[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 27, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10510-S10511]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO JEFFREY C. GRIFFITH

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to recognize a 
dedicated public servant at the Congressional Research Service, Jeffrey 
C. Griffith, who is retiring this month after 30 years of service to 
the U.S. Congress. A recognized expert in information technology, Mr. 
Griffith led CRS into the digital age and was instrumental in 
developing and implementing an integrated Legislative Information 
System, LIS, for the Congress.
  He has been particularly helpful to the Senate Rules Committee and 
served as an information technology adviser and facilitator to then 
Chairman John Warner and Ranking Member Wendell Ford during the 
implementation of the committee's strategic planning process for 
information technology in the Senate. Mr. Griffith's expertise and his 
understanding of the Senate institution proved invaluable to the 
committee during a critical time when the committee was grappling with 
expanded Internet use, including the development and expansion of the 
legislative information system, and changing technology expectations 
and opportunities in the Senate.
  Mr. Griffith earned both A.B. and MAT degrees at Harvard College and 
a masters in library science from UCLA. He came to the Library of 
Congress in 1976 as a participant in the Library of Congress Intern 
Program and then moved on to the Congressional Research Service in 
1977. In the years since, he has held positions of increasing 
responsibility and he retires as the chief legislative information 
officer.
  Leading change in information technology has been the hallmark of Mr. 
Griffith's career. In the early days of automation, he played a key 
role in developing SCORPIO, a system for retrieving legislative and 
public policy information that was one of the first systematic uses of 
digital information in the Federal Government. Similarly, he led the 
effort to automate CRS's request management system, ISIS, which helps 
CRS assure Members of Congress and their staff that their information

[[Page S10511]]

requests will be responded to quickly and efficiently.
  When information technology moved to the desktop, Mr. Griffith 
managed the introduction of personal computers as individual 
workstations in CRS. Before the Internet and the World Wide Web, Mr. 
Griffith pioneered the use of optical disk technology for preserving 
and disseminating information to the Congress.
  Mr. Griffith was a champion of interagency cooperation in the 
Congress. When a high capacity data communications network was 
established on Capitol Hill, he led an interagency group that resolved 
issues related to data exchange. This was the first step in the 
Internet-age. In 1997, when the Congress requested a new legislative 
information system, the LIS, Mr. Griffith assumed a leadership role as 
the CRS coordinator and worked closely with the Senate, the House of 
Representatives, the Library of Congress, and the Government Printing 
Office to develop and implement the new system. Today the LIS home page 
has over 4 million hits per year and is the primary resource for 
legislative information for Members of Congress and their staff.
  Mr. Griffith's skill in leading interagency efforts extended to other 
initiatives as well. He is a recognized leader in efforts to implement 
XML technology consistently for legislative data and he has championed 
improvements in security initiatives to protect critical databases and 
ensure continuity of operations in the event of disaster.
  Although Mr. Griffith is retiring from the Congressional Research 
Service, he will continue to contribute his professional expertise to 
the scholarship of legislative information. In 2006, through a 
Fulbright fellowship, Mr. Griffith will study the legislative 
information systems of the European Union and several European 
countries. He will be joined by his wife Jane Bortnick Griffith, who is 
the former assistant chief of the Science Policy Research Division of 
CRS and a Government information specialist in her own right.
  Jeffrey C. Griffith has served the U.S. Congress with distinction for 
30 years. The leadership and knowledge he provided has greatly 
benefited the Congress and the American people and his advice and 
counsel will be missed. His retirement now provides him the time to 
pursue study in legislative information systems that will continue to 
benefit all of us. I congratulate Jeff on a distinguished career and 
wish him and Jane the best in their future endeavors.

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