start this speech and share with you a sea story. in my service the sea story is an important exchange of information. it's sold amongst fellow sailors and shipmates definitely generally in a small place with a beverage of choice and generally reaches great proportions of mythology over the lifetime of an individual. this sea story is true because it is not mine. this sea story was given to me by captain winifred click collins, the woman who a leadership award was named after. and i met her when i was a young lieutenant commander, and that began a relationship of mentor to protege. she was an iconic leader for my navy and she had many firsts of her own. she was born in 1911 and came

into the navy in world war ii. with the start of the war, our nation needed the strength and talent of everyone, and the navy started the program women accepted for waives, women accepted for voluntary service or the w.a.v.e.s. she had a degree in business and was one of the first women to take courses at harvard. as the war moved on women took on greater and groater roles to parachute riggers to gunnery instructors. for my navy women were not allowed to serviceallow ed to serve overseas until the end of the war in 1944. when we decided that hawaii was once again safe enough, it was a base of planning operations and we would send w.a.v.e.s. to help continue fight the war.

lieutenant winifred wick wasquick was selected with two of her friends to go and set the stage to bring in over 5,000 w.a.v.e.s. to support the war effort. she was pretty excited. then she told me this remarkable thing happened. and i was astounded at the story because i'm from colorado and nothing like this has ever happened to me. a denver millionaire offered the use of his oahu mansion to lieutenant quick and her friends on liberty while they were stationed in the island. a beautiful house on the beach with a large living room and, oh, by the way he left his staff there all the time so the stewards would be there to support them. they went to hawaii. they started to work in that first weekend they eagerly went to this mansion. they put on their bathing suits were getting ready to head to the beach.

lieutenant quick is standing in the living room looking out and sees a man walking down the beach. she's not sure but as he comes closer, she starts to think my goodness, is that admiral bull halsey. admiral halsey was one of our iconic warriors in the pacific theater. a man who had persistence and tenacity and great courage. but also deeply feared by the japanese, deeply feared by his sailors as well. as he's coming down the beach lieutenant quick really starts to believe it's him. then to her astonishment, this man comes up to the house. he knocks on the door. he comes in and she introduces herself. i'm winifred quick. how may i help you? and he says, i've walked this beach many times. i've seen this house. it's neffver been occupied. i've always been curious.

i wanted to see the inside. i know this is intrusive but would you let me see this beautiful home. the steward comes in and offers him a drink and she says, yes, of course. then her friends show up, winifred love and louise wild. all of a sudden the man gets a panicked look on his face and runs out the door. the three lieutenants are concerned. they don't know what they've done. they're still not sure it's halsey, but being good lieutenants they decided to enjoy themselves and hit the beach. monday morning lieutenant winifred quick is at her desk and the phone rings and a two star admiral is on the phone lieutenant were you ot a beach house this weekend? she says yes. did admiral halsey show up? i believe so. he said you didn't introduce yourself. she said, he did not introduce himself. the chief of staff continues.

lieutenant admiral halsey walks that beach every weekend. he's always admired that house. when he saw it was open, he decided to see if he could see it. and when he came in he saw what he saw and when he got back to the area he was pretty panicked. he goes gentlemen, gentlemen there's this house on the beach. there's three lovely women in this house and their names are quick, wild, love. i believe they are spies. they are sent here by the japanese to put on their swimsuits and seduce our secrets out of us. i want to know who they are and i want a report on my desk tomorrow. his staff gets to work and they come in monday morning. admiral, admiral, there is good news. there are only naval officers at that house. and admiral halsey said, i

didn't see any naval officers. so his staff spelled it out for him. admiral, women naval officers. and halsey goes, dear god, not even the japanese did this to me. [ laughter ] women naval officers. throughout her time -- and she served another 20 years -- captain collins rose to the highest rank she could achieve. captain. and the head of all of the women in the navy. she could never have been an admiral because by law when she served no woman could be an admiral or a general. and by law, only one woman could be a captain at a time in my united states navy. that law changed in 1967 long after she retired. but what she taught me with her

stories was that, as you go on this journey, you have to keep your sense of humor, but more importantly, you have to keep your sense of self. and that brings me to you. in preparation for this special day i asked one of my trusted lieutenants to visit rpi and to get a sense of the school's culture. he came back telling me about some wonderful pad thai he had at thunder mountain curry, some curious thing after hearing about your most recent grand marshal week he said i should bring my own jar with a lid. i do not know what that is about. and then he left me with this quote from one of you. a lot of people stereotype the university as strictly an engineering school one student said, but it's so much more than that.

the stereotype. your stereotype. all of you will walk out of here with a bachelor of science or architect degree. the much more of rpi is that there are over 200 student clubs from a cappella singing groups to an organization that prepares for the impending zombie apocalypse. clearly you have foresight. but as a graduate of a technical school myself regardless of stereotypes, i am here to tell you to remember your roots. you are an engineering school. your newspaper is the polytechnic, your mascot is the engineer, and over a hundred years ago palmer c. rickets referred to rpi as the first

school of civil engineering which has the continuing existence to be established in any english speaking country. so if after surviving intro to engineering design and iea you have not come to grips with who you are and where you're from, let me tell you. you are engineers. and as your commencement speaker, i'm required to give you counsel that will give you the success of the rest of your livesp now that i'm limited. i have 8 zero niner seconds left. i offer you one thought -- embrace your inner engineer. embrace your inner engineer. without rpi graduates, the country, no the world, would be a different place. your academic ancestors invented the ferris wheel built penn

station and explored outer space. without rpi engineers, the world would not only be a lot less user friendly, it would be a lot less fun. embrace your inner engineer. it's time to stand up and admit it. you love the logic of spock. you spend countless hours playing supersmash brothers and you laugh at "big bang theory." embrace your inner engineer. you love research, the coolness of algorithms, the smells from chemistry lab and, most likely you took apart some family prized possession when you were young to see how it worked. a few decades later, all of who you are and what you have been taught culminates in this moment. a diploma that affirms your academic prowess and represents your bright future. proud family and friends that

are thrilled that you have a job and for you biology majors the ability to create the zombie antidote when the apocalypse happens. embrace your inner engineer. whether or not you work as an engineer, remember this from your time at rpi. embracing your inner engineer means that you will always learn. you will never lose the love of discovery, and you will always be ready to roll up your sleeves for hard work. embracing your inner engineer means you face failure with courage. for failing only means you've eliminated the path of pursuit allowing you to try out another hypothesis. embracing your inner engineer means you prize teamwork. you understand the value of different perspectives in generating ideas. you love competing with the best

because it makes you better. whether you realize it today or whether you realize it later the past four years alongside your fellow rpi engineers and with this faculty has made you better. when you embrace your inner engineer, you realize that rpi gave you structure discipline and focus. give back to your communities in modernization, transformation and innovation. what broad reaches of the universe or human understanding are yet to be explored, what great building or bridges are yet to be built, take what you have learned here at rpi, the knowledge, the methods, the relationships, and apply it to our world's most vexing problems. embrace your inner engineer to find what makes you feel alive

and what makes you wake up happy every day. use this passion and turn it into goodness for all of humankind. we need rpi graduates for our most challenging problems. wherever you go, there will be others who have embraced their inner engineer. connect with your fellow professionals because their backgrounds and experiences will amplify all of your successes. class of 2015 remember who you are and where have come from. as you walk from your chairs to destinies that await you, you can proudly say you are a rensselaer polytechnic engineer and embrace what that means. as you walk this earth on your own journey and you come across another engineer give thanks. because you not only have found a kindred spirit you have a sure-fire partner for the zombie apocalypse. and when that moment comes and

that panicked citizen asks, is there an engineer in the house, rise up and say, i am an rpi engineer. [ applause ] rpi class of 2015, congratulations. fair winds and following seas. [ applause ] congressman eric is walwell gave the address at lass positas college in livemore, california.

he spoke to graduates for about 15 minutes. good morning, las positas. >> good morning. >> thank you dr. russell, thank you chancellor jackson. thank you board president gelis, board members, thank you to the faculty. thank you to the classified faculty. thank you to the administration here, and thank you to the maintenance workers. the people who clean the classrooms before you got there in the morning, the people who will take down these chairs when we leave today. this is a community college, and it took a community effort to educate our youth and our future. and thank you to the parents and the families who look just as surprised as my parents looked when i was the first in my family to graduate from college.

now, i don't know if you knew this, but today's graduation is being broadcast on c-span. now, normally, c-span is the channel of congress. and i have to watch c-span all the time. and i can tell you that you guys look a lot better, sound a lot smarter and have a lot more hair than the people i normally have to watch on c-span. [ applause ] for many of you, your path to this stage was certainly not a straight line. i draw inspiration from a rabbi from the 19 lt century, rabbi

nockman of the ukraine, who described his troubles and the challenges we face through the human condition as the world, the whole world as a very narrow bridge. but the most important part is to have no fear. there are many of you who had no fear in your path to this stage. i think about sierra solis, who is the president of the poetry club. she served as the interclub council secretary, stepped into the role of the aslpc director of events when it was vacated and all the while earning a 4.0 gpa and working with autistic children and families to support her own family. i think about katie lott, your valedictorian and the narrow bridge she had to walk without

any fear. she didn't just work hard to become the valedictorian. she also just recently won a national speech competition. and she did that struggling with and overcoming tourette's syndrome. she described her narrow bridge as when i'm in an environment where i have to be very focused like forensics, it's easier for me to suppress the ticks and it kind of goes on the back burner. once i'm up there in front of an audience, i go into speaking mode. i feel like i try not to use tourette's syndrome as an excuse. so yeah my ticks are something that i do all the time and it's natural to me, but it's not going to ruin my life. it's how i look at thing, and it's probably helped in a positive way.

when i think about the narrow bridges that you've had to walk, i think about our veterans who are graduating today who have made it so far. from the battlefields, from across oceans, and now going off into the community, taking the skills that they have acquired to help others. this narrow bridge is a journey i know myself. and my path to the stage certainly was never a straight line. i grew up in this area, the oldest of four boys. my mom, she still works today as a secretary. my dad is a retired police officer, and their dream for me was to be like many of you, the first in the family to graduate college. and we saw very early on the surest, the fastest way i was going to get to college, because we didn't have many resources to pay for it, was going to be through a soccer scholarship. and i made better and better teams. and they got more and more expensive.

at one point, my parents thought i wasn't going to be able to play competitively because the travel costs were just too much. but i pushed back. i later became a lawyer in life, but i started my first negotiation as a teenager. i said, what if i helped out and pitched in? and we all took side jobs and tried to pay for my soccer. and my brother's soccer. they thought i was crazy, just like any parent. but on the weekends, it was a family affair. every single one of us, from oldest to youngest, my mom and my dad we all refereed soccer in between our family's games. during baseball season, we were umpires. i worked at aeropostale, folding clothes as a teenager. i was just as bad folding clothes there as i was folding clothes at home and that job didn't last too long. i sanded window frames after school and before soccer practice. i was a wedding entertainer's assistant.

and i did all of this because i knew if i pitched in, if i helped out, it would reduce my cost of soccer and i could achieve that family dream of being the first to go to college. and i did. i was able to play division i soccer back on the east coast. my parents were proud. [ applause ] and like every young athlete, i thought i was invincible. and that i'd play professionally. and like what happens to most athletes, i got injured. but i had a teacher from high school who looked out for me. and he called me and said, eric, i know you had your heart set on playing professional soccer. but i saw in you as a student someone who could also work and help others, something i'd never thought about. i only thought about myself and my own athletic pursuits. he said, why don't you go to capitol hill and work as an intern? so i applied on a lark.

i was hired, and i called home and i told my parents, mom, dad, i got that internship on capitol hill i applied for. they said to me what every one of your parents would say to your sons or daughters. that's great. how much does it pay? i called the teacher back. i think we're good. i think it's all lined up. my parents just want to know, are we talking $8 an hour, $10 an hour how much does this pay? he said, eric, it's an internship. you're going to work 40 hours a week, and if you work hard enough, you'll get a good letter of recommendation if you ever want to go to law school. so my parents told me, son, you're going to have to do the same thing we did when we didn't think we could pay for soccer. you're going to have to work. and so from 5:30 to 8:30 in the morning before i took that unpaid internship, i handed out gym towels at a local gym right around the corner from the capitol. oftentimes members of congress

would come in and i would check them out to their racquetball courts and show them around. from 8:30 to 5:30, i worked on capitol hill, giving tours, answering the phone constituent mail and starting to fall in love with the idea of helping people in need. but that didn't pay anything. at 5:30, i went one more block down capitol hill and i put on a restaurant server's outfit and i served mexican food at a little mexican restaurant called tortilla toast. and members of congress would come in and i learned very early that if i learned their name, i got good tips. i know it's shocking to hear that it's so easy to flatter a member of congress. that was my narrow bridge. handing out gym towels in the morning, serving members of congress in the evening, and having no idea that 13 years later, i would serve with many of them in the halls of congress. but what i had was a family who

cared about me and risked it all, a teacher who looked after me, and a will to never have any fear as i walked across that very narrow bridge. and i know each and every one of you in your own journeys has fearlessly put yourselves up here today. so now, you're moving on. some of you going to four-year universities. others going off into different trades and different jobs. and for so long we asked young people, what do you want to do when you grow up? what do you want to be? but today, the certainty of the market, the jobs that are out there are so different and they're changing all the time. over half the jobs that will be around in ten years don't even have names. and so i'm asking you right now

not what do you want to be. what problem do you want to solve? and i actually want you to tell me right now. we passed out these cards. and you can tweet and take out your phones on the #solveaproblem. right here as you're getting your degree and moving on, tell us what problem you think needs to be solved. mark it down. we'll look back and see if it was addressed. #solveaproblem. maybe you'll solve a local problem like fixing our drought. we can't make it rain. but as californians, all we've ever known is how to innovate. maybe you'll be the next engineer who will work on desalination or water recycling projects to make sure that california can continue to thrive. maybe you'll think more nationally.

and solve a problem like access to education. our generation has $1.3 trillion in student loan debt for 40 million young people. and it affects every major decision we have to make. it's a problem that needs to be solved. from the decision to start a family to buying a home to taking the job you really want, our student loan debt is a generation weighs down on us like an anchor. and we must address this and make sure that anyone who is qualified has access to an education. maybe you'll solve a business problem. i think about the sharing economy and new companies like uber and lyft. or two people in san francisco who were roommates and couldn't afford to live in an expensive city and they were struggling to get by. when they realized they could host travelers in their

apartment at a reasonable rate, they created a company that became one that is now the face of the sharing economy air bnb. they thought creatively about how to solve a problem, their own problem, and then created a website to give others a way to do the same thing. tonight, one million people will sleep underneath the roof of an air bnb. there are so many problems that we need you as a generation to solve. so again, i challenge you, tell us, tell me what problems you'll solve. i see natalie padilla said getting more help for people who have cancer. jalen, who is in the audience today, a graduate, says climate change. these problems you have been given all the tools from las positas college to solve. and i hope as you go along your path, as you continue to find mentors and teachers, that you'll remember that you have

two hands. one to continue to reach up and receive more skills to solve the problems around us. but don't forget that the other hand should be used to reach down and to lift others up. next year, five years, ten years from now, hundreds of graduates will sit in those very seats, and it's my wish for you that you take all of the skills you have acquired and remember that they will be better and more enriched if you reach down and lifted them up like you were lifted up by your mentors and your teachers. las positas college, john f. kennedy said -- and it was his birthday this week -- that the american by nature is optimistic, experimental and a builder who builds best when called to build greatly. today you were called.

you were called to solve some of the greatest problems of our time. remember how you got there, how you walked across that narrow bridge. answer the call and reach down and pass your knowledge on to others. thank you so much. congratulations, las positas. megan smith was a vice president at google before president obama named her chief technology officer almost two years ago. she gave the commencement address last month at massachusetts institute of technology in cambridge. this is half an hour.

the corporation and the faculty of the massachusetts institute of technology are now declared convened. today with this assembly on the occasion of the commencement exercises of this institution for the conferring of its degrees. please rise for the invocation by rabbi michelle fisher and remain standing to join the m.i.t. corollaries in the singing of one verse of the star-spangled banner. >> congratulations graduates, families and friends. in the jewish tradition we have a specific blessing that is said on special occasion ss.

it acknowledges that getting to any particular moment is not to be taken for granted. we're to celebrate at joyous times, at appreciation and milestone events, we're to acknowledge our gifts and successes and realize that we alone are not responsible for our good fortune. we rejoice and elevate those special moments, make them holy by filling them with words of gratitude and with expressions of humility. i share this blessing with you now reciting it at this special occasion. [ speaking hebrew ] praised our god who rules the universe granting us life, sustaining us and helping us to

reach this moment. i also offer you a moment to reflect upon the many who helped bring you to this day the communities and individuals that have inspired and held you, your family your friends your teachers, your coaches your advisers, your mentors. they've strengthened and supported your growth. they have believed in you. they have offered you patience wisdom, love. they've helped make you the person you are today. when you use your knowledge and your gifts to fullfill the dreams m.i.t. has for this amazing community, to work wisely, creatively a effectively for the betterment of humankind, you return all the support you have received many fold. you pay it forward.

as you go on to achieve, to strive, to become, i offer this further blessing for your unfolding lives. may all your learning lead to wisdom, may your labors lead to success, may all your knowledge lead you to kindness may the path before you lead to blessings, may your studies never cease, may all your prayers be answered and let us say amen. ♪ o say, can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ ♪ what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? ♪ ♪ whose broad stripes

and bright stars through the perilous fight ♪ ♪ o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? ♪ ♪ and the rockets' red glare the bombs bursting in air ♪ ♪ gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ♪ ♪ oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ o'er the land of the free ♪ ♪ and the home of the brave? ♪

>> please be seated. it is my pleasure to welcome to the stage the honorable david moore, mayor of the city of cambridge and michael massimino who addressed our doctoral candidates yesterday in the hooding ceremony. mike earned his ph.d. from m.i.t. in 1992 has had a very distinguished career with nasa including as an astronaut and is now on the faculty at columbia. and i'm privileged to welcome to these exercises our 50th reunion class. [ applause ]

and now my honor to introduce our commencement speaker chief technology officer of the united states of america, megan smith. [ applause ] there is the public megan smith, former ceo of planet out, a leading lgbt community on the early days of the web designer of early smartphone technologies at general magic, working at google for 11 years as vp of new business development where she led acquisitions of google earth and maps and on the leadership team at google x. and also general manager of google philanthropic arm, google.org. now as chief technology officer of the united states she serves

as assistant to the president. the cto team is embedded at the white house office of scientific technology which is led by another michlt another m.i.t. alum. the office advises the president and his team on how to harness the power of technology, data and innovation on behalf of the american people. but we think of megan as pure m.i.t. not just because she majored in mechanical engineering -- [ cheers ] -- not just because she majored in mechanical engineering as an m.i.t. undergraduate class of '86 or that she completed harry edd her master's these at the media lab. but because she feels the pulse here and has been one of our

best ambassadors since graduating. i am told that as a freshman megan showed interest in just about everything and, more importantly, that her very thoughtful and effective leadership and team building abilities caught everybody's attention. that must be why she's pursued by organizations to bring her wisdom to their boards which by the way, includes the m.i.t. corporation on which megan began serving just two years after receiving her undergraduate degree. megan may be fit all things digital but she's also a great spokesperson for innovation, gender equality and diversity solving problems with stem, engineering, just to mention a few of her areas. we are so fortunate that she can be with us here today. please join me in welcoming megan smith.

[ applause ] >> chairman millard president rice members of the corporation, our alumni special our incredible class of 1965, the wonderful m.i.t. faculty and staff, amazing parents families and friends who have supported this wonderful class, and to you, the awesome class of 2015. [ applause ] i remember when president gray would take the stage, he would always note that we welcome any commenting from infants to toddlers. since we feel like those infants and toddlers today those

comments would be true. speaking of kids, my boys are here today. and they're inspired by all of you. as you know, we recently moved to washington, d.c. from silicon valley. one of my favorite experiences of this is not quite the same childhood as yours is watching my son louie every day is pulling out his phone and saying siri, when's it going to snow? my brother-in-law was walking with them recently and they got into an argument as siblings do. jeff heard my younger son alex suddenly say to his big brother, louie, when my start-up gets rich, i'm not going to buy you anything. proving that the context you grow up in is a big deal. alex also calls entrepreneurs entrepre-nerds, which i love. so your class is filled with extraordinary talent diversity

and breadth. together you speak over 55 languages and that doesn't include computer languages. your from families that have a longstanding tradition of university yet many of you are from families who have never been to university before and your first in your family and congratulations. [ applause ] i love history. it really informs a lot of my thinking. and i think that often the old becomes new all the time. winston churchill quote that says the farther backwards you can look, the farther forwards you will see. so i want to begin today with our founding, our history, that of william burton rogers, the founder of m.i.t. the ideas of m.i.t. are steeped in deep service. think of the timing during the american civil war.

the industrial age had, of course, dawned but it was still young. and rogers wanted a university that would afford the opportunity for the future of this nation, an institute of technology. the story is our story of mind and hands mens admonus is our motto. what was special was this whole new way of learning with the hands, a teaching laboratory based around and in the lab with lessons. because we've had the opportunity to learn in this collaborative hands-on environment together, i feel like much of my own history and my future and yours builds on the vast accomplishments actions and insights of our alumni, our faculty our staff who have invited us into their labs as well as their classrooms in these the infinite corridors. so today i have some advice for you. right before i do that i want

to go back in history because it's relevant to the advice. there are many gems as we wander around these campuses. we find the tomb of the unknown tool amongst the steam tunnels and the rooftops on the orange tour in our first weeks on campus. i want to point out a very simple thing that's in the corridor just down in building three. it's a plaque. it's got a timeline of the first few years of m.i.t. that the m. m.i.t. library has put together for us. i encourage you to take a minute and go see it. actually knowing your class someone will take a picture and just share it. building on the teaching lab, you see that professor runkle took students to summer exercises in the mining labs in colorado and utah. the traditions that you see across that timeline are filled with foundations of what we're doing today, and i'm going to return to them. i love that the chemical

engineering teams do practice school. yes. earth and planetary sciences go to the west for adventures. the mechanical engineers -- i heard you -- had the insights from professor woody saurs that's our course that's now spread across the world for learning. my favorite, my favorite of the spin-offs is first robotics. i'm sure there's some alumni in the audience today. yes. most notable of taking on professor runkle's vision of the class in the lab is margaret mcvicar for whom our top teaching award is named. i would love to have her physics recitation recitation. she was an astonishing teacher giving opportunities to all students access from day one. yesterday we were in the white

house, and we're trying to figure out how best to support all freshmen in any university or community college to have research. it's very hard to learn to play baseball by listening to a lecture. that's the same with science and technology. we need to be in the labs. that's what you think about when you see m.i.t., our strength. we're good at discovery. we build things. we argue things. we achieve things. solutions and collaborations. as miss frizzle says in the magic school bus we get messy we make mistakes. m.i.t. is filled with wonderful research innovations, extraordinary learning, and we thank all those who have invited us. these are all great and critical things, but what i want to touch on today is that's really not the whole story of m.i.t. mens admonus, minds and hands. because something in our history is nothing that's not in the

motto. it's heart. what i mean by heart is it's not just love and kindness, it's wonder and discovery. it's openness, it's inclusivity, creativity, passion obsession, service. and that's what i want to focus on today, the importance of the heart piece in your lives in your future, in our country and in our world. when i was a student i was excited and starstruck and i focused on exploring adventures. sometimes nervous in the roller coaster of the confidence that you run through when you're in school. despite a few of those ihftp moments -- i guess that stands for it has the finest professors. what i do know is that i was excited from day one to work

with everyone here and the great role models. so i have four main points for you today that have to do with heart. the first aspect of heart is the importance of teams and teaming up. i was lucky to have allen kay, the founding director of xerox park as an adviser when i was in the media lab as a graduate student. he taught me some really incredible things my favorite of which is it's really important to know your strengths and know your weaknesses. in many corporations they ask you to write those down and then sometimes people start focusing how you're going to make your weaknesses better. allen had a twist on that. he said, you know, i think you've got to focus on your strengths and team up with people that are really good at the staff that are your weaknesses. i think that's a key insight and it's a great way to be in life. and looking around our world and

our media there's a great focus on founders. my friend reed hoffman talks about the smart around the team, take steve jobs who is amazing but there's also joanna hoffman, a course eight physics graduate of m.i.t. yes. who was the product manager for the macintosh. and her intense ability to see and debate with steve,y to they made the macintosh extraordinary with their colleagues. last night i ran into james wharton and my friend rob webster is here today from our solar cart team with his daughter sophie. we were in the first team at m.i.t. and i want to talk about the teammates we had not only each other but the incredible staff here in the machine shops that taught us and shush, don't tell anyone, they used to leave the windows unlocked so late at night when they were closed we were able to build our solar car

throughout the night because of their insight and we were able to finish and race in australia across that continent and win the world's first solar challenge. thank you to the m.i.t. staff that helped us and to their labs. [ applause ] so as you grow from what professor williams in dynamics always reminded us of the great things in m.i.t. is our teammates and classmates, i tell you to go out and look for your colleagues and classmates as you join the greater world. there are many. the second piece of advice from heart that i want to talk to you about is kindness. kindness is as important as knowledge. a friend of mine, this huge guy, who came full circle from an extraordinary life of terrible violence. he always used this expression, he found the kindness is not

weakness. that fact is an extraordinary strength. and it isn't just a moral point. it's a practical point. people can get into very people can get into very bad habits of arguing ideas and shutting people down only to be dismissed. what if that half was the first half of a cure for cancer idea? i've had these personal experiences across corporate america with adults who don't realize they're being bullies. one of my favorite things is people, just like we asked our children, step up and say hey, chill it out and make sure the other people in the room are being heard and i really encourage you to make sure you think that way being kind to

others being open. that leads to my third one, which is about openness and inclusivity. talent is everywhere. i was lucky to go to afghanistan, an extraordinary country full of such entrepreneurial talent. one of the people who was helping us with security there used to tell us when he landed into kandahar he would look out the window and see a little boy run out of his house and lay on the roof. he wondered if the boy was excited about the planes, why was he doing that. one day he was near his home and he went to visit. the boy was running out of the house to lie on top of the roof to protect his solar panel from cracking. and i just think about him because i think about what he would want and what he needed

and to help him. not all talent has access. now i'm going to take you back to the timeline on the wall in building three. it highlights an extraordinary thing in 1865. on the first year that m.i.t. faculty taught classes to m.i.t. students they fought for free in the evening at the lull institute. you can fast forward to today. all m.i.t. course materials where free on the web. yet, in the timeline it's in our dna to be open, to share and it comes from our very first year. there's another point on the timeline about openness. all of our lectures and labs we opened in those days.

in those 1871 a neighbor who was teaching deaf children to read and speak, alexander graham bell came to a lecture with pickering in the physics department and joined him in the lab. he invented the fundamental designs that led to the telephone. openness is important. it's part of our tradition and i hope it is something you will embrace like the m.i.t. faculty have. i was able to work closely with ma lalala malala. i want to share with you her favorite subject is physics. [ cheering ] so the talent is right in front of us often and they don't have access, but also there's an inclusion point. there's a lot of stereotypes and

misconceptions, unconscious bias. though much of main bias real bias, people discriminated against overtly is gone. did you know if there's ten qualifications for a job on average men often apply if there's three. women often apply if they have seven of them. so it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with either of those pieces. raising your hand soon or later. it's just as you want to include people, you want to make sure everyone is stepping up for these jobs. there's also the issues with media and history. the imitation game, if you saw it, is a wonderful story of the invention of computing where people save so many lives as they use mathematics to break the codes during world war ii. what people don't see in the film of the 10,000 talented people who saved 11 million lives and shortened world war ii

for years by math, 2/3 of them were women technical women. you see them in photos. [ cheering ] here in america, they were here at m.i.t. and harvard. a woman invented computer languages and the idea of compiling or translating them. at the university of pennsylvania, the foundations of modern computing were invented. they're in the photos. six women who invented modern computer science they were the first programmers in the country. my friend was first told they were refrigerator ladies, meaning they were modelling the machines.

katherine johnson, now 96-year-old african-american who has calculated the trajectories for the apollo mission, we didn't see her in the apollo movies. for those of you who are underrepresented in technology know that you've always been here. look in the photos and see yourselves reflecting back. for those who have been part of the majority remember to include these others. so my last point for you, my last emphasis of heart, really is where barton rogers started with us which is service. service. bringing science, technology engineering, arts and math through service. a lot of people ask me why i came to government from silicon valley. it's very important for environments like m.i.t. where we're deeply together as technology people. we can move fast and we can invent the highest end of

things. it is also critically important to show up where we're more rare, where the greatest problems live. one of things that our hope is to bring tq, tech skills, to government. we've started having things like data paloozas in the white house. we're bringing our culture. i was lucky to be at the beginning of the internet and it is really the beginning of digital government. many people are coming from amazon facebook twitter and are joining. there's extraordinary people within the u.s. government who are technical, who've always been there who are starting to have a voice at the main policy table. it's not just happening in america. it's happening in the u.k., kenya, estonia, chile, south korea, and india. my hope for you is that you bring your technical service to the things that you love.

professor bose says work on your most passionate topics. you'll be incredible. this september the united nations will meet and they will ratify the next 15 year goals, the sustainable development goals. i think that many of the people in this court here today graduating today will bring ideas to those 17 goals that are being set for our world. and if you bring not only your ideas but also your networks of the technical people that are out here, i think we'll solve many of these issues faster than 15 years. every morning we have a stand up in the roosevelt room next to the oval office led by the president's chief of staff. his expression is this is the meeting. you're in the meeting. he gets us to focus on what we can do to do. i encourage you to get in the meeting and bring everything about you, your talent and your skills to that. we need your unique abilities. the last little point i'll make

is to all of you surrounding our graduates. my math teacher, mr. keen, as i went to m.i.t. said one of the greatest contributions you can make is not only what you will do -- and you will do many things -- but it is also to raise incredible children. i want to thank everyone around us for what you have done, what you have created, and what they're going to do. [ applause ] you are breathtaking class of 2015. go celebrate and then take everything you know take your whole selves team up remember kindness, be inclusive, be open make history in the infinite ways that your heart takes you. thank you. [ cheering and applause ]

tonight on c-span 3 a house hearing on the federal air marshal service and federal aviation safety. nasa gives an update on the new horizons mission to pluto. and later, this week's edition of prime minister's questions from the british house of commons. the federal air marshal service is a law enforcement agency tasked with protecting commercial airlines from terrorist attacks. roderick allison, the director of the agency, testified at a house hearing today about air marshal readiness and aviation security. we'll also hear from the president of the airline pilots association, who discusses the federal flight deck officers

program. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> the committee on homeland security, committee on transportation, will come to order. the subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on examining the federal air marshal service and its readiness to meet evolving threat. the before we begin, i would like to express my support for administrator effinger. i had the opportunity to sit down with mr. effinger, i'm hopeful he can provide steady leadership at tsa. while it is clear that he will have his work cut out for him, i believe that his experience in

the united states coast guard will be a valuable asset to tsa and i look forward to working with him and hearing his plans to fix the agency. since the beginning of the 114th congress this subcommittee has investigated several issues related to tsa's policies and procedures in order to make sure tsa is fulfilling its mission, to keep the traveling public safe. the federal air marshal service was significantly expanded in the wake of the terror attacks of september 11th, 2001. the outcome of 9/11 could have been very different if we had federal air marshals on those planes. the threat to aviation security has evolved over the last 14 years. the terrorists are constantly

adapting their tactics and we need to make sure we're not protecting ourselves against yesterday's threat and ignoring the threats of tomorrow. the threat of an ied is very real. is a federal air marshal capable of preventing an ied from detonating? the purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the federal air marshal service. it is not clear to me whether the service in its strategy for resource allocation have kept pace with the new threats. additionally i remain concerned that continued allegations of employee misconduct and abuse

has served to hurt public perception and confidence in the air marshals and can have the common effect of decimating employee morale. we all share the same goal and as such it is our duty to ensure that we constantly re-examine what we are doing and why we are doing it in order to yield better security enhancements and be more intelligence driven. at today's hearing, we're fortunate to have mr. rod allison to address these issues and to discuss what tools are necessary to improve efficiency and security. and on our second panel we'll have captain tim canoll from the pilots association.

i look forward to hearing the testament from both witnesses and having a meaningful dialogue as we work together to counterthreats at the u.s. aviation sector. i recognize the ranking member, the subcommittee, and ms. rice from an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for convening this hearing. i understand that this is actually the first time since 2012 that a panel in this committee has discussed the federation aviation marshal service. it's clearly important that we do so and i want to thank our witnesses for their participation today. prior to september 11th, the federal air marshal service had 33 full-time sky marshals and the 9/11 attacks made it clear that we needed a much greater presence on commercial aircrafts

to counter it. and it was rapid and expanded through the aviation transportation security act of 2002. 600 marshals were trained and activated within a month and thousands more in the months that followed. the federal air marshal service as well as flight deck officers is a last line of defense. we know that the threats against our country, particularly against our aviation sector are constantly evolving and they have only increased in the years since 9/11. we must ensure we're maintaining the strength we need to keep the passengers safe. that's why we're here today. there are a number of issues of concern with the current state of the federal air marshal service. first and foremost, the dwindleing rargeg -- ranks of the service. there's not been a new service class in four years. when you couple this with high attrition and poor retention rates it is clear that the organization is shrinking dramatically and raises serious questions about workforce morale.

and as the workforce is dwindle dwindling, so the number of field houses. currently there are 22 and two more are scheduled to close in 2016 which will bring us down to 20 field offices within the next year. i understand these closures are determined by complex risk analyses and there are fluctuations in which areas are commercial aviation hubndredsbhubs, but we need to be certain that this doesn't compromise safety and they're being transitioned over to other openings as quickly as possible i'm eager to hear from mr. allison about the details and what is in place to help with the transition and what outreach developments are taking place. i look forward to hearing from

captain canoll about other security on the plane. the selfless pilots who volunteer for this program are subjected to intense training and prepare themselves for dangerous threats on commercial aircrafts. i'm eager to learn more about the training they receive and how the training is evolving to the current security threats. thank you for your leadership and for convening this hearing. i look forward to the productive dialogue with our colleagues. i yield back the rest of my time. >> okay. opening statements may be submitted for the record. we are pleased to have a distinguished witness with us before the topic. the entire written statement will appear in the record. our first witness is mr. roderick rod allison, who in may of 2014 began serving as the assistant administrator for the

office of federal air marshal. i would like to note that i met with mr. allison yesterday in advance of his testimony here today. and if he displays the same candid demeanor yesterday, i think we'll have a very productive hearing. i look forward to hearing from you, sir. i now recognize you for five minutes. >> thank you, members of the subcommittee. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to testify about the federal air marshal service or what is known as fams. it's to detect, deter or defeat any threat against our systems. we perform our core mission by deemployeeing federal air marshals throughout the world 3650 days a year utilizing a complex set of operations that aligns with tsa's risk-based strategy. fams are law enforcement officials who are prepared for the challenges associated with a difficult working environment.

fams operate at 35,000 feet, have restricted space, and have no backup to call upon. the fams is unique in its ability to remain flexible and to rapidly deploy hundreds of law enforcement offices in response to specific evolving threats within the transportation domain around the world. in consultation with the department of homeland security, fams completed an updated concept of operations for mission deployments. while the focus remains on the highest risk flights -- deterrence through potential deployment on any u.s. carrier flight. a risk by flight methodology is under development which will include mission planning based upon passenger travel patterns assess passenger risk, and consideration for airport

locations with known vulnerabilities vulnerabilities. in addition to deploying fams on board aircraft, fams also issues intermodal response or viper teams and a lot of teams in all modes of transportation. the teams can be made up of several different components of tsa each working with federal, state and law enforcement officers to ensure the safety and security of our transportation systems. it is made up of dedicated officials. since becoming fams director in june of 2014 i have implemented several workforce engagement initiatives to enhance communications and to promote the highest level of professionalism in the workforce. over the past year, my deputy director and i have conducted nearly 50 office visits and town hall sessions across the country. i have personally visited each headquarters site on multiple

occasions and 92 out of the 22 field offices to meet with personnel at all levels to communicate expectations, address concerns, and answer questions. i recently launched a director's award which honors one nonsupervisor employee at each office who serves as a a role model to their colleagues. i have also initiated a thank you campaign where hundreds have received letters of commendation for noteworthy accomplishments. these initiatives provide me with a great opportunity to demonstrate straight my deep appreciation. additionally, fams continues to provide our workforce with the resources and support they need to carry out the mission. as part of the effort, fams has mandatory physicals and psychological assistant programs which are readily available to the work force and their families. the fams medical program section is staffed with a physician and

other full-time medical professionals who are available to fams personnel at any time 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. fams recognizes the value of these programs for our workforce, and as our mission is demanding both physically and mental mentally, we'll continue to make these programs available to our personnel. fams completed a staffing and field office assessment review in order to manage effectiveness and to ensure fams are located in offices that are positioned in a risk-based manner to color the flights. and six field offices have closed or will be closing in the next year, and personnel were reassigned to the most critical offices where service -- which service the highest risk flights. the federal marshal service is a strong counterterrorism element. we take our mission seriously

and our workforce is dedicated to preventing and disrupting criminal and terrorist acts on board the aircraft and in the transportation domain. i appreciate this committee's partnership and your support for our critical mission. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i look forward to answering your questions. >> that's pretty remarkable. i don't think anybody spoke within two seconds of the five-minute limit. that's pretty good. if that's part of your organizational skills, i'm impressed, sir. we appreciate you being here. i recognize myself for five minutes to ask questions. let's get right into it. with reenforced cockpit doors on arms airplanes and we have pilots that are armed and passenger information collected via the secure flight is the need for

federal air marshals service the same or is it declining? >> well, mr. chairman, i would tell you if i didn't believe in this mission i wouldn't be in this job. all the things you cited are improvement things that would have happened over the years and as we like to say, you know, no one element -- or no one layer stands on its own. so we do need to have federal air marshals and these flights. we do need to have their partnership with the program. we need to continue to work on the improvements on the hard cockpit doors and as you and i discussed yesterday the secondary barriers, so those things will be ongoing. and as we get to a place where we're satisfied that these things are in place to sufficiently mitigate the threats that we see, we'll start looking elsewhere where we can be effective and where we can add value and make a difference. >> what additional changes do you feel the air marshal service could implement to become more

efficient and better risk based? >> i mentioned in my opening statement, mr. chairman, that we're looking at a model of risk by flight. so with that, i'd like -- maybe it sounds pretentious, but i like to think we're good with space as we are today, but we're going to really examine critical infrastructure, our flights flying over critical infrastructure, in addition to the populous areas in addition to using that passenger information from secure flight, known travel paths of suspected terrorists, so we're moving to a model where we can better utilize the information that's available to make better judgments about how we assign our personnel. >> is there any new initiatives that you're planning for the phys physical year, the upcoming

fiscal year? >> i was able to get that over the goal line. but in that construct, what we did was we really looktook a look at how we were deploying our federal air armarshals. since the advent of 9/11 there were things that we were required to do. for instance, mandatory flight levels, looking at long haul flights and looking at the particular areas of the country and giving them certain priority levels. we have actually readjusted that and i think it's going to make us more productive, more unpredictable and we'll be able to, you know, be seen and have air marshals on flights where we wouldn't have coverage. i'd be happy to share that with you during your conversation. >> i appreciate that. you mentioned i think they call it a secondary door and that's something that some groups have

been interested in with respect to additional airline safety. so when a pilot is coming out of the cockpit for that temporary moment when the door is open to have some sort of barrier there i know now on flights they have a cart turned sideways and the flight attendant is standing behind the cart so someone isn't able to get up to the cockpit door right away. is a secondary door something that should be considered or necessary based on your knowledge and experience? >> i think it is absolutely necessary to take a look at it and see if it works if it's effective, if it's something that's going to you know result in less resources and more protection and security for the flight crews. as you stated the flight crew does bring out the cart and block the entrance for the pilot to use the facilities so we are

working and have been for a number of years with boeing, the faa. i was just informed yesterday there were some foreign partners that have an interest in looking in this as well so that work will continue. >> one other thing we touched on yesterday, there's been a concern within the industry about the federal air marshal service booking flights close to the time the plane is set to take off over a 24-hour period for example, and oftentimes if first class is full, someone, if you're sitting in first class, they get bumped out of first class. they can't tell them why. that leads to some consternation and also leads to some difficult explaining to try and attempt to deal with the passenger who paid for a first class ticket and is no longer able to sit in first class. first of all have you looked into this issue since we spoke? >> i did look into the issue of

deadheading, and i'll get to that in a second, but specifically to your question, mr. chairman, these young men and women who fly these flights, they're having to submit their schedules and availabilities 60 days in advance. as i relayed to you yesterday, sir, i know more than anybody that what we do is necessary. it's important. but at the same time, it does impact the industry to some degree. over the course, i think it was 2014 june '14 and june '15, the amount of economic impact of federal air marshals was .11 in the entire industry. as you can sense, we are sensitive to that. and we make all attempts to minimize the disruption to their

business. >> okay. i guess going forward, i would ask you, it might be advisable to reach out to the airlines and make sure you're on the same page to that. the bottom line is we want to make sure that the disruption to passenger traffic is as minimal as possible but also allows you to fulfill your duties going forward. but i guess planning, planning planning is the best we can do. to the extent you can reach out to them, i think it would be advisable to do so. >> absolutely. i'll make sure -- >> appreciate that. the chair recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee, ms. rice, for any questions she may have. >> thank you. >> mr. allison if you were given a wish list of improvements that you could make to your agency what would they be? >> the first thing i would put on that wish list in big bold letters the ability to hire. you know as i go across the country and i talk to federal air marshals the number one question i get is what is the future of the organization.

not being able to hire has a debt detrimental effect on the work force. if i was able to hire i'd open up and allow employees to move to places where they would want to go conceivably. the workforce is getting older. a lot of people that we hired in the beginning of 9/11 as i told the chairman yesterday, they're going to be walking out the door 2020 2021. i asked the chairman for his support in working this problem to where we want to be in five years, so that is the number one issue i'd put on my wish list in big bold letters. i think the other thing that the men and women of the federal marshal would say, this is a tough, tough job. all of us have flown and we have crossed time zones. we know how tough that is. these men and women do this job. and they are exceptional men and women.

i can't tell you just how proud i am of the work they do. it's tough to recognize them for that, and i think over the years the constant reporting of the misconduct, which is a very small percentage of our workforce, and i would submit to you, congresswoman that every organization has misconduct. and i'm not condoning it because i'm going to tell you i'm zero tolerance when it comes to that. everybody has an internal affairs division and they're all busy, but the challenge of leadership is to make sure that our people know what the standards are, know what the expectations are, and know what they're going to be held to. and that starts with me on down throughout the organization, so to your point, the second highlighted bullet would be a little bit more support and recognition for the tough job that they do.

>> so two other questions. you started a thank you campaign to help improve morale. can you help explain what that is? >> sure. when you think about the challenge of security work in any security profession, you do your job. nothing happens. and it's tough to recognize people for that sort of activity right? so what we really did was took a hard look at what our people are doing and we get reports every day of federal marshals that are providing medical assistance to people on aircraft that are in distress, whether it is oxygen ivs, or putting on devices, stopping roadside traffic accidents on their way to the airport and from the airport. there's a whole lot of activities that really, you know have an indirect effect on the core mission, but are

commendable activities none the less. as thigh reportese reports come in, they comb the reports and it is very simple. we write a thank you letter. i understand you were involved in this activity yesterday. thank you. i've lost count. maybe 600. 200 something this year alone, so we think it is a low cost way to show appreciation to our workforce, just a pat on the back. >> couldn't agree with you more. how do you make the determination as to what offices are going to be closed? i don't know there are two upcoming. what analysis do you do to come to the conclusion that it's okay to close this office and to redirect people to another one? >> congresswoman i believe two years ago, if not three, the former director embarked upon a study where they looked at the flights that were in those offices that were identified for

closure closure. i think it's important to note that the airline industry has undergone major consolidations over the years and in one particular pittsburgh cincinnati some pulled off those airports. would they be better utilized putting them to some of the larger offices that we have? there were ten offices that were identified identified that we would allow these people to go. >> well thank you for your service and for the service of all of your employees. i yield back my time. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, ms. rice. i want to echo ms. rice's sentiments about thank youing you and your employees for the great job you do. i was speaking with ms. rice

before the hearing began and both of us are willing to come to your offices to provide additional support to help boost morale a bit. >> i appreciate that. i think that would be most appreciated. i think you'd enjoy it. >> well good. now the chair will now recognize other members of the committee for questions for which they may ask the witness. i plan to recognize members who are present at the start of the hearing by seniority of the subcommittee. the chair now recognizes a gentleman from georgia, mr. carter. >> thank you. i've got just a couple of questions. i'm just inquiring, okay? i'm not going to be confrontational. i don't want you to be defensive, but i need to understand some things. first of all thank you for what you do. this is important. it's my understanding that many countries assess a fee or a tax,

if you will, on airlines whenever we have a passenger from the u.s. landing in their country. is that true? you have to understand i've not traveled much. in fact i sit before this committee yesterday i've only been to two countries in my life. that's one more than i wanted to go to so i'm asking you is that true? >> mr. congressman, i'm not aware of that. >> well, that's the way i understand it. what i understand is the airlines are having to absorb this fee because the federal air marshals don't compensate for it. whenever they are flying over there, the airlines are having to absorb this fee and that's just something i need to understand and need to inquire about. >> i'll provide you a follow-up on that point. >> i want to follow up on a line of questions that i believe mr. katko had addressed earlier and

that's about our air marshals flying first class. i've heard some horror stories to be quite honest with you. in fact, i've heard a story that's been communicated to us where there were like six air marshals flying first class. there was another group on a competing airline that the flight got cancelled and they came over and wanted the first class cabin and the whole first class cabin was taken up by air marshals. that doesn't seem right. can you provide to us how often your employees are flying first class? i flew first class one time. that wasn't by choice. that was the only seat that was available. my three sons got to fighting about who was sitting in first class and i resolved it by sitting there myself. >> mr. congressman, i can't

elaborate in an open hearing about our tactical seating. i would be happy to discuss it with you in private and answer any questions you have. i will assure you our impact upon the aviation industry, we view it as a partnership. and as a matter of practice, those things are managed to a very high degree so i look forward to having a private conversation with you in a closed setting, and i'll give you the full plethora information of where we sit and why we sit there. >> i certainly respect that. i understand there are probably situations where you would, but it seems to me you wouldn't need the whole first class cabin. >> i would agree with you. >> i suspect you would. and i can certainly understand if this is sensitive or not, but it would appear to me that it would be -- especially in light of the fact that we've made so much progress on the doors the

cabin doors now, to where they're secure that the real target is going to be around the wings and the fuel tanks and that's where we really ought to have the agents or the marshals. am i correct in that? >> sir when you get to the notion of as you're referring the evolving threat ieds, every day in tsa, we start our day with intelligence briefings. i don't have to tell you gentlemen the threat to this country has never been higher. certainly debatable, i would agree with. has the threat evolved or have our adversaries chosen additional methods of which to cause us harm, which doesn't mean that the old ones went away and we can't ignore them? now we're not sitting around waiting for the last threat. we are watching for that, but we're also looking for the new

threat. you know, we've got our eye on that and we're looking at ieds on aircrafts and the potential to do so. i will tell you, mr. congressman, christmas day i was at home and i got the call of this guy that tried to set his underwear on fire. if there's an incident on an aircraft, i'm very confident that our folks are going to respond regardless of where they are on that aircraft. i guess to your point, wherever that incident is, we're going to respond to it. >> you see where i'm going with this. i give you the benefit of the doubt, but just please let's make sure we're taking care of this. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. carter. the chair now recognizes mr. walker from north carolina.

>> mr. allison, thank you for being here with us today. it's a privilege to get to put a face with a title there. my question is as a matter of policy, do federal air marshals fly out of an airport proximate to their home and are their instances where a federal air marshal needs to fly out to an off-duty commute to where an assignment begins? >> the chairman mentioned that to me yesterday, and i have not heard that. we're actively looking through the industry engagement office to sort of get some more information. as a matter of policy that's not something we do. that's not something we've ever done. and as long as i'm director that's not something we will do. i don't see a need to do that. >> but you're looking into that as far as the reports that we hear, you're taking a look at that? >> yes, sir. i just want you to understand been pretty busy over the last year but my strategy going forward is to really start

looking out and having some more conversations with the airline industry, airline ceos, some of the law enforcement association groups and things like that. so more discussion but i am going to look into that and make sure if that is happening -- it needs to be reported. that's misuse of position and it shouldn't be happening. >> it does need to be reported. and in your position a lot of us come from different backgrounds, ministry, law, business. and a general manager doesn't necessarily know how to do every specific position underneath the scope of the country but as an overseer, are you able to get caught up on all the different things going on or are you overwhelmed with the specific tasks you should be accomplishing?

>> i assure you mr. congressman, i am not overwhelmed. i've got the right staff. >> okay. >> i'm not immersed in the day-to-day business. to the degree i'm blinded that i don't see things i need to be focused on, as i stated in my opening statement, getting out in the field and talking to the employees and the managers about what's going on and using the employees in the advisory groups and listening to people outside the organization it gives you that perspective. >> i appreciate the confidence in which you answer that. i know we probably can't talk about this in a open setting but i would be curious with percentages. what sort of physical and psychological evaluations are conducted to maintain the federal air marshal suitability? do you feel good about that? do you feel the guys are in a

good condition to be doing the job? >> that is a constant monitoring. that's one of those things where you shoot for perfection. you know, you aim for perfection knowing you'll never get thereve a mandatory physical for -- myself included, for all the credentialed personnel. once a year, you get a physical. and in that physical there's psychological screening. you have to answer a series of questions about what you have experienced or not experienced physical fitness. you know we have a pretty good physical fitness program. you know it's not mandatory. it's mandatory to participate, but we can't remove people from federal service because they can't do 20 push-ups. that's what i'm getting at. it's mandatory participation, and we provide a number of exercises and altiveernative exercises for people to

participate in. are we watching our personnel, do we give them avenues for assistance? >> absolutely. >> the last thing i want to touch on. i'm married to a trauma nurse practitioner. if on the way home there was an accident or scene or situation, she would be the first one out of the car jumping in. my question is this, for guys flying off-duty is in a protocol to react if there was something? can you tell me a little bit about that? i know once they fly to a certain place, maybe their hours have expired. can you talk about what the protocol is if they're off duty and the situation arises? >> i can assure you that any of our personnel that see something in their presence they will react. >> thank you. my time is expired. i yield back to the chairman.

>> thank you mr. walker. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey mr. payne, for questions. >> timing is everything. good morning. let's see. mr. allison, could you detail for us your thoughts on the future of the federal air marshal service? >> how do i see the future of the federal air marshal service? >> yes. >> what i see, mr. congressman, is a viable counterterrorism force that supports the counterterrorism efforts of this government. we may be smaller and leaner and budget dollars are tight but we have to do our part. but i will assure you that the threats that we face now

unfortunately they may be with us a little bit. and we're constantly looking for ways to make sure we're adding that value that i was talking about, assessing the threats, watching the intelligence, you know making sure that we are operating in line with the u.s. government counterterrorism efforts led by the fbi, looking at the secure flight data as we had talked about earlier, and making sure that we are well positioned within the aviation industry to thwart any threats along with the fto program. it was mentioned about the office closures. where we are now we are situated with 80% of the traveling public is where we are in line as we speak today. that's a pretty powerful sort of statement. >> okay. you know when the committee last held a hearing on fams in the 112th congress, they

examined allegations of discrimination, cronyism among other issues within the workforce. detail for us the state of the workforce today, what the practices -- what practices were put in place to address these concerns and also what is the attrition and retention rate of the federal air marshals? >> so as we sit here today, the attrition rate is 6%. it was a 5 at the end of last year, so it is 6% at this time. to your point about the ig report, i testified at that hearing. i was deputy director back then. it's important to note that it was allegations of discrimination and retaliation, which they found none, but they did highlight that there was a rift between the workforce and the leadership. a lot of that came from how we

were stood up. the workforce was hired and then a leadership was brought in. i will tell you today as we sit here 92% of the leadership is from within the rankin file of the organization. the ranking member about pre- pre-9/11. i left and came back. that was in large degree part of the issue between the workforce and the leadership, so what did we do about it? clearly, there was a need to enhance communication within the organization, provide more transparency, more opportunities with respect to ground-based assignments, more transparency and objectiveness to the promotion process, so there were a number of workforce initiatives that were put in place right after that.

and then since my return, i've sort of upped the ante so to speak, on the communication efforts and making sure i'm more visible to the workforce. i was sharing with the chairman i'm out once a month and i'll continue to do that. >> thank you. so you're saying that these allegations of discrimination and what have you were unfounded? >> well, the ig said they had no evidence of widespread discrimination. but they did a highlight i believe the perception of that was sort of prevalent. >> okay. let's see. well i only have 25 seconds left. in the interest of time i'll stay within the rules and yield back. >> thank you, mr. payne. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr.

radcliffe. >> thank you. director allison i thank you for being here today. one of the roles that we have here obviously is to make sure that our airlines and airports are as safe as possible. and at a cost of nearly $800 million a year to sustain the federal air marshal service, we obviously need to look closely at its viability, its efficiency, and it's effectiveness, so i appreciate you being here to answer some questions. as you know, we've had some gaps and issues with respect to airport and airline security here at the subcommittee. we've convened hearings. we had former acting tsa administrator here melvin caraway back here in april talking about the improper

screening of employees at airports. back in june we had the inspector general here talking about the fact that tsa failed to identify 73 airline employees that had links to terrorism so we all know that we've had some issues with tsa security that we need to address, and so i want to focus on your agency efforts here or the air marshal service issues. so one of the things that happened back in april was -- there were reports that an on-duty air marshal left a loaded pistol in a bathroom at newark liberty international airport, so i want to ask you about that incident in particular. can you give us some background about your investigation into that particular incident? >> sure. so whenever there's an allegation of misconduct, that

allegation is referred to of the office of inspection. they do the investigation and the former administrator had set up an office of professional responsibility that administers discipline. that incident like any other incident was investigated and referred to office of professional responsibility. and i think there's discipline pending. >> so it begs the question, though, that one became publicized because of how the pistol was recovered, but to the extent that you're able to answer this question are there less public breaches of protocol like that that have occurred and has it been a particular problem for you? >> you have mistakes and you have misconduct. you have, as you stated breaches of protocols, so the number of incidents that we have to deal with in that realm, it

happens. as i told the chairman yesterday, people who engage in this activity, they don't confess and they don't wear t-shirts. you've got to find them and what we do is emphasize the rules, emphasize the standards, and we help people who make mistakes and deal with people who engage in egregious misconduct. this young man i think unfortunately made a mistake and probably going to cost him. >> director i am by way of background a former terrorism prosecutor myself, so i certainly understand the threat that that issue poses to our country generally and specifically to air safety and obviously i believe in the core mission, but i would like to

understand if it's possible for you to talk about when we look at the cost of maintaining this service, can you give us any idea how many onboard threats have been minimized or e emil ameliorated by the federal air marshal service. >> the aftermath of 9/11 when the buildings were smoldering we were removing the wreckage from pennsylvania and we were burying 3,000 of our countrymen. we were asked as the federal air marshal service to make sure that never happened again and that hasn't. i would like to take credit for that, as i told the chairman yesterday, but i really can't. it goes to the terror apparatus

that this country has put in place. now, we are a part of that apparatus. together as a country we have thwarted a lot of terrorist attacks. some we were involved in. many others we weren't. it's known all over the world that we have federal air marshals on these aircrafts and i can't point to a fact, mr. congressman, but i can assure you that's something everyone knows about and in some small way, that's probably why we haven't had something in this country since then. i know that wasn't your direct question, but that's my thought. >> terrific. thanks for being here. my time has expired. >> i have a quick follow-up question from the chair and then we'll convene. we'll take a brief recess and go to the second panel. you mentioned something with ms. rice. there's been a hiring freeze at

the federal air marshal service? >> yes, sir. we haven't hired. our last class was in 2011. we ramped up to the tune of 400 or 500 air marshals. >> there was an increase at that time, but you haven't done any hiring in the last few years? >> no. >> you have approximately an $800 million budget? >> yes, sir. >> are you doing anything -- what are you doing with the extra money because i know there's attrition? what's happening with the additional money? >> well, there are no additional funds because the budget is planned in accordance with attrition. >> all right.

now do you have sufficient funding moving forward to have another obviously the process is still going on, from what the initial reports that i've seen, probably not this year. we are going to make another run for next year. we will submit here through the department, to the congress, a comprehensive report on what i believe -- we believe as a department what the size of the federal air marshals should be. that's coming up here very soon. >> two quick questions and then i'll be done. the first one is -- actually just one question. there's been some discussion in law enforcement circles that if other law enforcement personnel are on the flights whether it's necessary to also have the federal air marshal on those flights. are you familiar with that suggestion? and how do you think it would work? >> yes sir. so when we first set up the

organization, we took a hard look at that. it really relies on us getting that data and that travel data, and getting to plan towards it. we do our scheduling to minimize the disruption of the airlines. it starts 60 days in advance. so there are a lot of times when our plans are on flights. they're traveling and made their reservations maybe days before. we don't have the ability to sort of look and plan around that. on a strategic level we did look at that with respect to places where we see a large number of law enforcement officers and trusted travelers and we reduced our coverage levels there. individually by flight, it is sort of challenging. >> the very last question, i promise. that is, what percentage of overall population of employees at the federal air marshal service actually are air marshals in the air as opposed

to the administrative aspect that's on the ground? >> of the federal air marshals the majority -- i don't have a percentage for you, but i'll get you one -- our flying federal air marshal or direct support, work in the office, do the operations, do the training. when you go back to the operations center, we have federal air marshals there. we have federal marshals that work on the joint vulnerability assessments. and our mission support staff, we're very lean in that respect. >> if you can give us those percentages, that would be great. i would want to thank the witness for his testimony. that was very helpful. we have a second panel coming up in a few moments. but the members of the committee may have additional questions for this witness. if you would respond to them in writing, mr. allison. the hearing record will be open for an additional ten days. without objection this

subcommittee stands adjourned for a very brief recess.

the chair will now introduce

our witness for the second panel. our second witness is captain tim canoll who began serving as the tenth president of the alpa. captain canoll pre sides over the meetings of the association's governing bodies and oversees daily operations of the association. the chow recognizes captain canoll to testify. >> good morning chairman katko and congressman payne. i am captain tim canoll president of the airline pilots association international. alpa represents more than 52,000 pilots who fly for 31 passenger and all cargo airlines in the united states and canada. thank you for inviting me here today. for several decades, alpi pilots have had a strong relationship with the federal air marshal service.

alpi leaders meet on a regular basis to make sure we have the most current and accurate understanding of the roles, responsibilities training and methods. we focus in particular on learning how fans interface with people like me when we fly the line. throughout the fams history, alpi members have been deeply impressed by the dedication of the program's leaders. including assistant administrator allison. every day fams put their lives at risk to safeguard the passengers and crew members on their flights. for that alpi and its members are and will always be extremely grateful. in alpi's view, flying u.s. airliners with highly trained experts aboard is immensely valuable. they also serve as a powerful deter tent for someone hijacking an airline flight. it's a risk based security

philosophy for many programs. the federal flight deck officer program also serves in another critical layer and contributes to the risk based approach to security. in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, alpi conceived of and advocated for the fdoo program that became a reality when arming pilots against the terrorism act in 2002. ffdos are airline pilots who voluntarily undergo thorough screening by the tsa. once qualified, these individuals have been dep you tidesed before assume inging responsibilities of protecting the cockpit. thousands of pilots who fly passenger and all cargo airlines have volunteered to become ffdos. they protect the cockpit on about 1 million flight segments each year. in addition they volunteer their personal time to receive the training, required to join the program, and many pay of their own expense.

ffdos are the last line of defense in protecting the cook about pit. like fams, ffdos provide passengers, cargo shippers and flight crews with an additional layer of security. alpi applauds the many supporters of the program in congress and particularly those in this committee. we believe that the funding level agreed on by congress is adequate now for the tsa to continue to train new ffdos while providing the management and oversight required. the ffdo program is successful efficient and effective program, and should be expanded to meet the risk based security objectives objectives. the office of training and work force engagement for setting the stage for the program's continued success it's given out by the members to observe the most current training methods and procedures. they've been responsive to alpi's feedback. we look forward to continue to work closely with them.

finally, since we're focused on the overall security of airline operations, i would be remiss if i did not underscore alpi's strong support for installing secondary cockpit barriers on passenger airliners as another essential layer of security. i would be pleased to discuss the details of how they work if you're interested. simply put secondary cockpit barriers create a common-sense additional layer of security by protecting the cockpit when the hardened door must be opened. installing secondary cockpit barriers on passenger airlines would be an important security enhancement for many reasons, not the least of which which is that fams and ffdos would benefit from the layer of security. we are committed to advancing aviation security to protect our passengers, our cargo and our flight crews. we appreciate this subcommittee's shared interests in exploring new ways to make a secure air transportation system even more secure. thank you for this opportunity

to be here. >> thank you captain. the chair right now recognizes itself for five minutes for questions. let's start with the secondary barrier issue. there has been some people advocating for a secondary barrier for cockpit doors. i know when i'm on the airplane now, i always notice the flight attendant turning the cart sideways and standing behind that cart when someone comes out of the cockpit door for a moment. there's been some question whether the secondary barrier is necessary, given all that. and given how quickly they come in and out of the cockpit. i want you to comment on that, and tell me by way of background, whether there's been any attempts to rush the door that you're aware of since 9/11. >> i'm not prepared to speak exactly 40u78 rush the door issues, or incidents there have be