Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Trade, at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Brenda Smith
After a few months off, we have finally been able to publish a new podcast episode!
In this episode, the Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Trade, at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Brenda Smith, shares her insight on the field of international trade. In welcoming the next generation of trade professionals, she says, "Come on in the water's fine!" Listen in as she shares her advice for choosing a career path and for creating mentor/mentee relationships.
Information on the Executive Assistant Commissioner role can be found here: https://www.cbp.gov/about/leadership-organization/executive-assistant-commissioners-offices
Guest Bio:
Brenda Smith is the Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Trade, at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Since 2014, Ms. Smith has overseen a diverse portfolio of trade enforcement, security, and facilitation matters to enable legitimate trade, contribute to American economic prosperity, and protect against risks to public health and safety. Her work ranges from enforcing over 500 U.S. trade laws, to overseeing 14 trade agreements with 20 countries, to directing CBP’s seven Priority Trade Issues. She oversees national compliance audits and the management of trade data,along with CBP’s regulatory process for administering trade and border operations.
Contact us:
Twitter: @Tradepodcast
Full episode transcript:
Introduction (00:01):
Welcome to Women In Trade, a podcast for up and coming professionals like you in the field of international trade. Kellie Kemock is your guide on this journey, an accomplished lawyer and trade compliance consultant who's passionate about helping young women navigate this complex field equipping you with the tools and resources you'll need to pursue an exciting and meaningful career. You'll hear candid interviews with other successful female leaders and benefit from their experience. It's time to build the career of your dreams. Here's your host, Kellie Kemock.
Kellie Kemock (00:41):
On today's podcast, we have executive assistant commissioner for CBP. Ms. Brenda Smith. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We appreciate your time. To begin, I really just wanted to make sure that our listeners can know your backstory and know how exactly did you get to where you are today. Can you kind of tell us your career path and how you got there?
Brenda Smith (01:06):
Sure. Happy to share. And I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast, Kellie. I think it's a great idea because I am so passionate about and enthusiastic about the trade environment generally and would like a lot of people to really know how interesting and challenging it is. We learn something new every single day. There's a lot of complexities to this. If you're interested in business, if you're interested in the law, if you're interested in global dynamics, it's all there in the trade world. And so I have been interested in trade since I was in college. Really a combination of a focus on economics, but almost more importantly a focus on history. And it happened to be Asian history, Japanese and Chinese, but was also grew up in Washington dc. So very aware of international dynamics and the fact that there was a big wide world out there.
(02:10):
And when I saw and really learned more about how people interact through business I knew that trade was something I really wanted to focus on, not be only because it was interesting, but also because in terms of being able to lift people up and to make a difference in day to day lives, if people are willing to work hard and have an idea for a way to make a product and sell it to somebody else they can do amazing things, lift not only their themselves but their families and even their country out of working or living conditions that may not have all the opportunities we want for the entire world. So I think trade is really a game changer and that's why I was focused on it. Went to college I got a master's in economics from Rutgers University up in New Jersey and actually then went to China and taught for six months in the late 1980s, actually just before Tiana Men Square.
(03:12):
So a very interesting time. China was opening up to the west, but particularly western economies. And I was there to teach not only English but also economics and very interesting combinations about things like free markets in China where people were selling things off a very small stand. Once I came home, I ended up working on Capitol Hill for something called the Office of Technology Assessment, which focused on us economic competitiveness, funny how that issue keeps coming up. And then I actually went and worked for a congressman, a member of the House of Representatives, and I did a lot of his economic work and I focused on budget, which at first I thought, how in the world is this connected to trade? But the advice that somebody gave me was, you need to understand the infrastructure underneath what you're looking to do as a career. And I knew that I was gonna stay in Washington DC or wanted to stay in Washington, so working with the federal government was a possibility.
(04:21):
And the advice that one of my mentors gave me was, you need to understand how the laws are made and you need to understand where the money comes from. And that has served me well ever since. After five years on the hill, I went to main treasury as a budget analyst, but very quickly found my way to the US Custom service. Since joining the custom service in the mid 1990s, I have had nine different jobs in five different offices around customs and then customs and border protection. I've worked on any number of issues either with an international focus on, with a policy focus, an automation focus. You can never get bored at cbp. In fact, I don't think you can ever get bored in trade. And if you are, you need to find yourself a new job.
Kellie Kemock (05:15):
Well, so some of the podcast guests that I have had on have basically just fallen in to trade. It was just kind of like, Hey, we need somebody to do this new thing. No one knows much about it, but can you learn it and do it? And so that's kind of the story. This reoccurring story that I've been hearing on the podcast is people just fell into trade. So conversely, we're trying to reach the next generation and say, Okay, you can choose this as a path. And what advice would you have somebody who might want to choose this as their career path, what can they do to get into it to know which path they should take, and what would you say to that next generation that wants to follow in your footsteps?
Brenda Smith (05:57):
So I think a couple things. I would admit that I was passionate about trade, but I really didn't know that the US custom service existed. And so I got very lucky there and fell into the custom service and it's been a great career now for over 25 years. What I would say to people who are trying to figure out what their passion is, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, the nexus of work in the trade environment is to business, very active private sector engagement, clearly making goods flow from one place to the other is what we're all about. And a lot of businesses lifeblood depends on that. So very significant connection to business. Fortunately or unfortunately, there's a lot of rules and regulations around trade. And so if you're interested or think you might be interested in the law, this is no better place to start because it is everything from calculation of customs duties or how to bring goods in so that they don't cost you more than they cost to make.
(07:09):
But also how do you protect your intellectual property as it's moving through a supply chain? And those are all laws and regulations that we work with in the trade environment. I think there's also a huge quantitative aspect. So if you're interested in understanding how to use data either to target or to manage risk or to make the most efficient and effective supply chains possible, we rely on data and there's a boat loaded data around trade transactions that you can use to analyze and then make operational decisions. Then there's also the aspect of simply rolling up your sleeves. One couple of the things that I get to do or to go and visit ports of entry where I'm literally looking up at a container ship that towers over me a hundred feet in the air with a crane that's taking off these 40 foot long containers.
(08:07):
And I feel like just a spec, like an ant but I love being out there seeing really the business of the world go by. The other thing that I get to do, because this is the other end of trade, is to spend a lot of time with manufacturing businesses or businesses that are growing things or that are trying to invent and protect and sell new technology and learning not only their story, but actually getting to see automobiles being made or a wire hanger being made in a firm that is 75 years old. And the gentleman's great grandfather started this business with one machine and about five workers, and now they come to the US Customs and Border Protection to protect their business from unfair competition. So there's a real range of activities, and so if you're interested in any part of those, I would say dive into the trade world and give it a try.
(09:10):
That also helps you as you're trying to figure out what path within trade to take. So I would say your first couple of years in a trade job you should be trying to understand what it is you like about it. Do you like to write? Do you like to talk to people? Do you like to organize things? Trade very complex and it requires really strong organizational skills. So figure out what it is that you like doing every day and then figure out once you know that, what are you good at? And then how do you grow that skill? And then how do you really apply it in the place where it can be used the best? So let's take an example. Let's say you're really organized and I'll use myself. I love to make to-do list and I'm a big planner. I've always got my calendars out, I've got my to-do list.
(10:07):
I don't always follow it, but I make 'em. And so one of the things that I became attracted to was project management. And couple of years ago I had the opportunity to help support our automated commercial environment completion or ace. And many folks that work customs issues know that this is the system that has all the data about all the shipments that come into and go out of the United States. Well, I didn't know anything about automation, very little about it, but I knew how to manage a project and I knew how to manage stakeholders that were interested in this project getting done and getting done well. And so I took my to-do list and I took my calendars and I worked with my team and I worked with the private sector and the other government agencies that needed the system to build it. It was a huge organizational challenge, but it was those organizational skills that I was able to apply and really enjoyed applying to the trade world.
Kellie Kemock (11:13):
More and more we see more like trade-based education that someone can choose to be choose a field or a major that has something to do with international trade, but it seems like it's not a requirement. You can have any sort of background and get into the field. Is that true?
Brenda Smith (11:32):
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. When you talk about scientists, you think, Okay, that's kind of a stretch. But actually at customs and border protection, we have seven national labs scattered around the country and they do a variety of things, but the reason that they were founded was to be able to test goods to test commodities, to help with classification. And we have a number of biologists and chemists that are involved on a day to day basis in testing footwear to make sure it's classified properly or testing the DNA of garlic to make sure that the country of origin is what it says it is.
Kellie Kemock (12:18):
Do you think that early on in a career, does someone have to choose between a private career path or maybe a government focused career path? Is that interchangeable in a career?
Brenda Smith (12:30):
I actually think it's very interchangeable. In fact, as I look at my career, and I talked about some of the early moves that I made, but I've been with CBP for the last 25 years, and while I've been exposed to a number of different organizations, I think one of the gaps in my career is not being really involved in the day to day of different organizations. Every different, every organization has its own culture and its own way of working. And I think you learn a lot by seeing that the downside to moving either in and out from private sector to public sector or from organization to organization, is that sometimes it takes sticking with an organization to really know its culture, to know its legal framework, and to know the people and the ins and outs of its mission. I'm not sure that I would have this job if I had moved in and out of the custom service developing trade expertise.
(13:44):
I would say developing customs expertise does require significant study and significant focus. And so I think it kind of depends on what job you want. That said, I never saw myself in this job when I started out. It's not something I aspired to. I really love analysis and I love policy work, and I would have guessed that I would have been a trade analyst perhaps a targeter or a writer, but had the opportunity to take on some leadership responsibilities and some challenges, and that kept my brain engaged and it kept me growing, which is one of the reasons that I stepped up. But I do think early on, you ought to be exposed to either a number of different jobs or a number of several different organizations. If you're in the early stages of your career and you are in a job more than two or three years time to look for a new one, I think especially in the first 10 years of your career.
(14:50):
What I would also say though is that those are the years that you need to be building your technical expertise. And so if you are looking at trade, there are a number of areas that you can specialize in. Exports, import compliance, intellectual property rights. I'm trying to think foreign trade zones. And if you find something and you're good at it, you have the opportunity not only to really go deep and learn the law, read the regulations, read the law, read anything you can get your hands on, talk to people who are good at this, learn their secrets. Keep, in the old days, we would all have a binder sitting up on our office bookshelves that had every piece of paper that we were able to pull together from the longtime subject matter experts. That's the sort of stuff you need to learn. You may not use it 15 years into your career, but if you develop that technical expertise, you develop confidence that you can wrap your head around a very detailed area. You will have you'll develop credibility with those around you that you can master an area and that you will be able to apply that mastery to other things. And that also you might find a passion, you might find something you love, and in fact, I often recommend find two of those because you never know who will need that intersection between let's say intellectual property rights and a scientific background. And turns out there's a great market for it. So you're able to bring together a couple of passions.
Kellie Kemock (16:46):
Well, if we could pivot just a little bit to talking about mentorship. It's something that I've been really passionate about and I try to make it a point to answer anyone who messages me on LinkedIn saying, Let's get on a call. I'll tell you everything I can tell you, and if I can't answer something, let me put you in touch with someone else. What is your advice for potential mentees for reaching out to those people who might give them advice? And then also for mentors, how can we make the most of this relationship so that we can encourage people in this career? Especially because it's not cut and dry, it's not black and white, it's a really broad field, and so it's kind of hard to navigate sometimes. So what advice would you have?
Brenda Smith (17:39):
So I guess maybe two pieces of advice for mentees recognize that there's two ways to approach mentors. One is what I would call a quick hit mentoring, and I'm a big believer in informational interviews. So if you don't really know what you wanna do or you don't really know what a particular job or particular field is about, make an appointment with somebody and say, Hey, can I buy you a cup of coffee and take 20 minutes of your time? And I wanna know what do you do on a day to day basis? What do you love about it? What don't you like about it? What are some of the downsides? What do I have to do to be one of those? So it's a very quick mentor session, but also recognize that while that gives you a lot of very good information, especially if you do about 20 or 30 of those it scratches the surface.
(18:42):
And if you need more than that where you're really trying to figure out how to develop your career, you need to have done your homework. And by that I mean you need to have asked yourself a lot of the questions that a mentor might ask you. A lot of, you'll be able to answer on your own, What do you like about work? What don't you like about work? Where do you see yourself in five years? Do you plan to go back for more education? Are you mobile? Those sorts of things you can answer on your own. It's the questions that you ask yourself that you can't answer on your own that often are helpful to engage a mentor on. So for example, I had a young woman come in and she's experienced done a number of different jobs. She's worked through a progression, but what she recognized about herself is that she needed second level supervision, so she needed to supervise supervisors.
(19:49):
So she came to me and she said, That's my assessment of my current career gap. Is that accurate based on my resume? And if so, how do I find those jobs without having had prior experience? And so that was something that I was able to work through with her and give her some advice on whether that was her only path or whether there were other paths that might accomplish a similar goal. And then once we decided that that probably was a good path, we brainstormed some ideas around how she could actually make that happen. And I'm very pleased to tell you that she's actually doing a detail as a second line supervisor right now. So she was able to accomplish her goal for mentors.
(20:43):
It took me a little while to come to what I think is probably the most productive model especially for people that are busy and need to be a little efficient about their mentoring. I think it's not enough just to get together once a month and have a conversation, though those certainly are useful. I think what's helpful is for mentors to think about what information is really useful and critical in terms of making decisions about a career. And then to be able to present a worksheet, a template, a checklist, an activity that polishes that particular set of information. And so let me give you an example in the government to be able to apply for senior executive service jobs successfully, we require people to show us that they can do executive core qualifications, specific skill sets. There's five of them. And so one of the exercises that I often walk through with my mentees is just a basic one page matrix that asks for that has people identify two examples of where they're able to show how they exhibit those skills.
(22:13):
So that's a very focused activity on a one page template where people have to think about what they've done that shows they can reach the next level. The other thing that I often do is a pretty intensive resume review, and I don't have the perfect format for a resume, but I think that being able to tell people who you are in a page or two is really important for achieving your career goals. So that's an exercise, a very practical exercise that you can do in a one hour mentoring session that often is of great value to the mentee.
Kellie Kemock (22:55):
One of the goals of the podcast is to kind of give you a platform to give this mentoring idea to as many listeners as possible. So I am envisioning my guest giving advice to my listeners in this way, 102 hundred people can get the advice from you, and you don't have to have 200 cups of coffee <laugh>. So that's kind of the goal here. So I kind of wanna ask you your own questions. You said ask your mentor what it is that you do on a daily basis. So can you answer that question for all of our listeners?
Brenda Smith (23:31):
Sure, happy to. So first of all, I have a great job. I love the job. I love the opportunity that I have to engage with people that are trying to make trade work for American consumers and American businesses. And so that's a great starting off point for me. My husband always jokes with me. He says Okay, you're off to change the world again. And that's really how I view it. So on a day-to-day basis I spend a lot of time engaging with the people that make trade happen, whether that's the CBP employees, whether it's customs brokers and importers that have either issues or ideas with the way that trade works. I also do a lot of engagement to educate, whether I'm speaking to a group or speaking to an individual that a mentee for example. Or I may do a speech in front of a large group that is looking for an update on how we're implementing U S M C A.
(24:43):
The fourth kind of area of activity that I do is working with decision makers. And very often these are my boss, the commissioner of CBP or individuals at the White House or in other agencies that have certain policy goals and rely on customs and Board of Protection to execute those policy goals. And a lot of times they don't know a lot about trade or they don't know specifically how the customs process works. And I have the opportunity to say, So great idea. I think I understand what your goal is. If we do it this way, here's what the cost and benefits are. If we do it this way, here's what the cost and benefits are and to try to walk them through what the options are. And that requires me to have a pretty good understanding of our, let's say, technical and legal infrastructure. So I get to bring that to bear.
(25:48):
I have to be fast on my feet because a lot of times these questions will come outta nowhere or people will throw an idea at me and I'll have to kind of think through what the operational impacts are and whether this is legally possible based on, I'm not a lawyer, but what I know of the law. And sometimes it's in writing and sometimes it's verbal. And so I get the opportunity to really practice my communication skills. The last area I would say, I think there's been a couple of last areas. The last area that I do is to really make sure that we at Customs and Border Protection are delivering our messages effectively. And those messages can be anything from, here's what the requirements are for U S M C A and here's how you can satisfy them. I wanna make sure that our compliance guidance is very clear and transparent and that we can find it.
(26:53):
Sometimes our website is a little multilayered we'll say, and so finding stuff there. So I wanna be sure we put our best foot forward so the trade understands what it is we're looking for, all the way down to, I actually have an opinion on one of those policy decisions that's being brought forward. And I wanna be sure that the data that we are able to present is really clear and it's accurate and that it really illustrates the impact that a particular policy decision may have. So it's a lot around thinking who our audience is and how they might receive information. So it's a great job.
Kellie Kemock (27:40):
It's kind of a reoccurring theme in that many trade professionals have to explain the technical side of trade to non-trade people. It sounds like that's a lot of what you do, and it's a lot of what many of us do. Maybe there's two sides, cuz we already talked about you gotta know the technical side of trade, you gotta know it, but then it sounds like you also need to know how to teach it. You need to know how to explain it.
Brenda Smith (28:09):
And communication skills are huge. And I'm not sure if that's unique to trade or just the world we live in, but I know most of the people that I work with on a day to day basis that have to have good communication skills,
Kellie Kemock (28:24):
Trade compliance, and customs maybe might have this reputation of being the break. We're trying to stop things at the border. Trade compliance in a corporation is trying to stop you selling this product because we don't have where it's going. Or the reputation in a corporation in my experience is that we're the break. We're a cost center. We're not helpful. But I love the way that you framed the CBP in that we are facilitators to trade. We are trying to help you. We're not trying to be the break. So do you have any comments on how we can change our reputation as police officers and more as facilitators?
Brenda Smith (29:04):
Sure. So I think the way we convince people of that is by actually doing it. Nothing makes me crazier than to hear somebody say, Oh, it's stuck in customs, which is not always the case. And in fact, if people really understood the many different parties that at lay hands on goods as they move from a manufacturer in one country to a retail shelf in another country, there are so many parties involved. It takes a tremendous amount of coordination. But I think the way that you convince people that you're there to facilitate is by doing it, by coming up with ideas around process efficiencies, by removing paper, by not duplicating effort and by removing cost out of cost or time out of those processes. And I think the people that really know those processes are best positioned to do that and to provide the advice and then actually to lead the response that will give, get us the most efficient effective processes.
Kellie Kemock (30:17):
And you also mentioned U S M C A, so can I ask you about the implementation was July 1st, so I know we don't have hours and hours, but <laugh> give us the small shortened version of just what it took to make that happen on July 1st, coordination with other agencies, coordination with industry, what was required from your perspective to make that happen?
Brenda Smith (30:42):
So all of the above. We actually, so interesting when I joined the custom service back in the mid nineties actually, and I was at treasury doing customs work as well. The very first project I worked on was nafta. And many of us did that had been around a little while. Our first, our big project was nafta and we learned a lot by implementing nafta. There was a NAFTA center and there were NAFTA regulations and we audited regional value content. So we recognized the role that the customs auditors could play. We knew classification was critical in determining things like country of origin and making sure we had the right duty rates. So we cut our teeth on nafta. When this administration decided to take on a renegotiation of that agreement, we wanted to be at the table, or I would say we wanted to be in the room, which U S T R often will call on us to make sure that the policy goals that they are negotiating and the agreement framework that they're putting together actually is enforceable and administrable.
(32:03):
And so often we'll invite our folks, the CBP representatives into the room during the negotiations or during the prep sessions. And that's a great honor. But that's really where it started for. So a couple of years ago, as we were helping develop the concepts that ultimately made it into U S M C A, that meant that we also became experts on the customs portion of the agreement. So when it came time to do things like the trilateral uniform regulation negotiations and drafting, we were able to really support that and drive it. When it came time to develop the implementing instructions, we were well positioned because we had been thinking about these issues and working with them for some time. It really meant though that the rubber met the road and we had to convey to the trade community what it was going to require. And the devil is in the details.
(33:05):
So talking to not only our counterparts in Canada and Mexico, but also at the Department of Labor and at the United States Trade Representative and at the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce, lots of conversations about how are we actually gonna make this work. And a lot of dedicated public servants, were trying to be consistent with the intent of Congress as expressed in the law, but also make sure that from a resource and a regulatory perspective, we could implement. So again, talk about the to-do list and the complex project management. That's exactly what we had underway. And one of the things I love about CBP is we have become really good project managers because we're called on to implement complex projects on a regular basis. And so we, it's become muscle memory and whether you are a doer or you have some oversight responsibilities, we kind of speak the same language.
(34:10):
We have standard approaches that we use that recognize the legal requirements, the automation requirements, the need for our field personnel to be ready to implement. So training, guidance, things like that, and the trade community also to be ready. So again, training, guidance, communication, things like that. So we sort of put all that on a master spreadsheet and then just start to execute. We're real good at prioritization. We try not to let things fall through the cracks, though they do occasionally, but we really work as a team and just try to make sure that everybody on the team is talking to each other. So we had a countdown. In fact, I was trying to indicate that countdown on LinkedIn with a number of the issues that we were looking at. We started out at entry into four state minus seven, and then walked it down through there. Because July 1st was the end of the beginning. I'm still in a quote from a good friend and colleague, Cynthia Wittenberg, but it was also the beginning of the end. So in other words, we, we'd done our preliminary activities, we're ready to go, we implemented, but now starts the real work and really trying to make sure that people can take advantage of the benefits of the agreement and that they're compliant with the agreement if they do. So
Kellie Kemock (35:40):
It sounded like you were a translator almost from the legislation itself. You had to translate it into the language of the users.
Brenda Smith (35:50):
Yes, that's exactly right. And a lot of times it means we have to go back to the hill and sit down with the congressional staff or the members and say, What were you really looking for? What was your intent here? And then we try to capture that intent in the regulations while using language that's familiar to the trade community so that they can, Oh, I know what that means. Sometimes we fall back on processes that we've already used. So for example, the S M C A center, we rip that off from the NAFTA center, but it worked really well before and 25 years later, we've updated it with things like new technology. We have a chat bot on our website. We have some different skill sets involved in that. We're doing all of our training virtually, which was unheard of during the NAFTA time. But we also believe that if it isn't broken, just reuse it. Reuse is a good thing. So we really tried to make sure that the government processes also supported effective compliance.
Kellie Kemock (37:00):
I'm seeing that CBP is the facilitator of these agreements, but also the enforcement arm of the agreement. Does that make it more difficult or how do you reconcile those two responsibilities in one agency?
Brenda Smith (37:16):
So I think you start with the assessment that most companies that are doing trade are trying to be compliant because they recognize that the cost of non-compliance in terms of disruptions to their supply chain, legal bills time to resolve issues is not what they wanna be facing. So it's just a lot easier to be compliant upfront. So we try to provide the information that will support their compliance and processes and expertise that will help them meet that goal. We also recognize when the vast majority of companies and transactions are compliant, that allows us to focus on the higher risk transactions and companies, because they're out there. It's people that actually feel they can make more money by violating the law. And so if the more people we can make compliant facilitate that flow across the border, the more time and resources we have to look at those high risk shipments and bring them into line.
(38:29):
It requires use of data it requires good targeting, it requires good intelligence to understand who may be breaking the law. It also involves a use of that trust but verify mode. So we don't take compliance on trust. We do have regular validations of people that we believe are generally compliant, but we wanna test that theory a little bit. We also do random samples statistically valid random samples on transactions as they come in and as they file their paperwork, or I shouldn't call it paperwork, but their data around the value and the duties that they have to submit. And so we kind of use a multilayered approach to facilitate risk and then to address that risk. And I think that's the way we're able to balance facilitation and enforcement.
Kellie Kemock (39:28):
I work at Ernst and Young. And so I heard the webcast that you did June 10th with the team on policy, and there were two aspects of that presentation that I wanted to ask you about. I was really interested in your terminology and trade infrastructure. I hadn't heard that before, but it makes perfect sense. We talk about roads, we talk about bridges and how infrastructure has to be set in place. But now when you're talking about trade infrastructure, can you expand a little bit on what your idea was there?
Brenda Smith (39:58):
Yes. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about it. And I will tell you that that webinar in June was a great opportunity. There's so many smart people talking on that webinar that it was really a pleasure to listen to the conversation and be able to participate in it. So trade infrastructure for me is the compliment to the roads, the bridges, the ports of entry that are required to move goods, because I think trade infrastructure is as important as those things. And it involves I would say, first of all, automation, customs processes in the United States have been automated since the 1980s. Actually, I think we even go back to the 1960s with some very early automation. And there was a former customs commissioner with the famous quote, automate or per, And what he was really trying to get across was that for businesses to survive and be competitive in a global market, you have to be as efficient as possible.
(40:59):
And automation is a key to that efficiency. And so as we all know, if you don't continually invest in and upgrade your automation, you're gonna be technically obsolete very quickly. And in the United States, we don't have a plan for that, and we need an investment plan for ensuring that infrastructure, that automation keeps us where we need to be. I think the second area of infrastructure would be our expertise. We've talked a lot in this podcast about that. It takes a number of years for me, I'm still learning for others, you know, can wrap your head around issues in two or three years and become a real senior subject matter expert in areas. But you're always learning. We need to be proactive about that. And so I am championing a trade and cargo academy at US C B P in order to be able to ensure that our trade personnel are at the top of their game.
(42:05):
That they know the laws, they know the rules, they know the processes, they know the business models that are constantly evolving so that they can better facilitate the trade and enforce the laws and protect American businesses and consumers. So expertise would be my second area. I think the third area of infrastructure, and I haven't quite worked this out in my head yet, but I think it's about process. We have a lot of processes that work because of the collaboration between carriers and brokers and importers and retailers and manufacturers. And it requires, it's like a ballet. I never danced, but it's a very finely tuned dancer or machine. And if we don't get those processes right and constantly make them resilient and flexible, we can't get done what we need to get done. And I think we are all reminded of that as we came into the pandemic and nobody could find hand sanitizer or wipes, and we're still looking for wipes. But those processes, our processes are delicate. And when there is a disruption, we need to be able to turn on a dime and fix whatever that disruption is so that really critical products get into our country. And so I think that processes would probably be the third area of infrastructure that I think we need to focus on and invest in.
Kellie Kemock (43:39):
Thank you so much,
Brenda Smith (43:41):
Kelly. Thank you very much. This has been a great conversation, very wide ranging. If I could leave you and your listeners with just a piece of advice: Come on in! The water's fine! Trade will keep you challenged for years and you'll be able to make a great contribution.
Kellie Kemock (44:00):
Absolutely. A pleasure to meet you, a pleasure to talk with you. I appreciate your input and your openness today. So thank you very much.
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