Family: Wife, Carolyn, and sons Jackson and Gavin.
Hometown: Youngstown, Ohio.
Education: Bachelor’s degree from Youngstown State University
and a master’s degree in public administration from Kent State
University.
Music:“I’m still living in the ’80s musically. I like U2 and REM but only their songs from the ’80s.” In college he was the drummer
in a band called “Phil-n-the-Blanks.”
Sports: He is a Cleveland Indians fan who enjoys seeing the Red Sox play at Fenway Park. He is also a Cleveland Browns football fan.
Hobbies: Playing with sons, reading political profiles and
studying Winston Churchill.
First job: Janitor in a wedding hall at age 14.
Management tip: “Focus on what you want to do, align your best resources on getting it done and then frequently measure progress against your goals.”
Paul Brubaker keeps a careful tally of how many days remain for the Bush administration from his office in the sprawling new Transportation Department headquarters in southeast Washington.
It’s not that Brubaker can’t wait until the administration leaves office in January 2009. Brubaker’s counting the days because he wants to track precisely how much time he has to accomplish his agenda as the new administrator for DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA).
“The trick is how much high-value activity we can squeeze out of each one of those days,” Brubaker said. President Bush nominated Brubaker for the post in June, and in August, he was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in.
By capitalizing on his opportunities, Brubaker has enjoyed professional success as a corporate chief executive officer, the Defense Department’s deputy chief information officer and as a staff member of former Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine). On the Hill, he was a key architect of the Clinger-Cohen Act, the groundbreaking 1996 legislation that still guides federal information technology managers.
Those experiences gave Brubaker a heightened understanding of how industry and government work, said fellow native Ohioan Mark Forman, a former administrator of the Office of E-Government and Information Technology. Forman and Brubaker worked together on management and budget reform issues while they were aides to Republican senators in the 1990s.
Leading RITA presents a unique set of challenges for Brubaker. Although it’s not well-known, RITA is responsible for coordinating DOT’s $1 billion budget for research and development. Its funding decisions will shape the nation’s civilian transportation infrastructure for years.
At a time when U.S. airports face record delays, highways grow more congested, and concerns about energy independence and climate change are major news, RITA’s investment decisions are increasingly important.
“People sitting in traffic — it’s a waste of time, they are wasting fuel, and cargo is not moving as quickly and as efficiently as it should be,” Brubaker said. “The logistics and supply chain is becoming adversely affected.
The world is going to look very, very different in 2025 than it does right now” if changes aren’t made.
Brubaker said the government should facilitate changes that will shape the future rather than invent or impose them. He also said widespread criticism of the Bush administration for not doing enough on energy is unfair, citing Bush’s mention of the United States’ addiction to oil in a State of the Union address as a major positive step for a president with roots in Texas’ oil country.
Digg
De.licio.us
Slashdot
Technorati
