Gary Olson Email & Phone Number

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Director of a National Hiring Center for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As the Director, oversees the planning, directs and coordinates Human Resources activities related to the recruitment and staffing for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Department of Homeland Security. These activities are carried out in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and CBP's workforce deployment plans to support the staffing of positions that are critical in CBP's efforts to protect the homeland. Specifically, I manage the full range of quality customer-driven staffing services, such as: recruiting strategies and testing, developing/creating vacancy announcements, issuing certificates of eligible applicants, and coordinating pre-employment processes. During the past 18 months, I have led a dynamic team in re-engineering the entry-level law enforcement hiring process for CBP. This reengineering has resulted in cost saving/avoidance of over $20 million and has transformed our paper based process to a 95% electronic document format. Additionally, I have instituted new forms of communication with our applicants utilizing SMS texting and Twitter to keep our applicants better engaged in our hiring process.

Responsible for the development, refinement and implementation of strategic planning and policy generation for the Minnesota National Guard. Use Lean Six Sigma, Baldrige Award Criteria, Strategic Management and Readiness Reporting systems and the Balance Score Card initiative to assess our metrics and provide feedback to the Senior Military Officer (2-star General) on how well we are implementing our strategic plans. Responsible for policy staffing and implementation in a 14,500 person military organization.

Principal Army Staff Officer for all matters concerning Army Military Personnel actions for the 11,500 members of the Minnesota Army National Guard. Responsible for three primary areas: health and medical personnel service support, personnel staff planning and supervision, and special staff officer coordination. Plan, develop and operate the State's personnel, administrative, and medical support systems to build and sustain combat readiness. Formulate policy for and management of personnel, medical and administrative systems for organizations within and in support of the Minnesota Army National Guard. Analyze work-flow and work centers within the personnel department to identify shortages, overages and to articulate increases in Full Time Support requirements. Participate in national level Technician position description rewrite and Full Time Support staffing committees. Improve processes thru the use of Lean Six Sigma such as the Enlisted Promotion System, the Senior Officer's Consideration Board, enlistment position requests to streamline and become more efficient. Created the first ever Functional Area Board regulation, process and tracking mechanism to assign officers into low density positions based on the needs of the organization.

Principal Staff Officer for all matters concerning Division Personnel actions. Responsible for six primary areas: health and personnel service support, headquarters management, staff planning and supervision, special staff officer coordination, and personal staff officer coordination. Plan, develop and operate the Division's personnel, administrative, and community activities support systems to build and sustain combat readiness. Formulate doctrine and policy for and management of personnel and administrative systems for organizations within and in support of the Division. Was the lead planner in navigating a US Army combat Division thru transformation that reorganized nearly 1100 positions into a new structure for the future. While undergoing the most difficult organization transformation, used statistical information to identify trends and solutions to personnel assignment challenges.