[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 66 (Thursday, April 28, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2543-S2544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES


                               Greg King

  Mr. CARPER. Good afternoon, Mr. President. For more than a year now, 
as the Presiding Officer knows since he has had the good fortune--or 
bad fortune of drawing the short straw--of sitting there when I come to 
the Senate floor just about every month to highlight the extraordinary 
work that is being done by the men and women of the Department of 
Homeland Security--I am here to do that again today. The agency has so 
many talented folks, and they do incredibly important work, so there is 
no shortage of material.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, the Department of Homeland Security 
is made up of 22 component agencies and employs over 200,000 people. 
These men and women work around the clock, and the work they do is 
designed to protect all of us--protect our families and protect our 
country. Last month we were reminded of just how crucial the work they 
do is when terrorists attacked a train station and airport check-in 
area in Brussels, Belgium, setting off bombs that killed 32 people and 
wounded hundreds more. Our thoughts and prayers have been and remain 
with the families, loved ones, and victims of these horrible attacks.
  Just 6 days before these tragic attacks, I spoke on the floor about 
the difficult but critical work performed by the 59,000 employees of 
the Transportation Security Administration, affectionately known as 
TSA. These men and women work every day. They do so to ensure that all 
of us--Americans and tourists who visit--may travel around our country 
and around the world safe from harm.
  The attack in Brussels shows us once again just how important these 
efforts--performed by the men and women at TSA--are to every single 
American and to our visitors. It also reminds us how important it is 
that TSA has the tools and resources needed to effectively carry out 
their mission.
  To help ensure that the TSA is well equipped to protect the public, I 
worked with a number of our Senate colleagues last week--Democrats and 
Republicans alike--to include amendments to a bill reauthorizing the 
Federal Aviation Administration. Our amendments will help make airports 
and transit hubs across our country safer for travelers by doubling the 
number of teams--called VIPR teams--of Federal agents and bomb-sniffing 
dogs that patrol our airports and subways to deter and identify 
potential attackers.
  These amendments will also make security improvements to public areas 
in airports and train stations and ensure that the men and women 
patrolling those areas can effectively respond to the types of active 
shooter incidents we have unfortunately seen more frequently in recent 
months.
  These commonsense amendments are just one of the many ways we can 
support the men and women at TSA and throughout the Department of 
Homeland Security who work on the frontlines every day screening 
passengers, guarding our ports of entry, and patrolling our transit 
hubs.
  One part of the support we need to extend to these brave public 
servants is world-class training and education. By expanding and 
improving training opportunities for our law enforcement personnel, we 
can make sure they have the knowledge and make sure they have the 
capability to respond to every situation that may arise. That is why 
one of the best tools in our homeland security arsenal is the Federal 
Law Enforcement Training Center.
  As my staff knows, I don't like acronyms very much, but this is a 
pretty good one. It is called the Federal Law Enforcement Training 
Center. It is located in Glynco, GA. It goes by the acronym F-L-E-T-C, 
and we affectionately call it FLETC. I am not crazy about acronyms, but 
that is a pretty good one. We call it FLETC.
  The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is tasked with teaching 
the men and women we deploy to the frontlines how to best utilize the 
technologies and techniques needed to protect Americans here at home 
and around the world. They provide training to literally dozens of 
Federal agencies, State law enforcement personnel from across our 
country, and our international partners, who travel from all over the 
world to learn from the best right here in America. From active shooter 
trainings, to advanced forensic techniques, to methods to counter human 
trafficking, FLETC instructors provide training in nearly 100 courses. 
They host the training academies for a number of other agencies, 
including Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
  Recently, TSA announced that they would be establishing a new, 
permanent academy for transportation security officers at FLETC's main 
facility in Glynco, GA. Having their training centralized at FLETC will 
allow TSA to better ensure uniform training for all of their officers 
and better collaborate with other components of the Department of 
Homeland Security.
  Providing world-class training and instruction to tens of thousands 
of law enforcement officers each year requires bringing together some 
of the most highly qualified professional instructors from across our 
country. The more than 1,000 men and women from across law enforcement 
who serve at FLETC utilize their personal experience in the field to 
create and to lead effective trainings that help law enforcement 
professionals keep us--Americans and our guests--safe and secure each 
day.
  One of FLETC's world-class instructors is Greg King, pictured right 
here to my left. For nearly 10 years, Mr. King has been an instructor 
at FLETC, utilizing his own experience to train Federal officers 
deployed around the world.
  Before coming to FLETC, Greg served his hometown of Cleveland, OH, 
working for the Cleveland Police Department for 28 years. If he is 
listening, I would just suggest that I have been thinking that Greg may 
have started when he was about 10. He looks pretty good for a guy who 
has been doing that for this long. He has a career spanning nearly 
three decades. Greg did everything from working undercover as a street 
crimes unit detective, to investigating financial crimes, murders, and 
crimes against children. For those 28 years, Greg has dedicated his 
life to protecting the community of Cleveland and giving back to the 
town in which he grew up.
  Today, Greg serves as a senior instructor at FLETC, working as 
program coordinator for the Case Organization and Presentation Training 
Program, the Internet Investigations Training Program, and as assistant 
program coordinator for the Intelligence Analyst Training Program. Greg 
has a wealth of knowledge in these areas. His colleagues call him--this 
is a quote, their words, not mine--a real ``subject matter expert'' 
with the kind of expertise that can only come from real-world 
experience. Through the lesson plans and course materials he develops, 
Greg strives to impart the firsthand knowledge he gained on the force 
to his students so that when they leave his class, they are able to 
effectively build cases, conduct investigations, analyze information, 
and ultimately catch the bad guys.
  At FLETC, Greg's colleagues also refer to him as an ``Energizer 
bunny.'' Some of my colleagues have referred to me in those same terms. 
I think it is a compliment--I hope so--and in his case, I am sure it 
is. His energy and his passion for his work inspire other instructors 
and keep his students engaged.
  Given his dedication to his students and to the FLETC mission, Greg 
has earned the respect of his peers and FLETC leadership alike. It is 
no wonder, then, that Greg King was named FLETC instructor of the year 
for 2015. Think about that--instructor of the year for the entire 
school. It is clearly a well-deserved honor.
  When Greg isn't training law enforcement professionals, he spends 
time with his family--his wife Shelley, their two daughters Lela and 
Shayla; and their son Rayshawn. I want to give my special thanks to 
Greg's wife Shelley and to their two daughters and their son for 
sharing him with us--with the people of Cleveland and now the people of 
the United States--for not just 28 years but 38 years in all. He has 
dedicated countless hours, I am told as

[[Page S2544]]

well, to his community and to his country in addition to that.
  In his 10 years at FLETC, Greg King has helped train countless law 
enforcement officers, who have used the valuable lessons from his 
courses every single day to arrest criminals, to protect our fellow 
citizens, and to help keep Americans safe around the world.
  FLETC has four core values that the agency and their employees 
attempt to abide by, and I am going to mention those today: No. 1, 
respect; No. 2, integrity--one of our former colleagues, Alan Simpson, 
the Senator from Wyoming, used to say about integrity: If you have it, 
nothing else matters. If you don't have it, nothing else matters. 
Integrity is the second value I want to mention for FLETC. So respect, 
integrity, service, and excellence.

  I like to say that one of the things we need to focus on is to have 
excellence in everything we do as a country, here in the Senate and 
across the country. If it isn't perfect, make it better. And that is 
one of the core values for FLETC.
  Respect, integrity, service, and excellence. I have mentioned that 
those values actually look a little bit like some of the values we 
embrace in the office from the State that I am privileged to represent. 
Greg has lived this one, using his own experience, to make the next 
generation of law enforcement officers and our country even better 
prepared to face the threats of tomorrow.
  Greg is just one shining example of the critical work being done by 
more than 1,000 instructors at FLETC. These instructors make it their 
own mission to ensure that law enforcement personnel across our country 
are well prepared for whatever they might face on the job.
  So to Greg, to all of the men and women at FLETC, and to everyone at 
the Department of Homeland Security, I thank you for your hard work day 
in and day out, I thank you for your service to the people of our 
country, and I urge you to keep up the good work.
  Some of us travel on trains. Some of us travel on buses. Some of us 
travel on airplanes and helicopters, in our own cars, trucks, and vans. 
I do a combination of those, but I do a fair amount of travel in the 
air. I was a naval flight officer for many years. I am a retired Navy 
captain. I spent a lot of time in Navy airplanes. I love the Navy. I 
loved serving in the Navy. But now they don't let me--they let me ride 
in a commercial plane. Sometimes we get to fly in military planes, too, 
which is a kick. But when you fly commercial aviation, at the airport 
you generally go through a security check, and they want to make sure 
you are not carrying anything in your luggage or anything on your 
person that is inappropriate or illegal. And you have to be confronted 
by usually a series of TSA officers. I just want to remind us all that 
they are there to protect us. That is their job, to make sure the 
planes we get on, whether they are going 200, 300, 400 miles or 2,000 
or 3,000 miles to go from one side of our country to the other side or 
one side of the world to the other side--the job of the TSA officers is 
to protect us. They have a very tough job, and there is actually a 
tension in the job that exists because of the work they do.
  On the one hand, every day there are tens of thousands of travelers, 
maybe hundreds of thousands of travelers, pulsing through our airports, 
trying to get from a terminal, from a gate, onto a plane in time to 
catch their flights. In some cases, they have had to recheck their 
bags. They have had to go through maybe unloading their suitcases and 
showing that what they have in their suitcases is not inappropriate or 
illegal. There is a rush to get through to try to catch their flights. 
TSA is there. In some cases, they slow down that traffic, that flow, 
and they slow down that flow of traffic in order to make sure that what 
all of us passengers every day are carrying in our suitcases or 
briefcases or purses or on our bodies is not inappropriate and is not 
illegal. They do it to protect all of us. Sometimes the TSA folks get a 
little bit frazzled. I would say we would, too, if we had to do the 
work they do.
  A lot of times, when I fly commercial and when I go through the 
check-in, after they check my ID or whatever, I take it upon myself to 
say to the TSA officers--I tell them who I am, that I am a senior 
Democrat on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs, and I thank them for what they do. I say: We value your work 
and we appreciate it, and I just wanted you to know that. I can't tell 
you how many times a TSA officer has said to me: Nobody has ever 
thanked me before. Nobody has ever thanked me before.
  Sometimes we can't pay people enough for the work they do, and they 
work hard for their money.
  I would ask others, when you see somebody, especially TSA officers 
who go out of their way in spite of all of the hustle and bustle and 
pressure on them--they manage to still be polite, courteous, and 
helpful--thank them. It might be the first time. You may become the 
first person who has ever said ``thank you'' to them.
  At the end of the day, one of the things that means a lot to me is 
whenever people thank me for my service to our country, whether it was 
in uniform or as Governor, Senator, or here today. So I urge you to do 
that. When I do that, it makes me feel better and it makes them feel 
better too.
  Mr. President, I am looking around the Senate Chamber, looking for 
Democrats or Republicans who are rushing to get to the podium to say 
something. I don't see anybody rushing.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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