[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 188 (Thursday, November 16, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1579]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





IN RECOGNITION OF DAVITA VANCE-COOKS' EXEMPLARY SERVICE TO THE AMERICAN 
                                 PEOPLE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROBERT A. BRADY

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 16, 2017

  Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the 
extraordinary contributions of Davita Vance-Cooks, the Director of the 
Government Publishing Office (GPO), both to this institution and to the 
American people, on the announcement of her retirement from Federal 
service. A seasoned business executive with over 35 years of private 
sector and Federal Government management experience, Ms. Vance-Cooks 
was nominated by President Obama in May of 2013 to serve as the 27th 
Public Printer of the United States and then swiftly confirmed by the 
Senate in July 2013. Upon her confirmation, she became the first woman 
and the first African-American to lead the GPO in the agency's more 
than 150 year history dating back to the Inauguration of President 
Abraham Lincoln. Ms. Vance-Cooks is a trailblazer in so many ways.
  Her appointment to this prestigious position was well earned. Prior 
to her confirmation, Ms. Vance-Cooks had capably served as acting 
Public Printer for 19 months, the longest such tenure in GPO history, 
and in a number of senior management roles since she first joined the 
agency in 2004, including Chief of Staff, Deputy Public Printer, Deputy 
Managing Director of Customer Services, and Managing Director of 
Publications and Information sales.
  Ms. Vance-Cooks' service to the GPO began at a time of great change 
and uncertainty at the agency, as information technology and digital 
media challenged GPO to move from a primarily print-centric focus to a 
more content-centric one. In her senior management positions, and then 
as the head of the GPO, Ms. Vance-Cooks helped guide a fundamental and 
comprehensive transformation of the agency.
  She also articulated a vision for the future of the GPO as the 
Official, Digital, and Secure source for producing, protecting, 
preserving, and distributing the official publications and information 
products of the Federal Government in an age of rapid technological 
change. Today, thanks to her dedication, and that of so many committed 
GPO employees, that vision is being realized.
  In recognition of the GPO's successful transition to digital 
publishing technologies that Ms. Vance-Cooks championed, Congress 
passed legislation to rename the agency that was signed into law in 
2014. From that point forward, the Government Printing Office would be 
known as the Government Publishing Office to more accurately describe 
its capabilities in this age of digitization, and the anachronistic 
Public Printer title would be replaced as well. Ms. Vance-Cooks would 
subsequently serve as GPO's Director, the position from which she has 
retired this week.
  The transformation Ms. Vance-Cooks helped lead at GPO was broad in 
scope, and the accomplishments she helped achieve are impressive. First 
and foremost, she leaves a legacy of cutting agency costs while 
improving services, and generating positive net income for the agency 
while modernizing its operations and expanding the availability of 
Government information to the public.
  She oversaw the creation of a new, dynamic website, govinfo.gov, 
where over 2 million Federal titles are available free of charge to the 
general public, and spearheaded GPO's move to become the first 
legislative branch agency to move to cloud technology. Under her 
leadership, GPO also became a key participant in the Legislative Branch 
Bulk Data Task Force, working closely with legislative branch agencies 
to expand the transparency and openness of congressional information.
  Her commitment to expanding the accessibility of GPO products also 
extended to the development of mobile applications, eBooks for GPO 
publications, the digitization of historical issues of the 
Congressional Record and the Federal Register, and the enhancement of 
GPO's relationship with its 1,100 partners in the Federal Depository 
Library Program (FDLP). Just this spring she offered testimony on how 
to strengthen that partnership by modernizing the laws that govern the 
FDLP.
  Ms. Vance-Cooks also successfully executed an expansion of GPO's 
production capacity to incorporate the newest, state-of-the-art 
printing capabilities to deliver greater value to the American people. 
These enhancements have reduced the cost of printing congressional and 
agency documents, and provided GPO with the capability to produce next 
generation U.S. passports and secure identity cards for other Federal 
partners.
  A strong believer in the importance of strategic planning, Ms. Vance-
Cooks chartered a course for GPO that dramatically improved the 
agency's capabilities and productivity in a fiscally responsible way. 
Under her leadership, the agency reversed a previous decade-long 
pattern of requesting ever greater appropriations from Congress and 
achieved clean opinions from annual independent audits of its finances. 
It also endured an unprecedented 13-day shutdown of Federal operations 
without incident, and managed two employee buyouts that reduced GPO's 
total staffing to 1,700, the lowest level in more than a century.
  It is a testament to Ms. Vance-Cooks' commitment to employee 
engagement that GPO was able to meet these challenges while maintaining 
a ``best place to work'' rating among Federal agencies and an 
``innovative agency'' designation from the Partnership for Public 
Service. That commitment formed a bedrock principle of her leadership 
and was demonstrated in her quarterly town halls with GPO employees 
from each of the agency's three daily shifts. At each step of the way 
along the path of GPO's transformation, Ms. Vance-Cooks sought the 
support and input of GPO's dedicated workforce, and that collaborative 
approach paid enormous dividends.
  There is no question that Davita Vance-Cooks provided transformative 
leadership at the Government Publishing Office, and that she rendered a 
great service to the Legislative Branch, the House of Representatives, 
and the American public. She should look back on her tenure with GPO 
with great pride, and we express our gratitude to her today. She will 
be missed, and I join the hardworking men and women of the GPO who 
thought so highly of her in wishing her all the best in her future 
endeavors.

                          ____________________