Pay Cap May Weigh on Security Hiring
The embryonic federal airport safety administration’s high-stakes bid to upgrade security hinges on persuading experienced professionals to work for government wages when they could fetch as much as $550,000 a year in the super-heated corporate market.
Charged with ensuring all aspects of passenger, baggage and cargo safety, the new airport security directors will form the backbone of the Transportation Security Administration, an agency chartered in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to restore confidence in air travel and get Americans flying again.
The TSA will become the largest federal law enforcement agency, with more than 30,000 employees--95% of them assigned to the nation’s 429 airports.
The first step, according to plans unveiled last week, is the hiring of top-flight security chiefs for the nation’s 81 largest airports by mid-April--an ambitious goal in light of the caliber of candidates sought and the limited ability of government to compete with rising private-sector salaries, according to headhunters and private-security experts.
“It’s the hot market right now,” said Joseph Daniel McCool, editor of Executive Recruiter News, an industry publication.
Corporations and private-security firms are vying for safety directors the way dot-coms did for Web masters in the 1990s, pushing salaries for experienced managers to $250,000 to $550,000.
Korn/Ferry International Inc., the largest executive recruiting firm, has experienced an elevenfold increase in inquiries for security professionals since the terrorist attacks, prompting it to open a homeland defense and security practice in its Washington office.
Headhunters are scrambling to gather resumes of people whose military and law enforcement careers have taught them to keep their names out of databases. Private-security firms, such as Kroll Inc., one of the nation’s biggest, are hiring to keep up with demand.
And they are luring high-profile public-sector figures, such as John F. Timoney, who took over the helm of Beau Dietl & Associates last week after four years commanding the Philadelphia Police Department.
“I was having a good time there, had a lot of public support and mayoral support,” Timoney said. “So there was no push. However, there was a pull from the private sector.”
Intending to stay with the Philadelphia Police Department for at least five more years, Timoney initially fended off offers after Sept. 11. But then Dietl & Associates founder Beau Dietl, a former New York police detective, “made an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
And companies are dignifying new or expanded safety jobs with titles such as chief security officer that reflect their broader scopes of responsibility.
“We’re seeing both new positions and higher-level positions,” said Ray O’Hara, a vice president for Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations, a national security firm based in Chicago. “A director of security was a common title. Now you might see a vice president of security.”
The government will call its new hires federal security directors and will pay them salaries of no more than $150,000, the federal salary cap.
Is it enough?
“No,” said Christopher Kidd, a former officer in the Marine Corps and a managing director for Korn/Ferry. “The secretary of Transportation isn’t paid a competitive salary either,” Kidd said. “Mr. [Norman] Mineta only makes about $150,000 a year. Do you think he’s worth more than that? Yeah. I’d say so.”
The new agency’s architects are confident that it will be able to hire highly qualified candidates by appealing to their sense of duty--a factor that helped persuade Korn/Ferry to assist in the search for the first 81 airport security directors for $3.3 million. That is far less than the firm’s typical fee, which is one-third of a new hire’s first year of compensation. Kidd said the competitiveness of the corporate security market could be an advantage if candidates from the military and law enforcement view a stint as an airport safety chief as a steppingstone to more lucrative private-sector jobs.
Within 24 hours of the airport security job posting last week, 275 people had registered on the agency’s Web site expressing interest.
“This is something that someone can do makes a difference every day, that helps solve what is recognized as a very complex national problem,” said Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the agency. “We think we’re going to get a lot of people who are going to want to do this, and we’re going to have some good choices.”
Others are not so sure.
Finding security professionals with the right set of experience and skills won’t be a problem, said Charlie LeBlanc, managing director of Air Security International, a Houston-based travel security firm.
“The problem will be, do we have enough of them?” he said.
LeBlanc said there are few professionals who have the broad range of skills, including security experience, an understanding of Federal Aviation Administration regulations and the diplomatic touch necessary to deal with the public.
“They are going to have to be thick-skinned individuals,” LeBlanc said. “Putting all those together, I can name about 50 people in the U.S. who have that background.”
As the highest-ranking safety officer at each airport, federal security directors will have wide authority, including the power to unilaterally halt flights and shut down a facility.
Operating with broad discretion, each new federal security director will be the operational leader of the safety force at his or her airport, responsible for developing and implementing systems to prevent threats and manage crises, such as the detection of a hole in a perimeter fence.
Paul C. Light, vice president of the Brookings Institution and a longtime critic of government hiring practices, praised the decision to bring in an outside search firm to assist the recruitment for such critical positions.
“The federal government is not an employer of first choice, and it’s not a recruiter of first choice, particularly at the senior level,” Light said. “The way you get those jobs is to be next in line when the person ahead of you retires. So this decision by the Department of Transportation to retain Korn/Ferry shows somebody at that agency is thinking outside the box. I think that’s a good sign for traveling Americans.”
But he said he believes the agency could run into problems after it selects the chiefs for the biggest airports if it resorts to routine government hiring procedures to fill the balance of the 30,000 positions.
“The private sector has known for a long time that you just can’t put out a help-wanted sign and expect the right people to apply,” Light said.
Transportation Security Administration spokesman Mitchell said the agency is attempting to bring innovation and competitive, private-sector practices to the start-up of what is the largest federal agency formed since World War II. He pointed to the use of Korn/Ferry’s Internet-based recruiting and screening system as an example of such innovation.
A click of the mouse from the Department of Transportation’s home page links to the TSA Web site, a state-of-the-art recruiting tool that feeds information into a candidate-screening database created and operated by Korn/Ferry.
The job’s description and its requirements are followed by an invitation to sign up for consideration. Another mouse click links to an application that makes nominating oneself for a job almost as easy as ordering a book online.
A series of short-answer questions, such as Social Security number and date of birth, is followed by multiple-choice questions with boxes to indicate information, such as an applicant’s security experience and educational degrees.
Applicants are asked to indicate whether they would be willing to relocate, how much they earn and--a requirement of the job--whether they are U.S. citizens. An e-mail confirms that the application has been received. Resumes can be uploaded or built at the site.
“There aren’t many organizations that go out looking for 81 senior executives at one time,” Mitchell said. “We didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. We wanted [to hire] a company that had the technology to identify people, screen the people rapidly who meet qualifications and to deliver very efficiently qualified people so that it will simplify our job.”
Government work is not new for Korn/Ferry, which helped Mexican President Vicente Fox find candidates for his Cabinet and has assisted in smaller-scale searches for other U.S. government agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Transportation Department and the Postal Service. But the firm has never conducted a search for a public or private client with the scope or profile of the airport security assignment.
“This is full stand-up,” Kidd of Korn/Ferry said. “We’re not replacing people. We’re helping to craft the content and the character of the organization.”
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Safety Chief Requirements
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The new Transportation Security Administration wants to hire 81 security directors to oversee all aspects of safety at the nation’s largest airports by mid-April.
Responsibilities include:
* Managing all aspects of airport safety, including personnel, budget, equipment and information.
* Coordinating safety and crisis plans with airlines, airport management, local law enforcement and federal officials.
* Improving security and screening standards for airport workers and travelers.
* Assessing airport security risks.
* Managing crises.
* Supervising and training safety workers.
Qualifications include:
* U.S. citizenship.
* Extensive field and executive-level experience in security and crises prevention, such as law enforcement, aviation security, professional asset protection, risk detection and avoidance, and management of complex field operations.
* Demonstrated strategic leadership skills.
* Experience as a senior manager accountable for personnel and operational results.
Candidates also must be able to pass a background investigation for top-secret clearance. Individuals who are selected must file federal Executive Service financial disclosures. TSA policy limits certain outside employment with, and financial investments in, aviation-related companies.
Salary
* Ranges from $104,800 to $150,000.
Source: Federal Security Director job posting at www.dot-tsa.com
