July 30, 2013 Notes
The meeting opened with a roll call of all GTAC committee members.
Good afternoon. How is everybody? Good.
Welcome to our renovated building.
Anne Rung is the Office of Government-wide Policy Associate Administrator. She came to our office just within the last month. She quickly acquired extreme knowledge of the government-wide travel advisory committee. She came over a year ago and she has had prior government experience as a senior director for the Office of Administration. She also has some experience with the State of Pennsylvania. Welcome.
Now, I would like to introduce Norman Dong. He is the interim Deputy Comptroller with the Office of Management and Budget. We want to welcome him. One of his responsibilities is improvements: improvement and transparency. Prior to this, he worked at the Department of Homeland Security as a Financial Officer. Welcome. We are glad to have you.
(Anne) Thank you very much. For all of you on the phone, as I said earlier, we had many nominees. We are delighted to have such a nice process.
I wanted to put what you are doing in context of your work today. Our Administrator joined us last April. One of his first tasks was a huge process for us. One of the things I can get out of it was, to deliver the best value to the government and the American people. We developed six priorities, I won't go through all six today, but there are two in particular that are relevant to the work that you have been doing the last several months, with a focus on our partners and government. We are in a tough budget climate. We realized that we have an opportunity to help the agency. Budget cuts are a part of our daily life here and in particular, the Administration set an ambitious target to decrease travel budgets by 30%. As we think about this, I will welcome all of your ideas. We welcome all of it as a great opportunity for us to get your input and feedback as we think about what are the best policies and processes to deliver travel to the employees.
(Norman) Let me start by echoing our appreciation for the work you will be undertaking; the importance of the work that this group does and is embarking upon. As I was talking before about how we are in this new normal in terms of agency budget environments. What we were seeing was a trend toward year-over-year increases. Those days seem like they were so long ago. Today, agencies focus on the budget and seeing it flat as opposed to increases. We talked about sequestration. For many of us, that was an abstract topic. It's interesting how over the past 12 months, that is no longer abstract. I think that underscores the point that we really are living in a new normal and it is not a one-year aberration or to average in, but if you look out in the harbor, rising budget cuts will be facing us across the country. That is why it is important to look at the whole issue of travel as part of a focus on administrative spending. Over the past few years, the Administration has addressed this issue and I'm proud of the initial success you have achieved-set goals of about $9 billion in administrative savings, which includes travel and other activity and I’m pleased to say, we have exceeded the goal to $11 billion. The savings are important, but there are management controls and disciplines that we have in place. Many of you are familiar with Memorandum OMB 12-12 that is the guidance from May 2012. It was focused on addressing some of the egregious activity that we have seen over the past three years. I would say that it was a process where it may have been a little bit painful, but I would also say as a government, we have emerged stronger as a result. Some of those stronger internal controls are reflected in terms of the agency level Secretary review of conference activity over $100,000, including public reporting of conferences over $100,000 and government-wide reduction in travel of 30%. I do think that we are stronger as a result of the process and today we are at a place where travel will always play an important role in supporting agency missions. Think about the work that we are doing in the scientific or the research community; it plays a vital role in our agenda. So we recognize that what we are talking about, whether site visits or FBI training, you always have travel playing an important role. That is why we want to make sure, as we look at activities; that we are managing it in a far more positive way. Again, we are very pleased with the results we have achieved today, but I think there is some important work that this group will be tackling in the months ahead and from my experience, as we are in the policy development role, one of the things that I have seen is giving stakeholders a voice in the process. Whether we are talking about federal agencies or our industry partners, I believe that, if we give people who have to deliver the policy a meaningful voice in the process that substance will emerge. I am looking forward to the work.
Great.
Thank you.
Once again, I thank Anne and Norman for coming out here and opening this up for the committee. I believe it will be a great committee going forward. There are a lot of things that need to be discussed and entertained over the next year or so, but once again, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you for sharing.
David Flynn, committee chairman begins to speak: So, once again, this is the Government-wide Travel Advisory Committee. We are starting all over again. Thanks for your patience with the technical difficulties we had earlier. Since it is a public forum, the line has been muted for everyone except for the members of the committee and so, if you have any questions or comments that you would like to submit, please do so on the e-mail address. The questions and comments will come through. We will review them later in other meetings.
Here is a brief history of myself. I come from a travel background. I started my career at American Airlines, from throwing bags into the back of the plane through being a ticket agent, and then, once graduated from college, working in the financing and accounting offices at the headquarters in Dallas. So, I have a vast knowledge of how the airline operations work. I was there through 9/11 and saw the changes occurring due to 9/11 and how we were under budget constraint. So I was lucky to keep a job at that time. I was able to focus on saving the airlines and moving us forward and preventing us from going bankrupt. I worked overseas in the Middle East for about four years focusing my career a lot on the financing and accounting side. I worked for a little company called Halliburton. I was regional finance director and then in 2008, I started my career in government as a travel manager and I've been working my way in that position for the last five years and here we are.
So what we will do now is do a little introduction of the rest of the members. We will start to my left.
Good afternoon. My name is Nan Marchand Beauvois. I am with the US Travel Association. I am here on behalf of our Association. My background has always been the sales and marketing side; both corporate and destination marketing organization. So, I have a lot of background on that side of the industry. I'm happy to serve and I look forward to working with you.
My name is Fred Schwartz. I am president of the Asian-American Hotel Association with 11,000 members and 20,000 hotels in the United States. We have some great immigrant success stories. So, pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
I am Paul Somogyi with Marriott International. I'm thrilled to be with this committee.
Good afternoon. My name is Emily Morrison. I've been in the government travel services field for eight years starting in 2005. I’ve been the Department of Treasury the last several years in travel operations overseeing policy.
I am Dane Swenson and I work for organization called The Defense Department in The Defense Travel Management Office; it was formed seven years ago now and I joined it about six months after it was set up -- worked on the strategy on how to put together an integrated travel program. Over the last three years, we put the thing together one by one, bringing the policy in the Defense travel system technology solution and then we put together the program. Some of them are industry facing. We are working with others in the program. Couple words of my background. I actually entered the military after graduating from Penn State. I spent 25 years in the military, doing many different jobs in dealing with line units down in the division. I retired and went to work for a firm where I did modeling and simulation work for them and then I did some technology consulting for them before coming back to the government. Looking forward to working with this committee. I think it has great potential. We have a public-private venture to build upon.
My name is Rick Singer. I'm the Executive Director of The Society of Government Travel Professionals. I represent the corporate travel industry. It is my job to oversee and enhance collaboration between the federal and state governments in the travel industry and make sure they use best practices. I am pleased to be here. Thank you.
My name is Claudia Bonetti. I work with Lockheed Martin and I am a contracting travel manager in the travel department. I've been with the company over 30 years all in travel management. I have extensive background in the travel industry. I am pleased to be with this committee.
My name is Kathy Lane. I work with National Corporate Housing. I'm Director of the federal programs and represent the corporate housing committee. I'm pleased to be here. I've been on prior committees in 2002 and 2003. It's a privilege and an honor to have this exchange.
My name is Mark Stansbury. I manage Lockheed Martin’s travel. At Lockheed, we have roughly 40,000 travelers. Since 2012, my team negotiates and manages all travel agreements. I have been with Lockheed for over 17 years. I've been with Lockheed since I got out of grad school. I got a Masters in Business Administration and I am pleased to be on the committee.
On the phone?
This is Cindy Heston. I am with Wellpoint. I work as a conference planner for the past four years with Wellpoint. I've been a travel manager previously. I also worked for an airline in sales capacity. I'm pleased to be here. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I am Brian Nichols. I am Leader of travel procurement and operations for Deloitte. Deloitte is the largest consumer of travel services with roughly $700 million in managed travel expenditures. So, I and my team handle all aspects of sourcing, negotiation, contracting, and all operational service delivery as well; including 250 contracted service agents in service contract centers in the US and in India that service approximately 50,000 travelers. Prior to my work at Deloitte, I have about 12 years in the lodging industry and I look forward to contributing to the committee.
This is Erin Choquette. I am part of the state agency for the state of Connecticut in contracting, procurement, statewide fleet to statewide HR, so, I've been involved in drafting travel regulations, our fleet management policies, and a variety of other things. We follow GSA guidelines a great deal so I'm happy to participate in this and to have a better understanding of what goes into the policies and perhaps share some of our experiences.
Patrick?
Good afternoon. I am Patrick Moscaritolo, President and CEO of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. This is basically a not-for-profit organization. It is membership-based with member companies across New England. They range from rental car companies to business owners who are involved in the industry. I joined the Bureau over 22 years ago. I was in a number of different management positions. I'm looking forward to participating.
Good afternoon. My name is Bryan Scott. I'm the director of federal government programs for Enterprise Holdings; that is the parent company for Rent-A-Car and Alamo Rent A Car. I've been here for over 25 years. In this role, I've worked extensively with the Defense Travel Management Office on the U.S. government car and truck rental programs and with GSA as well as all the other worldwide federal government programs that we manage. I'm excited to work with the committee and honored to be chosen to represent the car rental industry.
I believe that is everybody. So, once again, I want to thank everybody for accepting their position and really looking at where we can be more efficient as government agencies and as a partner from government to industry as well.
So, I think one of the things that I want to point out real quick is something that was mentioned earlier. When reducing travel by 30%, the executive orders that came across, a lot of people have looked at reducing government travel as well; we have to reduce actual travel by 30%. That is not the case. The real idea was reduce travel expense by 30%. That can be done in a number of ways without impacting the amount of travel in the agency. So, it is really how to be more efficient in your actual travel and bringing in technology efficiencies, being in control of the processes that allow that to occur. Those are some of the things that I believe we as an organization will be looking at throughout the next year. We will reduce the amount of expense that occurs with travel so that we can meet those executive orders without impacting the missions. As we move forward, we will look at some of the goals and objectives of the committee, understanding the purpose and expectations of the Government-wide Travel Advisory Committee. Then we want to go into understanding the hotel industry, in financial terms and look at the data that's available to us, see what we have there and then, have an appreciation for some of the authorities and directions that are given to us by the GSA and whatnot, and then, understanding some of the methodologies that go into setting per diem rates. I know there's a lot of discussion related to methodology behind per diem rates. What goes into it and why. So, we'll get into some of that and then understanding key concepts and reasons behind the theories that GSA uses for the per diem rates. And then, we can have an open discussion about these things moving forward. So, I guess from a 20-20 perspective, we can start with a clear understanding of the purpose and expectation, this or anything you'd like to discuss about what our expectations are? Discussing the mandate of travel 30% reduction, in object class XXI. We look at the Defense Department because travel is an integral part of the mission; on the number of trips, at least for the DoD, they have to travel to accomplish their mission. The department heads have different -- 200 different types of travel dealing with medical, training, reserves, and a lot of training travel. So, we start thinking about reductions. You are looking at this travel, that sort of stuff. Some of that creates pent up demand. Start looking at what you need to accomplish with travel, the length of trips, the number of trips, the cost per trips. When we start looking at initiatives, we articulate it to services and terms. If we do this, then it will generate so many trips and generate impact on the mission. That is kind of what you were getting at.