Legal Meets Practical

As a veterans advocate and attorney, I deal with Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) employees a lot. And here is something that might surprise a lot of people – some of those individuals are outstanding. There are individuals within the VA that truly and passionately care about their mission to help veterans, work long hours, and in general go above and beyond.

The problem is, you don’t hear about these individuals. The VA doesn’t have an “Employee of the Month,” or showcase the employees who make a difference. In fact, it’s hard to make a difference – as cliché as it sounds, the government is all about red tape and bureaucracy. You have a great idea? Write a memorandum about it and see where it goes.

One VA employee falls into the category of one of the VA’s outstanding folks, and has in fact effected substantive change. And guess what?

He’s gone now.

That individual is Jeffrey Gault, who just left his post as Acting Director of the Center for Verification and Evaluation (CVE) last week. (The CVE is the entity that approves veteran-owned businesses for set-aside opportunities with the VA).

A veteran of the U.S. Army who served two deployment in the Middle East, Mr. Gault has spent the last year and a half commuting between his home in Dallas and the CVE’s location in Washington, D.C. He will now focus full-time on running a Texas non-profit organization called The Army Scholarship Fund, which is a charitable, non-profit organization dedicated to providing college scholarships for undergraduate study to children of current and former members of the U.S. Army, and to spouses of currently serving soldiers.

As an attorney who dealt with the CVE a lot, I’ve seen how the process has evolved and improved since Mr. Gault took the helm. For example:

• In general, the process has become more streamlined, and the application examiners have been making less mistakes because of additional training. That’s thousands of hours saved by veterans applying for verification.
• Under Mr. Gault’s direction, the pre-decision and pre-determination processes have been refined and improved. These replaced the request for reconsideration process, which effectively meant that if you got denied verification, you had the pleasure of  a six-month wait.
• Mr. Gault has reached out to the veteran community for input into improving the CVE, and has implemented change where possible.
• The CVE was certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as fully compliant with ISO9001 standards for its operations, processes, metrics, and quality of work. There are very few organizations within the VA or the federal government which meet this strict set of criteria for operations and quality.

I’m not saying here that the criticisms aimed at the VA aren’t well-deserved. Quite frankly, I’ve had nothing positive to blog about for months – every post has been about the VA wasting billions in federal contract dollars, the VA Secretary’s resignation, the Phoenix OIG report, the elf on a shelf scandal. the Colorado construction contract catastrophe…I could go on. (And in fact, this article could be construed as negative, as Mr. Gault is leaving).

But point being, we should always acknowledge the individuals within the VA that do make a difference, given that its mission of helping veterans is of paramount importance to our country.

And especially that given the unique nature of the federal government, going above and beyond doesn’t always have its rewards.

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