[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 159 (Wednesday, October 1, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10299-S10300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SECRETARY WAYNE CLOUGH

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on July 1, G. Wayne Clough became the new 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Last week, the New York Times 
wrote a profile on Dr. Clough that highlights his markedly different 
leadership and style. This style is a welcome one to me.
  As a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, I look forward to 
working with Secretary Clough on the many challenges that face the 
Smithsonian. So all Senators and their staff can see that he is off to 
a solid beginning, I ask unanimous consent that the article in the New 
York Times be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the the New York Times, Sept. 15, 2008]

            Smithsonian Chief Hopes To Institute Big Reforms

                          (By Robin Pogrebin)

       It is hard to picture G. Wayne Clough dropping $14,000 of 
     the Smithsonian Institution's money to charter a Learjet, or 
     $724 to put his family up at the Four Seasons for a night. 
     Part of his mandate, after all, is to guard against the 
     abuses that brought the ouster of his high-spending 
     predecessor, Lawrence M. Small.
       But Dr. Clough, the new secretary of the Smithsonian--its 
     chief executive--is expected to do far more than set a good 
     example. He is charged with nothing less than transforming a 
     162-year-old bear of an institution--with 19 museums and 
     galleries, a zoo, 9 research centers, and an operating budget 
     of $1 billion--into an ethical, tightly run organization. ``I 
     go to work every day a little bit nervous,'' he said in an 
     interview last week in New York.
       The Smithsonian has been through the wringer over the last 
     two years, with disclosures of improper spending and sharp 
     criticism from Congressional committees about sloppy 
     governance.
       So after taking over on July 1, Dr. Clough, 66, a widely 
     respected former president of the Georgia Institute of 
     Technology, spent much of his first two months calling on 
     members of Congress. Winning back the good will of lawmakers 
     will be crucial, since the federal government provides 70 
     percent of the Smithsonian's operating budget.
       Dr. Clough (pronounced cluff) said he had assured 
     legislators that reforms were already under way to guard 
     against future misconduct.
       The Smithsonian's museum directors must now have their 
     travel approved by an undersecretary of the institution, Dr. 
     Clough said. Every new executive must undergo a thorough 
     background check, and ethics is a regular topic of discussion 
     among the Smithsonian's management.
       Dr. Clough's own travel must now be approved by the 
     Smithsonian's chief financial officer. Dr. Clough has also 
     resigned from his salaried positions on three corporate 
     boards. From 2000 to 2006 his predecessor, Mr. Small, spent 
     64 business days serving on corporate boards that paid him a 
     total of $5.7 million.
       Mr. Small's salary was $916,000 in 2007, but the 
     Smithsonian is paying Dr. Clough $490,000. He pays his own 
     rent on a town house near the fish market in southeast 
     Washington; Mr. Small used a Smithsonian housing allowance 
     for his town house in an affluent neighborhood in northwest 
     Washington. Dr. Clough's home is about a quarter-mile from 
     the Smithsonian museums, so he can walk to work; Mr. Small 
     used a chauffeur.
       While he is earning less than he did at Georgia Tech, where 
     his salary package was worth $551,186, Dr. Clough said he 
     hadn't looked back. ``This is something I wanted to do,'' he 
     said.
       He said he was excited by the idea of collaborations 
     between art and science at the Smithsonian, by the depth of 
     expertise to be found at its various museums and research 
     centers and by the Smithsonian's potential to be an education 
     resource for the country.
       And he seems to be having a good time. He cited some 
     serendipitous encounters, like happening upon a photographer 
     at the National Museum of Natural History who had completed a 
     folio of rare plants with the help of Smithsonian biologists. 
     He observed researchers examining endangered languages at the 
     National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian in 
     Suitland, Md. And he watched the wing of a German World War 
     II plane being readied at the Paul E. Garber facility, also 
     in Suitland, for the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy 
     Center near Dulles International Airport, an extension of the 
     National Air and Space Museum.
       ``I'm thrilled by these little pleasures,'' he said.
       On his visit to New York, Dr. Clough spent four hours on 
     Thursday at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, another 
     Smithsonian museum, meeting the director, Paul Thompson, and 
     curators; viewing its collections; and talking with the 
     textile artist Sheila Hicks, who happened to be there. 
     ``During all of these discussions, his interest in and 
     knowledge of design was very apparent,'' Mr. Thompson said.
       It is clear that Dr. Clough will set a different tone. Mr. 
     Small came from the corporate corridors of Fannie Mae, but 
     Dr. Clough has spent his career on college campuses in the 
     unglamorous field of engineering.
       Born in Douglas, Ga., Dr. Clough exudes a low-key Southern 
     charm. He is plain-spoken, unvarnished and sometimes a little 
     corny.
       Asked about the tension at the Smithsonian between art and 
     science, he said: ``I love the arts. I love beauty. Every day 
     I try to notice something beautiful. It could be a flower, it 
     could be a painting, it could be a sculpture, it could be a 
     piece of music.''
       As for setting the Smithsonian back on course, some changes 
     in governance were adopted before he arrived by the board of 
     regents, the organization's governing body, and by Cristian 
     Samper, who was appointed acting secretary after Mr. Small 
     resigned in March 2007. (Mr. Samper has returned to his post 
     as director of the natural history museum.)
       The board now meets four times a year, not three. The 
     Smithsonian's inspector general, who conducts audits and 
     prevents waste, now reports directly to the board chairman, 
     not the secretary.
       Dr. Clough said he planned to decentralize the institution, 
     to reduce the number of undersecretaries from four to three 
     and to give them more decision-making authority. ``I don't 
     want to have everything come to me if it doesn't need 
     to,'' he said. ``We have got to be an agile institution.''
       ``My feeling on organizations is they should be as little 
     top-heavy as possible,'' he added. ``Let's take the money we 
     might be spending on the superstructure and give it to the 
     museums.''
       He said he also hoped to improve coordination. The 
     Smithsonian has about a dozen educational centers, for 
     example, he said, ``but no pan-institutional concept'' for 
     education.
       While he said he believed the federal government should 
     maintain its financial support, Dr. Clough said he embraced 
     Congress's message that the Smithsonian should raise more of 
     its own money to cover expenses. ``We need to get more self-
     reliant,'' he said.
       That means a major capital campaign of $1 billion over five 
     to seven years, a first for the institution, which will start 
     next year.
       Dr. Clough said he would devote considerable effort to 
     cultivating donors. ``If we're going to get facilities gifts, 
     we need to have opportunities for people that they can 
     emotionally attach to,'' he said, like particular 
     exhibitions. ``You've got to work with donor intent.''
       At the same time, he said, he recognized the perils of 
     giving contributors too much of a say in how their money is 
     spent, a challenge with which the Smithsonian is already 
     familiar. Last year some regents questioned the 
     appropriateness of a $5 million gift from the American 
     Petroleum Institute for the Ocean Initiative exhibition hall 
     of the natural history museum. The gift was rescinded.
       ``A donor might want programming input there is always 
     going to be that element of nuance there,'' Dr. Clough said. 
     ``You have to understand the dangers and the possibilities.''
       He said he also hoped to compete for federal money beyond 
     the direct annual appropriation. If the Smithsonian set out 
     to develop a school science and technology curriculum, for 
     example, Dr. Clough said, ``we

[[Page S10300]]

     might go to the Department of Education and get that funded, 
     as opposed to sitting back and hoping that money comes to 
     us.''
       Other ideas include appealing to foundations and seeking 
     revenue-generating activity on the Web, making the 
     Smithsonian's extensive photography collection available for 
     commercial purposes, for instance. ``We're not looking to 
     make a profit,'' he said. ``We're just looking to recover our 
     costs.''
       During his nearly 14 years as president of Georgia Tech, 
     Dr. Clough oversaw two capital campaigns that raised nearly 
     $1.5 billion in private gifts. Annual research expenditures 
     increased to $425 million from $212 million and enrollment to 
     more than 18,000 from 13,000. Georgia Tech has consistently 
     ranked among the nation's Top 10 public research 
     universities.
       At the Smithsonian, Dr. Clough said he planned to spend the 
     next year developing a strategic plan ``to help us get a fix 
     on where we are'' and to set fund-raising priorities. He said 
     he wanted to consult people across the institution, with the 
     added dividend that it ``will help restore some of the 
     morale.''
       The Smithsonian needs to be lean, but it must maintain the 
     basic levels of staffing that, for instance, allow the zoo to 
     keep feeding the animals, Dr. Clough said. The institution's 
     employment levels have shrunk in recent years, declining by 
     nearly 600 employees since fiscal year 1993 to the current 
     level of 5,960.
       ``We have to stabilize it,'' Dr. Clough said. ``We can't be 
     the institution we hope to be if we sit around and let that 
     happen.''
       At the same time he understands Congress's concerns and 
     says he is ready to be grilled when the time arrives, perhaps 
     next spring, when appropriations hearings are usually held.
       ``It's O.K. for us to be asked our relevance and what we're 
     doing for the country,'' he said. ``I think we can make that 
     case.''
       This article has been revised to reflect the following 
     correction: An article on Monday about plans for the 
     Smithsonian Institution outlined by G. Wayne Clough, its new 
     chief executive, misstated the goal of the institution's 
     capital campaign. It is to raise more than $1 billion over 
     five to seven years, not $5 million to $7 million.

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