in a unique position having been on the hill now for a while and i won't put

you in an awkward position into what politicians will do in the coming congress but in terms am what you would like congress to focus on from a border security issue from a risk based strategy issue, what would you like to see happen?b81 what kind of key topics would you like to see addressed early on in this congress? >> this question ties in with what the gentleman asked and arizona.9pf when they asked me what should you focus on i was asked at 4#1%99 recently what did we

completed by resources alone. it takes interagency operation w and intelligence investigative effort and focused efforts on those individuals responsible 5u for the majority of the crime.ú &ñ j the debate every day all hours of the day. resources, resources, resources and it's extremely important. if it's not coupled with the interagency knowledge skills and abilities we have with the intelligence community the investigative community and they are not to discussion onp individuals, then we'll continue to struggle. so i would say that's thenh;t most important. >>g%tík yes.tdiq÷ >> identify worked aí,25ç lot with you guys over the years, and i have to say that underc chief fisher's leadership this agency has really t l robert's product is a perfect example of the6 kind of thinking that's going on.b>í inside this organization. both of you know that borders

have two sides to them.ñ could you talk about your international x you talked about interagency extensively butjkriñ what about the international component to that factor into what you've written? >> thank question and for your45ax kind remarks.&hffo very critical. as a matter of fact it's the approaches. we're not just talking about the line, so to speak, and things only start when they come in to the united states. matter of fact just beyond intelligence andñge working with our partners is to identify the threat wellkwñ in advance. so we kind of take xxy cpb has done in the air passengup environment. how do you minimize risk in the air< you toif threats andnb"qjj let them get on th(gqkk plane so we don't have to do turn arounds likenf%ñ we used to do in 2003 in bangor, maine. we take that same approach.

we look at how>=1nszw& do we first identify those threats early. second, within the approach, within those which a lot of times you know this general, you have been down féfthere. even within the corridors to our terrain will dictate routes of qo travel. how do we leverage that with government of mexico and the work you have done and your team in ending us to bridge what you'vesxy) established and working and taking that a stepr8'ñ forward and doingp0tñ the work with federal police is threat assessments. so we have the same situational awareness. doesn't meanz"e're asking beyond what they are asking for. we start with tezy stuff. if we can agree to either understand what bh that0 threat environment looks like or even if we disagree at the end what we should do about it that's okay f working with mexico and they do

recognize that, you know, some may look at it this is migration through the country and nobody should do anything. but those in those leadership positions fromi"wy the military and certainly the security side of it recognize that the threat even though it may be heading to the u.s. is going8 through their area and we're making[3 incremental steps and trying to2ukx do the joint planning and joint patrols.ñ-ñ we're looking for continued support in that regard both in terms of frequency of deployments and number of deployments and really looking for a"sa commitment over time which is the critical piece as you saw when we were down there. >> sir if i couldrcáaz follow up tñf.apthat briefly. you talked about the southern border and southern approaches. can you talk briefly about the northern border? obviously, not as many one would o w8tut scenarios which arel concern along the northern

border, but i have toif was the candidate for a while in the pentagon so i'm curious what the border patrol might be doing along our northern border. >> what they are doing is identify what their risk) indicators will be on the north. if you look at any of the 12pqít risk indicators the metrics are specific on a threat which i would generally characterize as flow. people and things coming across the southern >0 order. so, obviously, if we're trying to measure the extent to which we're reducing that flow thosevh&b metrics make sense.]=" i want does not make sense:rox to á:ñ>wz2÷ adopt those,3q)c metrics in a place like montana andsú, hold the chief in montana accountable to reduce the average apprehension perd recidivist when they catch one person in the spring. it's a different environment. i'm not suggests there's zrñ threat. what the border patrol.jsy leadership is doingnmw sundaying this framework in managing risk.

they are still held to account&÷ to manage risk but what they have to do is identify what the intent and capability tç$ defines the threat is in their area of operation. understand their vulnerabilities and what thenñ identify what that risk is. and to5nf[revdñ2oúca carve that out.évm pmg >> my name is b i'm grad i'm glad to hear increase in dialogue with public)q border patrol's mission and strategies and the handout will be very useful in helping with that dialogue and ique4buut along with that my question goes to sharing the information as you gather these measurements and be impacts and i specifically would ask about giving numbersd4qrj about

checkpoints, what happens at checkpoints,xwñ apprehensi7k] and seizures. a;e t of communities that i'mad.n14]z familiar with in arizona have0k8 asked for this informationx%%já their local checkpoints so they:$+ know1aé what is happening at those]l m#á$kpoints and have not been given 9( information as well as the transparency it does happen such as antonio hj4rñ rodriguez's death the transparencyn"bqñ around the facts and information that. when a border patrol agent involvendìáhp &hc% so t,cf publich z0 by)ax patrol can either be held accountable or facts are out there so they are judged by everyone equally. i'll point in that far corner. you'll see c$y assisted chief, if you'ró- inclined at the end of this walk over introduce yourself and he'll give you a business card and point of cop the act if there's a specific oñ!.3"q about the checkpoint over the

past we're i want to know how many

first tame up in 2010. i heard it repeatedly. so if a=zéq tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around does it make a sound? right. so how do you know what:f you don't know. you're giving us -- inn-q$4ñ still remember this. one of the first hearings i did z)hgao. this is back in 2010.fc' border patrol that's great. you're giving us your vzñ apprehensions. your 4(a enumerator. math was horrible for me. then hefáñañ saidkzez it's just like chief give mev'8uúm9f

intradiction rate. just think of it. it goes to the pfñ heart of a question i ]?y got. it was probably, i don't know,k;ehx six years ago or so.q'aú this was a) e i community that reallyó&cr wasn't on or near the border. we'rens talking about what we do and our deployments and finally this, this gracious woman& raises her handózb b saysoqjc chief i don't understand anything you're saying. can you just tell me last night how many people came across the border and how many people did you apprehend. is that too difficult? there's twoñ 6hk tz sides.2ehv my left sideé gosh that is really 0jn.difficult. i have no idea. but so simplistic. q we do that. that's whate identify to the extent we're able to this3/;+ñ radio show

so we have a denominator. this. this is not science. wuv'you're trying to do is you're trying to organize2ñ train, equip an organization mexicox;@36 bet&bx able!g to count how many people areb5l0 coming across that bor 2,000 miles.z with some rough$ljjñ and desperate $pñ terrain. how do you do that? for a number of years i still remember nobodynx y çpyzxñy-7 wanted to even try. because as a proud organization if you couldn't do it with&ñ perfection you just didn't do it. which is why we held up apprehension numbers and defend it to theéáp÷ death because we could golxv into an e3 systemminñ and be able to tell you exact d what the fingerprint identificationí9wñ was,

person's name, c?ñ

how we capture it and assessing what iti0jtñ means each year gets more and more exciting for me to do that. 6 but i'll stop short of saying this is the%3f right. this is a number andx/w have some processesq%o in place that inform us better than last year. if somebovvl1ñ says i want you to guarantee that denominator i b áát piece lq of technology soméa2roqçy dust out there tha+mpl canjii tag and track people and be able know geospatially plot them ?k&rtjt&háhp &hc% somewhere that the department can make an accounting of that. short ofn> time-i> and this is the= bt

will ask it. >> ice just a follow upmaárñ on theampr vdone. what is the range in zú a percentage, the specific numbersc% that youoi÷tb jz you apprehend. what percent of the people that come across the border y6 apprehend? >>[ a about 79%,e78%.z6cá 95% confidence with margini#v%ñ of error of 2%. >> you use all of those math terms. i want to thank everyone

wedm[v3$y on c-span 3 energy secretary ernest moniz discuss the energy outlook for 2015. live cov;r[z from the wilson center in washington, d.c. begins at 10:30 a.m. eastern

time. and president obama visits a ford assembly plant in wayne michigan to talk about jobs manufacturing and the economy. that's at 4:05:00 p.m. here on c-span 3. this sunday on q and a author dick layer talks about the 1915 film "birth of a nation." the efforts about civil rights advocate to prevent the movie's release. >> part ii of the movie after the war,úi reconstruction is really the heart of this is where the blacks are just april pade by the portrayal of free slaves.k &háhp &hc% this is a scene showing what happens when you give former slaves the right to vote, the right to be elected, the right to govern. it's a scene in south carolina

legislature where their first and primary order of business is to pass a bill allowing for interracial marriage because again, griffith's hands black men are solely interested in pursuing and having white women. ♪íiy >> author dick lehr on the controversial story behind "birth of a nation." at the national press club post master general patrick donahoe discussed the future of the postal service and how they are adjusting to lower mail volume. he's led the agency since 2011

and leaving the job on february 1st. this is an hour. >> nice to be back here)a-eñ at the national press club and i'm glad to see everybody made it. neither rain nor snow nor gloom or dark of night. that's very good. this letter carrier. it's cold. and especially going up and down steps. keep them in your thoughts today as they are out there making sure the mail gets delivered. i would like to thank herb and the news makers committee for inviting me back, making a little schedule in the program for a lame duck. but 40 years ago my uncle bob rousted me out of bed one summer morning, i was a soft for in college and wanted to make sure i went down the pittsburgh general post office in time to

take the postal exam. if i hadn't done that 40 years ago i wouldn't be standing here today. ended up working the afternoon shift and it was going to university of pittsburgh during the day and i was going to graduate in four years and did that and so it wasn't easy because we had a lot of demands on our time back then but i do consider it very lucky in terms of great start to a career. now, if i could talk to a younger version of myself back then at that time there's no way that i would have guessed that i would have been with the postal service almost 40 years later much less being able to lead a 630,000 person organization to serve as post master general. i truly was fortunate att every stage of my career. i found interesting challenges. opportunities. very good mentors. and that's a testament to a very, very special organization and really great people who are

dedicated to serve the american public every day including days like today in the snow. however when you have 40 years of perspective and still working to get out of a tight fiscal crisis, you wonder about that young person who might join the postal service today. what's the organization going look like in ten to 20 years from now? how do we serve our customers in the future? will that person have the s!d' opportunities today in the organization that i had almost 40 years ago? these are questions that need to be addressed. and the best approach is to take a broad long term view of the organization and develop strategies that best serve both our customers and our employees going into the future. can the postal service operate profitably far into the future? absolutely. can they continue to adapt quickly to changes in the

marketplace? we've proved that. we can do that. can it continue to meet its full potential as an engine of growth for the american industry and american business? absolutely. can it do these things within the current business model? not likely. now if you followed my tenure as post master general over the past four years you know i spent a decent amount of time trying to push through legislation that would give the postal service greater operational flexibility. this means having greater# control the way we manage our workforce including health care benefits, means fully managing our infrastructure it means having greater pricing and product flexibility. and it means being ableñg:fñ top problems and pursue opportunities without irrational benefits mandates and legislative requirements. retiring health benefits is my favorite example of be a absurd mandate.

unlike any organization the postal service is to prefund retirement benefits that we promise to employees. we promise we should fund them. telephone congress has made the postal service prepay a 40 year obligation in ten years. which would have been very easy to pay if the internet had never been invented. compound the issue we massively overpaid for retireee health insurance. that's because our employees are in plans that do not leverage medicare. and the postal service and the employees pay for those medicare benefits so we pay for it and can't use it. under our current mandate we're supposed to pay a total of $96 billion into the treasury department account for health benefits. we paid -- we've already paid m#h& $48 billion prior to 2011 and we've defaulted on roughly $22 billion in the past three years. the sad part of this is could it have been fixed immediately with

legislation. if we integrate medicare into our retire yeah health care plans we would be fully funded after one final $3 billion payment. we're done. be fully funded. practically full'> funded into one retirement fund and fully funded into another. we would be in better financial shape than any other organization in this united states. rather than overspend on health carwe2could be spending these funds on a new vehicle fleet. package=

that are determined to preserve the status quo. the postal service has put together a smart comprehensive business plan and made recommendations about legislation changes to get us back on sound financial footing. we didn't get much support from our unions or“1 mailing industries because it threatens the status quo. they don't want the postal service to have greater product and pricing flexibility. i find this odd because ongoing lack of reform creates more pressure to raise prices which is exactly what happened last year. our labor unions view the future of the organization mostly through a lens of preserving jobs and benefits as they currently exist.>á% technology is driving dramatic changes in the delivery service. look at amazon. they are offering one hour delivery in new york city. the postal service needs the flexibility to be part of thosekkg

changes and more importantly shape those changes. the postal service is delivering packages seven days a week in most parts of the country. we don't need to be delivering mail on saturday. doesn't make financial sense given over 30% drop in our volume. and the- change going five day delivery. my hope is that a new congress will find ways to build consensus and i want has to start with the real willingness foornt of all stakeholders to take a longer term view of the organization. the narrow interests cannot continue to)d get in the way of the broader national>/ interest. just this past year the american postal workers union mounted a campaign to disrupt our partnership with staples which was a good business partner for the postal service. the postal service partnered with staples to provide customer with morven access to a wide range of products and service in roughly 82 staple stores.

it was successful in terms of driving revenue for both partners. unfortunately the apw approach is to keep all transactions at the post office. that's not convenient for customers especially in today's world and not a smart strategy from a retail perspective for our business or any other business. we much prefer to be able to sell our products and services with a multitude of retail partners and be in popular locations to make it easier and morven for people to do business with us. it's an example of narrow short sighted views winning over the longer broader long term strategy and unfortunately for now it's a little tougher to find retail partners. attitudes have to change and i hope they will. i've bern accused of being optimistic to a fault and perhaps i am. but i believe this new congress long term future of the postal service and pass legislation that we need. as someone who is leaving this

job in a few weeks i'll offer some unsolicited advice on the way out. first of all acknowledge the reality that mailing and shipping marketplace is changing rapidly. first class mail volume have decline more than 35% in the past tent)l[ years. that would be worth ry$17 billion in annual revenue annual, $17 billion of revenue that's gone and it's not coming back. e commerce is driving big demand for delivery service and that's driving our package growth. location based technology is delivery and integrating mail and digital technologys is creating powerful strong business opportunities for senders of mail. these are facts about our business that need be part of the tuch business model discussion. will the postal service continues to fulfill its core business message? yes. but congress needs look at the postal service as a business

that is going to be a lot different in the coming years and should be viewed as a positive desirable outcome. second congress needs to take a broader long term view of the organization. america needs a strong postal service. it needs a postal service with a business model that's profitable over the long term so it can continually invest in the future. we owe our customers and the nation a postal service that will continue to drive the economy. help business grow. provide continually improved products and services. of the organization would benefit greatly working towards a ten or 15 year time horizon. if you truly embrace the longer term view many of the narrow special interests that have completely -- would have a completely different context and be much less important. third, the postal service needs the authority and flexibility to manage the organization more like a business. this means streammzf÷ line

governance, this means fewer pricing, workforce flexibility and freedom from very irrational mandates that we're under today. we'll always have strong oversight and checks and balances are in place but we need to have an attitude across this entire industry that encourages flexibility in the way we manage the organization and adapt to the marketplace. fourth, i would encourage congress to view the postal service as a test bed or a laboratory of change that may be applied to the rest ofo ú federal government. we look at our workforce andbksc÷ what we'll need in 20 to 30 years from now. what we're doing today has to evolve. no shock people aren't looking for a single employer over the course of their careers. in today's world does it make sense to offer a pension to a 22-year-old. how reliable is that? the postal service's financial issues are similar to those

facing the federal government. at some point costs have to come down and the promises of benefits have tojp be paid. just look today at the unfunded liabilities for our military veterans federal state and local retirement systems. we propose transitioning from a define benefit program to a defined cont !;] program for postal employees. an ira would give employees moree1 flexibility and much more responsible and much morn nest arrangement with all is said and done. i would like to see the congress encourage much more experimentation at the federal x level. the postal service has the kind of management that would appreciate being at the front end of change and would make good use of those opportunities. health care reformxu is another important area for experimentation. i don't think anyone would argue that the federal government isn't massively overpaying for all employee and retireee health care.

let the postal service develop a much more cost effective approach. we've developed some promising proposals and we should have the flexibility to pursue them. over the past four years i've had the privilege of leading a great management team. and a tremendous organization through some challenging times. i'm very pleased to say that our last fiscal year was the best in the past six years. we learned control without accountable, accounting for the pre-funding but a controllable profit of $1.4mekñ billion. and considering that we recorded a $2.4 billion loss in 2012 that profit represents big success for the organization. we've accumulatedy f0f also $6 billion in cash which gives us some flexibility to make some long overduedm investments. it was pretty gloom joy=t there in 2008 and 2009 as we came out of the recession and we were facing declines in every part of our business. we had to revamp and improve our

core offerings, significantly upgrade our+ !tu(u development and market strategies which in our package business in particular. if you take a look at the fact that we offer date specific delivery, free insurance, free tracking of priority mail a great value to customers and it continues to attract more customers to the postal service. however, we couldn't have offered those features if we didn't take a long term approach to upgrading our technology and tracking systems. we've worked hard to put strong data and technology platforms in place to drive future innovation. one of the reasons we solidified our mail revenue over the past few years is because of the rich reporting data that we provide now to your commercial customers. we've also worked hard to develop a culture of risk taking and experimentation. we're delivering groceries in the san francisco area. we're doing same day delivers in

new ç ork. we're delivering on sundays and taking on some small scale warehousing services. in all of these reveal nice results. direct mail is designed to bring small businesses in to the u2ahymail. it was an experiment four years ago. we also invested in our product development and marketing strategies. we revitalized sales operations. we've done a wonderful job in getting close to our customers and competing for their business. we've been just as aggressive on the cost side of the equation. since 2006 we reduced the annual cost base by $16 billion.9) that's a year. annual cost base. 16 billion. we did that by consolidating 305 mailb) processing facilities our

window hours at 13,000 post offices. eliminated 3,000 delivery routes even as the number of deliveries increased by a million new deliveries per year and reduced the size of the workforce relying on an orderly process of attrition without resolving to layoffs. i think from many perspective you have to say it was the result of developing a strong long term strategy ignoring the nay sayers and following through. if we hadn't press sod hard and moved as quickly as we did especially on the cost side of the equation i have no out to be we would have run off the fiscal cliff now. if we had done nothing congress would have bailed us out to the tunes ofoç annually. one message i have today is this. we made a lot of tough decisions that were based on the long term vup of what's right for this organization. we used every bit of flexibility we had as we should have.

that should be seen as a strong argument for allowing this organization the additional flexibility it needs to deal with our bigger structural issues. if given that flexibility i have no doubt the postal service will adapt in a changing world changing marketplace and do so profitably. let me conclude by recognizing the performance of our employees during this holiday k)# we saw package deliveries increase by over 18%. and our on time performance was the best ever. our employees were delivering in some tough weather conditions like today and on sundays and did a great job and that's a testament to+++n<

job leading the organization. makes it a lot easier to pass the baton knowing the organization will be in good hands. thank you again for the invitation. the opportunity to speak with you. identify enjoyed getting to know many of you over the past few years and with that i would be happy to answer any of your questions. thank you so much. >> thank you. do we have a microphone in the audience to pass along. seems like we'll just have to speak up. i'll take the first question. you mentioned the four years of work trying to get a postal bill passed and that didn't happen. how do you see prospects for

legislation with the new congress? there's obviously a new chairman of committees in both chambers and postal reform is not something that they have been listing as the top priority butter will be a priority for the organization. what's the strategy and what do you see as the prospects for a bill in this congress? >> thank you. well, first of all, i think that the work that senators tom coburn and tom carper did was very good. it set as good base. it was a very good long term look at the organization, covered many different fronts. again irritated some people. let's slim it down. do the minimum going forward. having the basis set going forward is critical. i think we got some good support in both the house and the senate. jason, the knew chairman on the house side used to be the subcommittee chairman of the postal service so he's familiar.

he and eliajah cummings understands we need some changes. senator johnston was on the committee. came to all thaergs. very interested in the issues we faced. i think both sides realize it's critical going forward to have a strong postal service and you'll see some action. may not be the first thing that couples but both house to and senate are looking for some wins and i think from a postal service perspective there's a pretty good chance that there will be a good bill coming out here. my hope is it addresses long term as much as short term issues. >> let's open it up to the audience. >> you mentioned that congress viewed the postal service as a test laboratory for special service generally and then you talked about does it make sense

to have the promise of government pension to a 22-year-old. so i'm wondering generally what kinds of changes or what kinds of things would you like to see the postal service do that could apply to the entire federal service and specifically as it relates to pensions. your suggesting the government do away with pensions or all terrify pensions for its workforce? >> i think the issue that i've had with is that i think when a person like me came into the system and things were a lot different in terms of a person spending many years in one place it made a lot more sense. when you see employees today and we see with it our management trainee, our management interns we go out and recruit kids off college campus and many come in and spend three or four years and off doing another job. i often think to myself in the case there and in the case especially when you look forward to, you know a lot of change

potentially in the postal service in 20 years from now, i think it's fair to employees to give them a lot more control over what their retirement actually looks like. so when they come in we should be working with the unions to come up with some very interesting proposals around whether it's an ira or some type of a defined contribution 401(k). give people the flexibility to manage those things in a way that gives them more control. if you're a postal person coming in today at 25 years oshlgdld 20 years from now you may not want to be in a postal system. so i think we should step back take a good look and i'm not saying, you know rob the system or take the benefits away. it's critical as we see in the u.s. today that we have good

pension systems and good retirement systems for people so they are not having to work until they are 70 or 75 years old. part of the changes also would be rules of withdrawal and making it a little bit harder for a person to move the money into something that wouldn't make good sense for them. but i think, you know the postal service and the federal government should be at the cutting-edge of some of those things rather than far behind where everybody else. [ inaudible ] >> we over pay for health care in an extraordinary manner. we got the fhhb which was a great program in 1962. the federal government and the postal service would be the largest purchaser of health care out there in the health care market today. in the postal service we would have a million over a million people in the plan. we should be able to go out and whether it's an individual plan like a blue cross or a mix of a number of plans based on some

regional offerings should be able to get a really good plan that provides a lot of flexibility, that provide as forward look at health care and get it at a reasonable price. i talked to other people and as a matter of fact there are companies represented in this room who told me what they've done from a health care perspective on a much smaller basis. we should have the same opportunity not only in the postal service fwigt. federal government has not funded one cent of retireee health benefits. that's a trillion dollars worth of liability sitting out there and it's irresponsible not to address it. >> i'm from the "new york times." you touched on this a little bit in your speech but could you say what your sense is of how much smaller both in terms of infrastructure and staffing does the postal service need to be

going forward? as mail volume continue to decrease. >> what's happened over the last ten years from a postal service standpoint is we've been able to pretty quickly adjust to changes in volume. it's interesting because define mail as mail and packages. within those groups those markets there's all kinds -- there's a gigantic range in terms of what people pay and how much revenue comes into the postal service. i think the key thing to keep in mind is that over the course of the last ten years we've lost 60% of single piece mail, blue mocks mail 49 cents. that 49 cents mail is the most profitable mail we've had. that's the volume that's gone away the quickest. as you look forward you think to yourself we'll probably lose another at least half of what

you have there so you go from 20 billion to 10 billion and then settle out with greeting cards and bill payment. when that happens you got to account for $5 billion for revenue there' year you lose. on the other side of the house we've been growing the package business. it's a very competitive space. u.p.s. and fedex are excellent companies but you got companies like laser ship and others that have the same technology that everybody else has. so knowing that you can't say we'll grow everybody out with our packages because that's truly a dogfight. understanding that and looking ahead right now we got about 4 the 90,000 career employees, another 140]m(lz now noncareer employees. we need from a flexibility and affordability standpoint a

balance going forward so that, you know, we sit down with the unions.ósh9> let's talk about noncompetitive products.

you know i write for folks that do standard mail. they would argue you're talking about as one of those narrow special interests, they indeed are not that narrow they are floating the boat with what they pay. they will say well okay, there needs flexibility in pricing but it's very expensive to market by direct mail versus internet. marketers have that option. and they will say raise the price, less volume. so, i know in speaking to you in the past, get control of the pricing we'll be fair and reasonable with you. how can that work going forward? >> i think -- i think that, again, market -- the market will decide what you can actually charge. that's the position that we need to be in. i think that when you're in that situation the unions also understand that the market decides what a person actually gets paid and it's a balance of the fact that we're

self-supporting no tax money you got to be able to have reasonable volumes whether it's mailing packages or reasonable price and excellent service and at the same time be able to, to meet payroll and offer jobs that people want to come in and work for on a daily basis so that's the equation. the fact that we're locked up on pricing on one side and i've already said to unions any kind of a price gap swaeg gap. you can't argue that one way or the other. you got to have that kind of flexibility. every other organization has that. i think from a postal service perspective we've had a great group of governors little short. we need some positions filled. they always displayed a great responsibility and understanding where the mailers are coming from as well as the postal service as well as the american public. >> if i can follow up. >> sure. >> in new jersey right now

there's legislature that introduced do not mail legislation like do-not-call. people talk about junk mail. if you were giving full pricing and i know i'm asking you to crystal ball this. how do you see that working in concert with the fact that marketing by mail is getting expensive. >> i think -- i would tell you it should be performance based pricing. that's where we should go. in today's world you can measure everything. you know that at that lot of the people that are investing in mail today are investing in digital. you can measure hits in digital. you can measure with the intelligent mail bar code not only the day a person gets a catalog you can measure within an hour. you can see from what address who bought something and responded to that mail piece. i would say what we should be doing especially in that world, which is pretty competitive really when you think about it

not market dominant we should look at a pricing scheme that's performance based. >> yes. can you speak a little bit about the mail processing consolidation in virginia and the early retirement buy outs that are going to come with it. you were talking a few minutes ago about short sightedness in congress and unions and something that they both have been very outspoken and against. >> i think -- let's frame it up first of all. it's important to understand what we're talking about because in our world people love to put thing out there that may cloud the issue a little bit. as i mentioned before we have a substantial -- we've experienced substantial loss in certain portions of our mail especially single piece first class. that drives everything. it used to be half of our first

class mail and just to put it into perspective in the last ten years when i mentioned that $17 billion number 14.5 of it came from single piece first class. so as we looked to try to second lie date the networks what we've done is taken a look across the entire market. the mailers have already made these changes. the mailers made these changes. when i was a kid starting in pittsburgh in 1975, every night bell telephone would bring mail. remember bell telephone. how about mellon bank. they would bring mail in. or duquesne light. they are still in business. but every night. every facility across the country would have that. people would bring commercial mail and we kpro sees and deliver overnight. at&t dropped mail in three spots. verizon drops in two. many large companies that teal with credit card billing drop mail in one spot nationally.

so they've already consolidated operations. we have this plant network that's still useful from a standpoint of destination volume putting mail in order for a carrier to deliver. but the whole front the end afternoon shift i started on is not there any more. there is no afternoon shift. so what we've wanted to do is take the remaining facilities, you heard we've already consolidated 305 remarkably the service is still great tracksing is still great, the value is still there, that's how you end up with a profit by the way versus a loss two years ago. and we'll consolidate the last 82 out and be in a situation where we'll operate these facilities on about an 18 to 20-hour day versus a 12-hour day now. there's money to be made on that from a standpoint of not having as many facilities, not having as many as managers and supervisors, custodial work, light, heat electric. but the other thing allows us to make good decisions going into the future around equipment

investment. we have 6,700 letter sorting pieces of equipment. you don't need that many when you consolidate. there's a number of changes. bottom line is this, with the exception of the holiday and your birthday, okay, you think about your own mail box. when is the last time you got a piece of mail that had a stamp on it? yeah. you don't get it. this whole change represents at most 4% of the mail. we think it's closer to about 2.5%. so you can't hold an entire system hostage and continue to run up debt and continue to avoid making investments over 2% to 4% of the mail and that mail is unfortunately for us going away at the fastest pace. now from a responsibility standpoint we never let anybody off. i told you i'm from pittsburgh. most people will remember 1980s

in pittsburgh we lost 100,000 jobs in that city. gone. steel industry went away and a whole bunch of other jobs and a whole bunch of towns and most people don't even remember or didn't even remember hearing about it back in the '80s when it happened. that stuck with me for all these years and i've always felt very compelled to make sure any changes we make, the minimal negative impact on employees. people do come to work in an organization for at that long time in many cases and if they do that we try to make sure the employment is taken care of going forward. >> i wanted to know what you and the postal service have done combat that tip last month or so. >> from an assault perspective in the postal service there's a number of situations that we have. as any time that anybody ever has an assault whether it's by a customer or anything internally

there are many venues to report that. the i.g. union grief vance process. we deal with it immediately. nothing is taken lightly. we follow up and we take whatever actions we need to a, prevent it and b, address it if it happens. >> have you ordered anything -- [ inaudible ] >> we have got, i think the best system in this united states responding. we respond immediately to anything that comes up. whether it's a known assault or whether it's just potentially even something as harsh words and we follow up -- we take all those things very slirs and address them immediately. >> and broader violent crime i want has increased particularly robberies nationwide. anything you would recommend for your successor. >> part of the consolidation is make sure our letter carriers start earlier in the morning. in neighborhoods it's

unfortunate, some neighborhoods in the evening delivering pannings today our letter carriers are more exposed to somebody with bad intentions pop so as we consolidate the other thing that happens the mail is available much earlier for letter carriers in the morning so we can start them rather than 8:00, 6:30 in the morning get them off the street before dark. >> so you talk about what the postal service isn't. the decline in first class mail. dogfight for package delivery. so what do you see, thoughs in the long term you know ten years out five years out, i don't know. what is the mail going to look like and what role will the postal service have in delivering whatever this new concept of the mail is? >> well, i think the key thing to keep in mind is the fact that

we are every where every day. we have 215,000 routes every day that visit americans and even on sunday now. we probably scene out somewhere over 4,000 or 5,000 delivery routes. maybe two or three hour sunday delivery routes. even with changes when he to make in our post offices. we still have 32,000 physical locations in every town in america and we've had, to with the post plan we shrunk the hours but kept the presence there. that was done on purpose. what you'll see going into the future and this is why we expanded into sunday deliver and groceries and same day deliver and warehousing. you know today in a couple of spots can order something and it comes right out of our post office delivered to your house the same day or in one day? and i think that with changing

american demographics much more need for convenience that we shouldn't limit the postal service to the idea that it's just mail or packages. there are going digital products out there. there's an interesting article in the paper last night at ces, somebody has now developed a way to sign on to the internet just looking at it with your face. facial recognition. can you sign on without even a thumb print like apple does now. there's a need to make sure that face is who it is and the postal service can play an interesting role there. so there's plenty much interesting opportunities going out in the future, we think from a standpoint of delivering many different things. grocery business could be a multibillion dollar business from our perspective. to me i would never do it. i would never thought about ordering groceries. when you see what people do it's amazing that the growth opportunities you got out there. so, we're working with a couple

of partners now. there's big opportunities. so take advantage. 215,000 routes visiting houses every day, 30000 plus post offices we think there's a bright future out there. you can't limit yourself to what you're doing now. you got to keep it wide and flexible. that's why we're asking for flexibility of product and pricing going into the future. >> you talked about expanding. you have been criticized over doing that. the office of inspector general recommended pilot projects for nonbank financial service. ralph nader called on you for the postal regulatory chair person put out two dozen recommendations. how do you follow up on. on the other side selling off

post offices. it's called a bank heist with no cop on the beat. historic places with new deal architecture and art being sold off to real estate companies. how do you respond to that. captioning performed by vitac