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EK: So you touched upon this a little bit previously, but I was wondering if you could talk more about, now that you've got this broad experience in federal government, what were some things that were unique about your ORA experience at that time, or the way that DOJ managed the program?

AG: I really believe that we put the people first. So, again, I started as a college student, so I don't know anything. I mean, I had had managerial responsibilities up to that point, but watching the adults in the room manage different personalities, be responsive to the client, and really establishing a work ethic, is what I take today. I think that we worked as hard as we played. We definitely, everybody rolled up their sleeves, and that's the thing that I think I take most from, Joanne Chiedi and DeDe Greene particularly. Both were SES (Senior Executive Service) women, at the time, they were fourteen, fifteen, senior level managers, but there was nothing for Joanne to say, "Well, give me the purple glue stick and let me go." And with her in particular, being protective of the staff and taking the time to teach, okay, "This is the way that we process a special verification form. Do you understand and let me show you again." And I would not say she is a teaching... she was not somebody you think, oh, they're going to be a teacher, but definitely had an educator's spirit in terms of making sure that you understood the why behind what you were doing, and allow you to take the process in your own way, but give you the foundation. Just didn't give you something and then say, "Okay, well, figure it out." She was there with you to get through it. And that's one of the things that I definitely tried to take with my own staff. Making sure the numbers are right. I mean, there would be nothing... if we had lost even one check, our credibility would be shot, but we never lost a check. Now, people that got them, lost them, but we never lost a check. We never had any, integrity was always critical. Making sure that whoever -- the term now is senior leadership -- but the Pauls (Suddes), the Bobs (Bratt), they knew what was going on. There was nothing, I never felt that, as a new employee or even as a middle employee, I could not go to the administrator to say, "Hey, we're seeing this trend happening," my mind goes to today, "We're seeing this trend happening and we want to follow it and flowchart it out." Wasn't the language you used in the nineties, but it was the same concept. How could we make sure the process was efficient so we could be responsive to the client as soon as possible. And that was definitely something that was big, but I think that we had a lot of care. And I would say that you don't see that talked about today as much in the workplace, but there was a lot of across the board care and love for the staff, from the supervisors, from each other.

In my office, the current office, I have a picture of the redress team, because I went to GW (George Washington University) for a hot half a minute. And I remember one day calling Joanne and saying, "I just really want to tell you I appreciate your leadership mentality." And she said, "Are you crying?" I said, "No, it's just my eyes are watering." She's like, "Oh god, what's going on if you're appreciating my leadership style?" I was having a bad day. Some kid's mother had yelled at me. I don't know what it was. But when I went back to the group, it was like I never left. And even when I was leaving GW and I was talking to my supervisor, and she was asking, "Well, I never thought you would go back to federal service," I said, "But I think federal service is where I belong." I said, "I understand that I came into a program that was about the people." And even though I was dealing with students, it was just a different feel. And so coming back, it was like I never left. The program had changed a little bit, I caught up to what the changes were, but I definitely think that just the ability to be engaged with people at all levels. Now, some organizations, not all, make a big distinction between contractor and fed. That wasn't our reality. We knew that you might have worked for Aspen Systems or CACI, but there was never a feeling, it was a feeling of a team. It was a feeling that we did what we needed to do to make sure that the people who were impacted by this egregious act were cared for. And that, I can't think of a better way to start a career. I still see people from the program, we've gone through everything from marriages, divorces, deaths, remarriages, kids, graduations, all the way through. And now while I am one of the few people that are still in the D.C. area of the department, it's nothing to call somebody and say, "Hey, you need something?" Civil Rights (Division) has been to my building, my current building, a couple of times, and of course, they have new players, and they don't realize my connection to them. When they're trying to coordinate stuff, and I am, naturally by nature I'm a hugger, and so I'm seeing people and it's hug, hug, hug, and they're like, "Who are you and why are you hugging everybody?" And by the end it's like, "Can I get a hug, too?" I'm like, "Oh, sure, no problem." But I think that's the aloha spirit that we had in the beginning. When I first came to my current organization, and I would just start, "Aloha." It's winter, snow, "Aloha." And someone said, "Well, are you Hawaiian?" I said, "No, I'm not Hawaiian, but I did some time in the water of Hawaii." And people were like, "Oh, 'cause you always say that." I said, "That was my first job, and it really was about the aloha spirit," we had it before we realized that that's what it was. So that's just what I take with me. But yeah, you never want there to be a need for an Office of Redress Administration again. But the core competencies, the core tenants, the core feeling, the core ways of working that were there to be replicated in other organizations, would find you in good stead. And I think those of us that have moved from that experience and tried to employ it, we have people, a couple folks have gone into education. Some people are still in federal service, but it's nothing for us to say, "Remember that time when we had to do X?" And that's twenty years ago, almost, at this point, but it still is very relevant. And just in how you treat people, and recognizing that there is dignity in all work that people do.

I remember there was a time when we did have an issue where we had two different contractors, two contractors, contract employees, that were from different... their culture was built on a caste system, and they were of different castes. And it was really, there was somebody else that was really having a struggle with it, and just to witness the manager sit down with the person who was struggling and work them through the process to say, "I understand at home that this is what it is, but here, this is how we have to work." And in watching them all get together, and even to the point where... because I can remember at the end of their time with us, like in the beginning you could see, okay, "I'm cool with you, I'm cool with you," oh, four-thirty, "I'm not cool." But at the end, it's four-thirty-two, I'm still cool with you, it's five o'clock, oh, let's have dinner, and see how they grew. And employing that kind of thing today, where, in my current staff, I don't have caste system, but I have all four generations working for me, and that can be a challenge because I have my traditionalists, I have one staffer who was in her mid-seventies, she comes in every day and says good morning to everybody. My millennials have earbuds in, they're not trying to speak. I'm like, okay, we need to figure out the dance. And I think back, much less serious in terms of caste system, it's not as serious as that, but it's still the feeling. I'm still feeling offended that you don't speak to me in the morning, and so how do I work through that? That's something that I definitely learned from my time with Redress.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.