[PMAGList] PMAG News, Spring 2003

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Dear PMAG Member and Friends -

Greetings from the PMAG Board of Directors.

2003 has already been an exciting year for PMAG, and there is much 
more in the works!

Late in 2002, four new PMI Alumni joined the Board of Directors, and 
were elected to Officer Positions:

Tod Companion (Class of 2000)  President
Janine-Marie Tobias (Class of 2000)  Vice President
David Radcliffe (Class of 1999)  Secretary
Erik Leklem (Class of 2000)  Co-Secretary

With the new revitalized Board, PMAG has set a new and ambitious 
agenda of activities for 2003:

2003 Spring Social, NASA Headquarters:

On March 27, we hosted a new (and we hope regular) event, a Spring 
Reception. This year we honored Kathy Keeney and Joe Stix for their 
years of dedicated service to the PMI program through their tireless 
work in the Philadelphia OPM office. After that, we honored Matt 
Crouch (Immediate Past PMAG President) and Jamie Langlie (former PMAG 
Treasurer) for their years of service to PMAG on the Board of 
Directors.

Following the Honors, The Honorable Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator, 
the highest ranking former PMI (Class of 1978) in the Government, 
spoke and shared some of his reflections on public service; Mr. 
O'Keefe was President of PMAG many years ago.  Additionally, 
representatives from OPM attended, and Dr. Tom Towberman, Senior 
Advisor to the OPM Director for Learning and Knowledge Management, 
spoke on some exciting changes coming to the PMI program. More on 
that later. We ended the evening with drinks and snacks and much 
networking and good conversation. There were more than 120 attendees, 
and PMAG gained more than 40 new members. We plan to host this event 
again next year.

We announced the restart of the popular PMAG brownbag seminar series 
for the Summer of 2003 - we plan to have speakers on a variety of 
topics in the DC area for current and former PMIs. Finally, in the 
Fall of 2003, PMAG will possibly hold two events, a roundtable on 
public service, with members of a variety of public service 
organizations. As well, we hope to host another reception with an 
exciting keynote speaker and invite the new class of PMIs.

2003 PMI Job Fair, Washington DC Convention Center:

I accompanied Mr. O'Keefe when he spoke to the 2003 finalists, and 
found the usual breathlessly enthused group of young people.  We are 
very excited because PMAG has had close interactions with the newly 
formed and still growing PMI Program office at OPM Headquarters. Dr. 
James Wilson, the Deputy Director of the PMI Program, graciously 
allowed PMAG to have a presence at the PMI job fair. David Radcliffe 
(PMAG Secretary) and Erik Leklem (PMAG Co-Secretary) stepped up to 
the plate and not only organized our presence at the Job Fair itself, 
a busy information table, but helped organize an International 
Relations information session. Through a gracious offer by The 
Johns-Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), PMI 
finalists were invited to the SAIS lecture hall to listen to current 
and former PMIs speak on their work in international relations. There 
were more than 30 current and former PMIs there to speak to nearly 80 
finalists.

Proposed PMI Program Changes:

The greatest buzz at the 2003 PMI Job Fair, aside from the Starbucks 
Coffee and the rush for agency logo giveaway items, was the announced 
programmatic changes proposed by OPM for the PMI program. I spoke 
with Dr. Wilson about these proposed changes, and here is what we 
learned:

1. OPM has drafted an Executive order that does two things:

A.	Changes the name of the program from Presidential Management 
Internship Program to Presidential Management Fellowship Program.

B.	Lifts the hiring 'cap' or limit on the class of PMIs. 
Currently, only 400 finalists can be hired by agencies. This year, a 
record 3000 applicants were nominated to the program by their 
colleges and universities, 725 were selected as Finalists, and nearly 
650 of them attended the Job Fair.

2. OPM has requested a regulation change that allows for hiring 
appointments at the GS-9, GS-11 or GS-12 grade level depending on 
qualifications.  In addition, the regulation change would allow for 
accelerated promotions within the PMI program. This would mean that a 
highly qualified PMI could be hired and then advance through the GS 
grade ladder more quickly, perhaps getting their GS-11 at 6 months, 
their 12 at 1 year, and upon successful completion of the program be 
promoted non-competitively to the GS-13.

These changes are expected to take effect with the 2004 Class of 
Presidential Management Fellows. These are dramatic changes directly 
affecting the program, especially some of the most immediate concerns 
of new finalists. The proposed changes are in circulation among 
agencies for comment right now.

We'd like to know what you think.And we’ll collect your responses and 
send them back to OPM. Reply to this email with the subject line “PMI 
Program Changes Comment” to PMAGcomments at prograde.net.

This is not an unfamiliar topic for PMAG and OPM. However, this does 
represent the first substantive changes in the Program in some time. 
In engaging in a dialog with OPM, PMAG hopes to have input into not 
only these issues, but other concerns for PMIs as well: ensuring 
training opportunities, OPM support after PMI orientation,  and so 
forth.

We look forward to hearing from you about these changes and our 
proposed activities for 2003!

Respectfully,

Board Of Directors,
Presidential Management Alumni Group
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