[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9755-9756]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           TRIBUTE TO TSA DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR GALE ROSSIDES

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to a 
dedicated public servant, a talented administrator, and a tireless 
warrior for homeland security. Transportation Security Administration 
Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer Gale Rossides is 
retiring at the end of the month, and her departure will be a 
significant loss not just for TSA and the Department of Homeland 
Security but for the American people, whom she has served so well 
throughout her 34-year career in the public sector.
  As Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee, I came to understand the central role Ms. Rossides played at 
TSA. In appearances before the Committee, she impressed me as a 
knowledgeable and experienced manager whose dedication to the agency 
helped TSA stay on track through a difficult and chaotic startup and 
develop into a more mature agency as the years progressed.
  Ms. Rossides' institutional memory, alone, will be irreplaceable. She 
was one of the original six executives hired to build TSA from the 
ground up in 2001, and in his book ``After: How American Confronted the 
September 12 Era,'' Steven Brill wrote that ``no matter what was added 
to her plate, or

[[Page 9756]]

what she reached out for to put on it herself, she seemed to take it in 
stride.'' Despite the grueling 13-hour days and 6-day weeks, Ms. 
Rossides stayed at TSA for 10 years--with a 1-year hiatus as senior 
advisor to the Under Secretary for Management at DHS. I think it is 
fair to say that today she is one of the department's most respected 
senior executives.
  Ms. Rossides brought critical management experience to the nascent 
TSA. In the tense period after September 11, 2001, she led the team of 
government and private sector officials that trained and certified more 
than 50,000 screeners in less than 6 months--the largest public 
mobilization since World War II. She oversaw the debut of TSA's 
federalized screening force at Baltimore Washington Airport. And she 
led the effort to develop and implement screener technical training and 
certification standards.
  Throughout her TSA tenure, Ms. Rossides has fostered collaborative 
partnerships with stakeholders; pushed for more intelligence sharing; 
created leadership development programs; and developed innovative 
workforce programs to encourage communication and conflict management. 
Under her watch, TSA reduced its employee injury and attrition rates 
and raised employee morale through innovative solutions like providing 
benefits to part time personnel.
  Ms. Rossides moved steadily up the management ladder during her 
tenure at TSA. She has served as the Associate Administrator/Chief 
Support Systems Officer, been a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary 
and the Under Secretary for Management at DHS, and in 2007 she was 
appointed acting Deputy Administrator, a position that became permanent 
in January 2008. She has held that position longer than any other in 
the agency's history.
  From 2009 to January 2010, she served as Acting TSA Administrator. As 
such, she oversaw the implementation of Secure Flight and introduced 
other key security programs, including measures implemented to detect 
and deter improved explosives devices that could be concealed on 
terrorists, in the aftermath of the attempted Christmas Day terrorist 
attack.
  This career arc more than justifies Steven Brill's description of her 
in his book as ``an incurable workaholic'' who would ``run over or 
cleverly sidestep almost any obstacle to get to the goal.'' It is a 
tribute to her character that she remained universally well-liked while 
doing so.
  Before she was hand-picked to help launch TSA, Ms. Rossides had 
worked at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, within the 
Justice Department, for 23 years, where she started as an 
administrative assistant. She was co-chair of a blue ribbon panel to 
overhaul ATF after the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian ranch in Waco, 
TX. For 8 years, she served as the first assistant director, in charge 
of all law enforcement, investigative, regulatory, and leadership 
training at ATF--the first woman to hold such a significant post at the 
bureau. And she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal 
Law Enforcement Training Center for 6 years.
  The American people have been fortunate that Ms. Rossides has given 
much of her life to the Federal Government. We are certainly better off 
because of it.

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