Reflections on the Southwest and the Future of the Associate Recruiter Program Submitted by LCDR Thomas Pryor, USPHS Division of Commissioned Corps Recruitment Office of Commissioned Corps Operations “If not now, then when… If not here, then where… If not you, then who?” RADM John Babb, USPHS USPHS Scientific and Training Symposium, 2008   Reflecting back on my time recently spent in Tucson attending the USPHS Scientific and Training Symposium, I recall the open spaces and the unique beauty of the Southwest. It was here that I began my career in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service (Corps) having had the opportunity to serve the first 6 years of my tenure as a nurse with the Indian Health Services (IHS). Most noteworthy was the time I spent serving the Jicarilla Apache Nation as a public health nurse, among tribal members who gave me more than I think I offered in return and will always be a place I call “home” – no matter where my Corps career may take me in the future. Having received my license to practice nursing in 1996, I have been blessed with a variety of clinical experiences that have allowed me to witness the fragility of life and strength of the human spirit. The culmination of these clinical experiences, both prior to and since my commission, taught me many lessons, none more important than what I describe as one of the golden rules of nursing: know your resources. As an acute care, hospice, and community health nurse, I learned that in addition to developing sound assessment skills, the ability to identify available resources (especially when limited) and to effectively utilize them is perhaps the most effective way to maximize the quality of care. Often my effectiveness was not in what I could do as an individual clinician, but how I facilitated and coordinated the efforts of others who had far greater skills and abilities. These experiences have reinforced an understanding that it takes a team to significantly impact and sustain the immediate and long term health and wellness of those in need. This year’s USPHS Scientific and Training Symposium provided those who were able to attend a variety of professional education and training sessions that would be hard to find in any other venue. More so, it provided me and the officers in attendance a unique opportunity to hear inspirational visions of leadership from some our most senior officers. To my mind, these visions of leadership would leave any officer proud to know they belong to and serve one of the best kept secrets this Nation has to offer-- the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service. This ‘secret’ to which I have referred is ultimately what called me away from the open spaces of the Southwest and my extended Jicarilla Apache family. My ‘calling’ is not a unique story. My new position in the Division of Commissioned Corps Recruitment (DCCR) in the Office of Commissioned Corps Operations (OCCO) has provided me the opportunity to hear and read about many of the great things all of you are doing in service to your Nation and localized communities. I have listened to many of your individual stories, whether from a junior officer recently called to active duty, the mid career officer, a senior officer who may have retired, or the Inactive Reserve Corps (IRC) officer whose belief and commitment to the Corps is no less than that of the active duty officer. All share a common thread and desire: a strong fervor to get the secret out about the Corps and see it grow far beyond its current officer strength. Since joining my colleagues in OCCO, I have been humbled by what staffing officers and our civil service counterparts are able to do given the limited resources (both human and capital). Given the financial and staffing constraints that continue to plague DCCR/OCCO, I am once again reminded of the golden rule I described from my clinical practice: know your resources. In this case, the most valuable resource available to DCCR/OCCO is you -- the officer whose compassion and commitment to growing the Corps is second to none. That being said, it was with much deliberation and reflection that DCCR/OCCO decided to temporarily institute a moratorium on applications to the Associate Recruiter Program (ARP) earlier this year. I can only imagine how this may seem counterintuitive to many of you taking up the charge to ‘grow the Corps.’ As the ARP Coordinator, I can only assure you that the rationale for this decision is to ultimately develop a refined program with a more transparent and recognizable operational plan that will better serve the needs of the organization by addressing two primary objectives within DCCR/OCCO: systematically increasing Corps awareness; and improving the overall effectiveness of monitoring, tracking, and measuring the outcomes of the ARP recruitment activities. The timeline for developing an improved business process includes a plan to lift the current ARP moratorium by the first quarter of 2009. In developing a recruitment operational plan, DCCR/OCCO recognizes that the ARP should be only one of many ways an officer can support the organization’s recruitment needs. With this in mind, various recruitment strategies and tools have and will continue to be developed in conjunction with transformation initiatives. For example, a recruitment strategy that DCCR/OCCO is instituting (predicated on the understanding that not every officer will or should be expected to participate in the ARP) is the concept that being an ‘Ambassador’ to the Corps is an equally if not more valuable role for the majority of active, retired, or inactive officers who volunteer their time to assist in promoting the Corps. It is in the role of an Ambassador that DCCR/OCCO is working with transformation officers and the Office of Commissioned Corps Force Management (OCCFM) to develop various recruitment type materials that will be made available to every officer (active or retired) to further assist you in carrying out your calling of increasing Corps awareness (e.g., downloadable Corps-branded power point presentations, professional category information sheets, fliers for schools, etc). These recruitment tools will be made available to you through the internal marketing campaign which is located under the tab “Active Duty PHS Officers” on the USPHS Web site at www.usphs.gov. These types of strategies and materials represent only a few of the many ways DCCR/OCCO is identifying creative and sound solutions to support and recognize the many different ways individual officers and cohorts (e.g., Professional Advisory Committee recruitment and retention subcommittees, retirees, Commissioned Corps Liaisons, IRC) play different but equally important roles in providing necessary Corps outreach. We look forward to working with you collaboratively and synergistically as an extension of DCCR/OCCO in fulfilling our shared calling of increasing Corps awareness. Through your collective efforts and our support we will be exponentially more effective in growing the Corps and getting the word out on the best kept secret this Nation has to offer – the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service.

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