TSA Improves Staff Training
Luciana Mangas September 02, 2016
The training measure is the first new course of action on the list for the Transportation Security Administration.
After a number of covert inspections on passenger- and baggage-screening operations, airport TSA screeners failed to detect banned weapons in 67 of 70 tests at several airport checkpoints around the United States. Business Insider reports that in order to fix that major issue, the new TSA administrator, Peter Neffenger, made the improvement of staff training his first order of business.
Earlier this year, the TSA started sending their newly hired employees to a training base in Glynco, Georgia. At the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, TSA’s staff has been learning about their mission and operations as a counter-terrorism organization.
“Training is the foundation of mission success and a powerful tool in galvanizing and leading change,” Neffenger said during a speech at the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan forum and think tank in Washington, DC, in July. “It provides consistency, develops a common culture, instills core values, improves morale, and it raises performance.”
What came as a surprise, however, was how diverse the new employees’ backgrounds were. Business Insider interviewed some of the students and found that some of them worked in retail, factories or even as youth pastors.
They all have the same goal in mind, though. “After 9/11, I wanted to do something that ensured people’s safety, so I thought TSA was the perfect position”, said 24-year-old Carmen Guzman, from Stockton, California.
[Photo: The Chicago Tribune]
