An Exit Interview, From the Top

Linda Springer says good-bye today to the Office of Personnel Management.

After three years as director of the agency, the accomplished cellist has decided to play a new tune as executive director of government and public sector advisory services for Ernst & Young. She's come a long way from her small Haddonfield, N.J., gift shop that was once named "Philly's Best."

She leaves with mixed reviews.

Full of praise was Jonathan D. Breul, executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government. Citing her strong advocacy for President Bush' s management agenda, Breul said that Springer "provided a real steady hand for all the blocking and tackling that's necessary for all the challenges of management of human capital at OPM."

But union leaders, who don't like elements of that agenda, could only muster a lukewarm endorsement.

"While we have not always agreed with Ms. Springer's initiatives, we did see more willingness to engage employee representatives under her tenure," said Randy Erwin, legislative director of the National Federation of Federal Employees.

Bush has nominated Michael Hager, the Veterans Affairs assistant secretary for human resources and administration, to replace Springer, who recently met with the Diary for an exit interview on several topics.

· Her proudest accomplishment:

"I think from a people standpoint it's reconnecting all the OPM associates around the country to the Washington office. . . . The director's office really needed to make the effort to physically get out, to visit people, listen to them, find ways for them on a routine basis to give their input and be heard and responded to. . . . It had really become fragmented in my judgment. . . .

In the human capital surveys, the best-places-to-work surveys, OPM had slipped. . . . Now we're having a resurgence and we're really one agency again."

· Other accomplishments:

"We're certainly turning around our background investigations much faster than we did three years ago. We are making inroads in processing new retirement claims even though we have had a pause in our modernization work."