| Guest: | Jamie Morin |
| Title: | Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration and Vice President, Defense Strategic Space, the Aerospace Corporation |
| Summary: | Jamie Morin has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, recognizing his leadership in defense budgeting, cost analysis and strategic planning. Here he reflects on what drew him into public service, what’s changed in public administration, and how he hopes to contribute to the Academy’s mission. |
Jamie Morin helped shape defense strategy from inside the Pentagon. Now he’s being honored for his contributions to public service
"Public service is an important calling. It demands things of people that are different than what we ask of people in the private sector," Jame Morin said.
Interview transcript:
Terry Gerton Congratulations on being a newly elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. What does that honor mean to you?
Jamie Morin Well gosh, the number of folks that I have admired over the years who are fellows of the Academy is pretty impressive. And so it was it was humbling, but really a wonderful recognition. I was I was deeply honored.
Terry Gerton Well, it reflects a lifetime of service. Tell us about what motivated you to begin public service in the first place.
Jamie Morin I take it back to family influence, for one. I was raised with a really strong tradition of making the community stronger. My mother’s a school teacher, has worked with autistic children for most of her career, still working in that field. And both my parents just had a really strong commitment to the community. So it starts with that, right? And then for me I grew up in the late Cold War, and that built in me a really strong interest in national security. And so I was struck that a meaningful way to serve and to strengthen the nation was to work in a career in national security. And it’s been just enormously rewarding and fulfilling.
Terry Gerton As you think back across that career — you served in the Air Force, you served at DoD level. What stands out as one of your most meaningful accomplishments in the public administration space?
Jamie Morin Well, you said accomplishments, but let me start with a moment. You know, I guess this will sound hopelessly naive in these cynical days, but the first chance I had to take the oath to uphold the Constitution — when as a graduate student, I guess I was 22 or 23 years old, I was offered the chance to work in the Pentagon on requirements and plans — to be pulled into something much bigger than yourself, to be pulled into incredibly consequential matters, and to do it with a devotion to those principles in the Constitution. Just being in that moment as a young person was a tremendously shaping experience for me. So that that’s where I would have to start. I’ve probably taken that oath personally six or seven times since. I’ve administered it dozens of times. I had the privilege of presiding at a graduation ceremony from basic military training with hundreds of young people starting a career in military service. But you keep coming back to: We are offered an opportunity in this nation to uphold a constitution that’s bigger than any of us, bigger than the politics of the moment. And that that’s a great starting point. You know, to the accomplishments, I’ve worked mostly in resource management, in making smart decisions with the taxpayers’ money. Chief Financial Officer for the Air Force, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation for the Department of Defense as a whole. So the biggest opportunities for impact in roles like that are when you can get something started on the right foot. And the things we do in national security, particularly in developing technology — it takes time. We’re trying to do really hard things. But I had the opportunity with both the Air Force and working for the Secretary of Defense to get a few really consequential and major programs started, thinking about the B-21 bomber for the Air Force, for example. It’d been a long time since the U.S. Air Force had been able to buy a bomber on something approaching planned cost and planned schedule. And it looks like we’re on a path to be pretty darn close to that on that program. And so that’s a tremendous thing to be able to look back and say, “hey, we’ve been working on this, it’s a big deal, billions of taxpayer dollars, critical to the success of the joint force. And I was able to have my fingers all over that at the outset.” So that’s a significant one. Moments of crisis. We’ve recently gone through a government shutdown. I had the challenge of operating through a few of those as Air Force CFO and working in OSD, and some close calls as well as actual shutdowns. Those are searing moments where leaders have to make tough decisions — again, with the Constitution first and foremost in our mind. Our system isn’t always perfect, but it is ours and it’s our responsibility to operate within it and to make it better. And then finally, I guess I would highlight people, in that the public service is an important calling. It demands things of people that are different than what we ask of people in the private sector. And because it’s sometimes hard for people to get their feet under them in the complexity of an organization like the Department of Defense or many of the other federal agencies, we have to make long-term investments in our people. So being able to be involved in hiring and developing talent and giving people an opportunity to really accomplish their potential and then to also send them forth to go do bigger and better things, whether in government or outside, those have been just tremendously rewarding for me.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Jamie Morin. He’s Vice President of Defense Strategic Space at the Aerospace Corporation and a newly elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Jamie, you told some great stories there, but early in that last response, you mentioned the oath of office and allegiance to the Constitution. You’ve seen in your service firsthand how trust in government can be tested in times of fiscal uncertainty and strategic transition, and we’re certainly in that right now. How do you view the current state of public administration and what can it do to help increase public trust in government?
Jamie Morin I think approaching public administration as an exercise in continuous improvement is really important. We have to always be willing to question the “how” of how we get things done. Take advantage of new technology, take advantage of new concepts and approaches. We have to do that, still, with an eye to the core principles, right? Public service is a public trust. We have to conduct ourselves in public administration in such a way that there is no question about the integrity with which people work and that they are doing things with the right ends in mind. We’re talking about a nation approaching its 250th birthday. So the timelines and the time horizon that the public administration has to think about is different than what we as individual humans have to think about, or what even, you know, long-lived companies have to think about. We have to take that long-term perspective for the betterment of the nation. But again, you’ve got to balance that with responsiveness to changing needs. The needs that the public administration meets in a time are shaped by the time. They’re shaped by the technology, they’re shaped by the psychology of the citizens, they’re shaped by the external environment that we operate in. So continuous improvement, willingness to adapt, but founded on those core principles of what government is about and the constitution we uphold. I think that’s the bottom line for me.
Terry Gerton Well, and you also mentioned the importance of people. If you were speaking to someone just starting out in public service, perhaps in defense analysis or budgeting, what advice would you give them about building a career that really makes a difference?
Jamie Morin I would start with coming in for the right reasons. Every once in a while I run into people who are entering public service with a plan to sort of hop, skip and jump their way through it. I’m not sure that’s the right approach. I think that there are certainly great opportunities for people to come and depart from government service and have careers that cross those boundaries. I think that’s very useful. But, you know, it really should be about the mission of the agency and the national interest, not so much the personal interest. So I find that people that come in with that perspective generally do better. If you’re thinking about, how can I accomplish things for the citizens, how can I deliver on the promises of government? Those people are more likely to both enjoy themselves and have a positive impact than those who are, you know, kind of climbing their way up a ladder. But the other piece I would suggest is that reputation matters. People’s ability to get things done in complex environments, whether big bureaucracies or just very difficult missions with lots of factors that have to come together. It depends on credibility. It depends on creativity. It depends on being seen as a team player. Someone who’s willing to make sacrifices to get the right things done. And that’s a hard-earned reputation — and it’s one that’s also easy to lose if you make bad choices. As someone who is an adjunct professor at Georgetown now and teaches students who are really interested in public service, these are conversations I have all the time. I encourage people to look at the career and I encourage them to look at it from a mission accomplishment perspective, because that’s how it’s going to be most rewarding for them and for the mission that they’re trying to actually support.
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Terry Gerton
Terry Gerton is host of the Federal Drive and has been working in or with the federal government for more than 40 years.
