Densho Digital Repository - Robert "Bob" Bratt Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1020-6-13)

<Begin Segment 13>

EK: So why don't we move on to talk about, your personal reflections about your involvement with the program. What impact did your time working on redress have on you personally?

BB: It had many different things, aspects. The number one was I loved it for a number of things. One is being around people and working with people, sitting down having a beer, whether it's now on Saturday night with my neighbors or way back when with the community. Working with folks in the community, to me, was just beyond rewarding. Getting to know everybody, meeting new people. Couple that with, you know, I was very, very fortunate in Justice the entire time I was a senior manager, which was fifteen years there, I had a tremendous group of people and staff that worked underneath me and worked with me. You've met some of the folks and know them, and I was able to get some of the best and brightest folks early in their career, and some later in their career, to come join me in different endeavors in Justice, whether it was this or when the Attorney General asked me to set up the original USCIS in 1997, and got a really good crew to work there, too. Just was lucky that I knew some good people there. So the people aspect of it was really, really, by far, the most rewarding for me. The adventure of it all and the mental challenges, having to use my brain and think every day, I mean, how many jobs do you have where you come in -- and I always said this was a labor of love -- and it was, how many jobs do you come in every day and you get to really, really think and create to the level that we got to do that then? So it was a unique opportunity, I was in the right spot to get to work on it at the time, for one reason or another. And maybe because I knew a little bit about what they needed to do. But me personally, those two things combined, working with great people and doing a job where I really got to think and try different things, and I wasn't being micromanaged the whole time, was unique.