[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 10, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7511-S7513]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THANKS TO DAVID O. COOKE AT THE PENTAGON FOR HIS CONTINUING SERVICE TO
OUR NATION
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, several months ago, I participated in a
ceremony at the Pentagon to open an exhibit honoring the office of the
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This was a significant
moment in recognizing the remarkable success of the Goldwater--Nichols
legislation, which reorganized the Department of Defense. However, this
moment would not have been possible without the help of the pentagon's
Director of Administration and Management, David O. (Doc)
[[Page S7512]]
Cooke. Today, I would like to extend my personal appreciation to Doc
Cooke for his help in establishing this exhibit but primarily I want to
thank him for his long and continuing career in public service.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article on Doc Cooke
that was published in Government Executive be reprinted in the Record
at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, Doc Cooke's association with our Nation's
armed services began in World War II, when he served as an officer
aboard the battleship U.S.S. Pennsylvania. In 1947, he became a
civilian employee with the Navy in Washington, DC. He completed his law
degree from George Washington University in 1950 and, shortly
thereafter, was recalled to active duty during the Korean war as an
instructor at the School of Naval Justice. Since that time, Doc Cooke
has rendered outstanding service to 14 different Secretaries of
Defense. In 1958, he became a member of a task force on Department of
Defense reorganization that was led by Secretary of Defense, Neil
McElroy. Under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, he served on a
briefing team that advised the Secretary on issues related to
organization and management. In his dual role as the Director of
Administration and Management and Director of Washington Headquarters
Services, Doc Cooke has oversight responsibilities for more than 1,800
employees throughout an impressive array of offices at the Pentagon,
including the Directorate for Organizational and Management Planning,
Defense Privacy Office, OSD Historical Office, Quality Management
Office, Directorate for Budget and Finance, Directorate for Real Estate
and Facilities, Directorate for Correspondence and Directives,
Directorate for Personnel and Security, Directorate for Information
Operations and Reports, Directorate for Federal Voting Assistance
Program, and the Office of General Counsel. The high level of energy
and competence that Doc Cooke brings to his job has earned him the
title of ``Mayor of the Pentagon'' from his friends and colleagues.
Doc Cooke has always recognized that people are the driving force
behind any organization's successes and shortcomings. His determination
to never lose sight of the human factor in dealing with organizational
and administrative issues has been a key contributing factor to the
success that he has enjoyed throughout his career. Doc's ability and
success in communicating with others is evident not only in his
profession, but also in his involvement in community service. In 1992,
he helped launch a program in Washington, DC, to encourage high school
students to pursue careers in public service. This led to the
establishment of a Public Service Academy. The Public Service Academy
works closely with Federal agencies in planning the school's
curriculum, establishing internship opportunities for students, and
providing counseling for both students and their families. Last year
there were 28 seniors at the Academy. Of that total, 25 were accepted
into college and 3 found employment. This type of success is a shining
example of the integrity and compassion with which Doc Cooke approaches
both his profession and his community.
Last year, Doc Cooke received the Government Executive Leadership
Award from the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Society
for Public Administration. This award was given in recognition of his
strong leadership throughout his outstanding career in the Federal
Government. Mr. President, I ask that the Senate join me in thanking
Doc Cooke for his continuing service to our Nation. I hope that he will
continue to serve for many years to come. We wish him, his wife,
Marion, and his entire family every success for the future.
Exhibit 1
[From the Government Executive, September 1995]
Mayor of the Pentagon
(By A.L. Singleton)
David O. Cooke, this year's winner of Government
Executive's annual award for leadership during a career in
federal service, may have a tough time deciding where to
display his plaque. After 37 years in Defense Department
management, Cooke has a Pentagon office that is crammed full
of trophies and medallions praising his dedication to public
service, executive development and good government.
Awards compete for wall space with photographs of Cooke and
a variety of associates from pals to presidents. There's a
shot of Cooke posing with radio/television personality
Willard Scott, each man covering his bald pate with a silly
wig. There's a picture of Cooke with President Clinton at the
White House.
But perhaps the photograph that best represents Cooke's
career shows him seated and grinning broadly in front of 9 of
the 14 Secretaries of Defense with whom he has worked.
Cooke is director of administration and management and
director of Washington Headquarters Services for DoD. This
means, among other things, he is in charge of the operation,
maintenance and protection of the Pentagon Reservation, which
spans 280 acres on the Virginia side of the Potomac River and
includes not only the Pentagon and its power plant but also
the Navy Annex and numerous other DoD buildings in the
National Capital Region. He oversees some 1,800 employees,
controls 20,000 parking spaces, runs a quality-management
unit and directs organizational and management planning for
the Department of Defense.
Cooke is often called ``the mayor of the Pentagon''--a
nickname that reflects the power his office wields over day-
to-day life in the Defense Department's huge headquarters
operations. Beyond the mundane tasks of ensuring adequate
cooling and equitable parking, Cooke's job requires a deep
understanding of the theory and practice of management in one
of the world's most complex enterprises. Yet most people,
from the workers who clean his office all the way up to the
Secretary of Defense, call him ``Doc.'' A man who doesn't
take his many impressive titles too seriously, Cooke enjoys
the familiarity.
from teaching to task forces
The Doc Cooke story began 74 years ago in Buffalo, N.Y. His
parents were schoolteachers and that was what he also set out
to be, receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees from the
State University of New York. World War II took him out of
the classroom and onto the decks of a battleship, the USS
Pennsylvania, where he served as an officer throughout the
war. Afterward, he returned to Buffalo to teach high
school.
Then, in 1947, three events changed his life. He entered
law school, met and married fellow law student Marion
McDonald and accepted an offer to become a civilian employee
of the Navy in Washington, D.C. Once settled in the capital,
he resumed law studies at night and received an LL.B. from
The George Washington University in 1950.
When the Korean War began, Cooke was recalled to active
duty, this time as an instructor at the School of Naval
Justice. Thereafter followed a stint as a maritime lawyer for
the Navy in New York. In 1957, he was reassigned to the Judge
Advocate General's Washington staff and a year later joined a
task force on DOD reorganization spearheaded by Secretary
Neil McElroy. This was the start of a highly specialized
career in military organization and management that would
lead him to the top ranks of federal civil service. ``I never
effectively got back to the Navy,'' Cooke recalls, even
though he remained on active duty for nine more years.
One of Cooke's most vividly remembered assignments of those
early years was to Robert McNamara's briefing team on
organizational and management issues, which the new Secretary
formed in 1961. McNamara intended to institute sweeping
changes in Defense organization, and he wanted a small group
to advise him.
Led by Solis Horowitz, a Harvard lawyer who eventually
became DOD's assistant secretary for administration, the
group consisted of Cooke, representing the Navy, Army officer
John Cushman and Air Force officer Abbott Greenleaf. Cushman
and Greenleaf ``both retired as three-star generals,'' Cooke
observes, ``so two out of the three became eminently
successful, and I was the guy who wasn't.''
The Cooke School of Management
Such self-deprecating wit is classic Cooke. ``He might make
fun of himself, but not someone else,'' says DOD historian
Alfred Goldberg. ``He has a good sense of humor and uses it
in dealing effectively with people.''
Rossyln Kleeman, a distinguished executive-in-residence at
the George Washington University's School of Business and
Public Management who has served alongside Cooke in several
public-employee organizations, agrees. ``I've listened to a
lot of Doc's speeches,'' she says, ``and after an opening
joke or two, he will invariably have his audiences in
stitches.''
Cooke readily admits to using humor as a management tool.
One of the keys to success, he believes, is ``taking your
job, but not yourself, very seriously.''
Another, Cooke says, is a managerial style based on people.
``You can think about an organization in terms of its wiring
diagram,'' Cooke explains, ``or its skeletal structure or the
task skills you need to make it function the way you want. Or
you can think in terms of the people involved. And to loosely
paraphrase the apostle Paul, the greatest of these is people.
``When I get complaints, and I get a lot of them, from
managers who say that people who work for them aren't doing
what they're
[[Page S7513]]
supposed to be doing, I always ask: `Have you told these
people? Have you explained to them what you expect?' Very
often I find they haven't gotten the guidance and direction
they should have gotten.
``People constitute our most important resource,'' Cooke
concludes, ``and so often, we treat them like dirt.''
Cooke practices what he preaches, say three senior
executives who have worked at the heart of his 11-member
Pentagon management team.
Doc ``is very good at getting along with people, no matter
who they are,'' says Arthur H. Ehlers, who recently retired
from his post as director of organizational and management
planning in Cooke's office after 25 years.
Cooke has always maintained good relationships with members
of Congress and with leaders in the executive branch, says
Walter Freeman, another longtime top aide who is director of
real estate and facilities for DoD, ``and it's not because he
treats them differently from anyone else.''
Leon Kniaz, another key assistant who recently retired
after a decade as director of personnel and security,
elaborates. Cooke, he says, ``has always had an open-door
policy and listens well to people. There isn't anybody who
walks into that office and talks with Doc who doesn't think
that he or she has become a personal friend . . . [Cooke] is
people-oriented, and I think that comes through.''
Yet Cooke is no pushover. ``He doesn't just tell people
what they want to hear,'' says Kniaz. ``He knows how to say
no, and I've heard him do so in meetings where participants
were expecting him to say yes.''
And when Cooke is fighting for a cause in which he
believes, he fights hard, his associates agree. Perhaps
nowhere in his career is this more evident than in the
stubborn campaign he waged to launch the current renovation
of the Pentagon.
A Bureaucratic Coup
Cracks in the walls, corroded pipes and frequently
overloaded electrical circuits attest to 50 years of neglect
in the upkeep of the Pentagon by the General Services
Administration, the agency charged with maintaining and
leasing most federal buildings. (See ``Operation Renovate,''
February.)
``For years,'' says Freeman, who joined Cooke as a tenant
of the Pentagon in 1983, ``Doc tried to get GSA to renovate.
But it was a very expensive job, and DoD was paying big rent
to GSA and was sort of cash cow. So GSA was reluctant.''
Although the ``rent'' DoD paid GSA to look after the Pentagon
injected hundreds of millions of dollars into the Federal
Buildings Fund each year, GSA would not finance the sweeping
renovations needed. Cooke saw that the only way out of the
dispute was to stage a coup.
``Doc went to Congress and asked that the ownership of the
Pentagon be transferred to DoD,'' recalls Freeman, ``so we
would be, in effect, our own landlord and could do the job
ourselves. He set up what became known as a `Horror Board,'
and took it with him every time he would go up on the Hill to
testify.''
The Horror Board was a flat panel to which Doc affixed
examples of Pentagon decay. ``There would be pieces of
rusting pipe, damaged wiring, pieces of asbestos and all
sorts of things that showed the building was falling apart,''
Freeman says. ``New exhibits would appear periodically, and
Doc would point to these things and say: `Just look at this.
See how bad conditions are.' Finally Congress agreed, and one
Member said, `All right, Doc, but you aren't bringing that
thing up here again, are you?' ''
Now, Freeman points out, the Pentagon Reservation is owned
by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and an orderly,
12-year renovation project is under way. ``I can't think of
anyone else who could have, or would have, done this,''
Freeman says. ``There's even a special Pentagon Renovation
Revolving Fund established to pay for the project.''
Estimates put the cost of the Pentagon overhaul at $1.2
billion.
after hours
Somewhere in between saving the Pentagon's buildings and
planning the never-ending reorganizations of Defense
management structures, Cooke has found time to be an active
member of good-government groups and a leader of community
service projects.
He also has played prominent roles in government-wide
initiatives. He was, for example, a leader in the President's
Council on Management Improvement (PCMI) while that group was
active, and he currently chairs the Combined Federal
Campaign's Washington-area coordinating committee. For years
he's been a supporter of the Public Employee Roundtable--
contributing a key staffer through an Intergovernmental
Personnel Act assignment--and he often reflects with pride on
the Roundtable's success in spreading the annual celebration
of Public Service Recognition Week to dozens of communities.
Today, if asked, he'll acknowledge with a chuckle the little-
known fact that his office provides a good share of the
funding for Vice President Gore's National Performance
Review.
Cooke has been a leader in two professional groups in the
field of public administration--the National Academy of
Public Administration (NAPA) and the American Society for
Public Administration (ASPA).
Sometimes, with Cooke's encouragement, these groups combine
in support of a single project. This was the case with a 1992
initiative to reach out to students at Anacostia High School
in one of Washington's poorest areas. The idea was to set up
a Public Service Academy, with the goals of sparking
students' interest in public service careers--and in their
academic work. NAPA the National Capital Area Chapter of ASPA
and the PCMI were among those who offered early support.
``I'm very pleased with that venture,'' Cooke says, beaming.
``There's nothing else like it in the area.''
Federal agencies lend three managers to the Academy each
year to work with the faculty in establishing curriculum,
arranging visits to and internships at government offices,
coordinating special events and offering counseling to
students and their families.
While Anacostia High has a graduation rate of only 55
percent, 90 percent of the Academy's students graduate. Of
the 28 seniors who matriculated from the Academy this June,
25 were accepted by colleges, and 3 found jobs. ``I think
that's pretty good, by just about any standards,'' says
Cooke.
Cooke also works to secure further education for government
workers. Anita Alpern, a distinguished adjunct professor at
American University's School of Public Affairs, notes that
Cooke has been a strong supporter of the Federal Executive
Institute and of American University's Key Executive Program,
a master's program in public administration for government
employees. ``And,'' she says, ``he does all this as a firm
believer that education should not stop after you've got a
job, it should continue so you can do that job better.''
Cooke explains the volume of his extra curricular
commitments: ``I don't think you can do the best job if you
just put in your 40 hours and go home. I know that I can do
better here in my office because of the extra time I spend
networking and learning from others outside my office.''
They Can Keep the Gold Watch
For now, Cooke has no plans to retire, which is good news
for his friends at the Pentagon. ``I don't know anyone who
would not shudder at the thought of Doc retiring,'' says
Freeman. ``And why should he? He's doing what's fun for him
and good for the country. Why should he turn to something
that's not so interesting?''
Federal management is still Cooke's passion. ``There are
not many higher callings,'' he says. He's passed this belief
onto his three children, all of whom have federal careers.
Cooke's response to public cynicism about government is to
say that, ``on balance, our [governing] system has worked
well. There have been enormous innovations, especially at
state and local levels. We do face serious problems in our
society today, but many of them have little to do with
government per se.''
Cooke maintains an external optimism. Citing, as he often
does, classic philosophical literature, Cooke borrows from
Voltaire as he says: ``This is the best of all possible
worlds because it is the only possible world. We just have to
keep working on it.''
____
The Leadership Award
The NCAC/Government Executive Leadership award was
established five years ago to recognize distinguished careers
in the federal service. The award is cosponsored by the
National Capital Area Chapter of the American Society for
Public Administration. The roster of winners:
1995--David O. Cooke, director of administration and
management and director of Washington Headquarters Services,
Department of Defense
1994--June Gibbs Brown, inspector general, Department of
Health and Human Services
1993--Thomas S. McFee, assistant secretary for personnel
administration, Department of Health and Human Services
1992--Paul T. Weiss, deputy assistant secretary for
administration, Department of Transportation
1991--Robert L. Bombaugh, director, Office of Immigration
Litigation, Department of Justice
____________________