Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Heitkamp, and members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to speak before this committee today. Although I have only served as the President and CEO of the National Academy of Public Administration (the Academy) since January 2017, I previously served for nearly four years as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) at the U.S. Department of Labor and for eight years as a career member of the Senior Executive Service in the U.S. Department of Defense. I served as an officer in the U.S. Army for 20 years before retiring in 2003. Through all of that time, I have been a customer of the federal civil service system and have personally experienced its strengths and its weaknesses.