Three career employees have been selected by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for management training under the executive development agreement recently negotiated between the Department of the Interior and the Civil Service Commission, Secretary Douglas McKay announced today. They are: Carl J. Cornelius, relocation officer, Consolidated Chippewa Agency, Cass Lake, Minn.; Grover C. Gardner, supervising loan examiner, Anadarko Area Office, Anadarko, Okla.; and Richard D. Butts, superintendent, Red Lake Agency, Red Lake, Minn.
The Bureau's program is designed to prepare selected career employees for high level management positions in Washington and the field through a series of assignments outside their regular positions. Candidates are selected from a wide range of specialties, including such fields as education, welfare, soil conservation, forestry and range management, as well as the administrative occupations. Assignments are individually adapted for each successful candidate, based on an appraisal of the experience required to fit him for advanced executive posts.
The program is directed by a Bureau Executive Development Committee comprised of W. Barton Greenwood, Assistant Commissioner for Administration; Ervin J. Utz, Assistant Commissioner for Resources; and Miss Selene Gifford, Assistant Commissioner for Community Services. The Bureau's chief personnel officer C. E. Lamson, management planning officer Theodore W. Taylor, and personnel staff officer Joseph C. LaSalle, assist the central committee.
Supervisors throughout the Bureau recommend employees in the middle Civil Service grades (GS-9 through 13) for participation in the program. Candidates are screened by area executive development committees on the bases of their education, experience, personal qualities, and potential for development. Area directors then make nominations to the Executive Development Committee in Washington, and also recommend a plan for the assignment of each of the candidates.
The central committee makes final selections and establishes training schedules for successful applicants, whose development is accomplished through a series of diversified assignments of sufficient length to enable them to gain competence in their new work and to be productive in it.
Employees in specialized fields are given the opportunity to get administrative and high level technical experience. Administrative employees are assigned work in additional phases of administration and program direction. Whenever feasible, they take appropriate courses at universities to round out their program.
There will be systematic appraisal and follow-up of each participant as the program progresses. Those who are fully successful in their work will be available for executive vacancies. It is expected that positions of area director, assistant area director, division chief, branch chief, program officer and similar high-level executive posts will be filled through the program.
