Federal Protective Service

[masreyno]

Can anyone on the board clarify the hiring process for FPS? Maybe someone who has gone through the hiring process might be able to post what the timeline was from applying to getting set-up down at FLETC. As I know all timelines are different for every person, what I am really looking for are the different steps that take place during this process.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[roadkingcop28]

My timeline has been as follows:

November 05 - Applied
January 05 - Contacted for and had interview
February 05 - Notified of C.O.
Also Feb 05 - Received paper C.O. and Background paperwork
March 05 - Drug Screen and contacted to set up appt for physical
April 05 - Pre-employment physical

Now I don't know how "typical" my timeline is or has been, but it's been pretty expedient, at least in my eyes. I have been told by the powers that be that the admin types are trying to get all persons currently in the process on the same page, so that once everyone gets an EOD, they can have a class ready at FLETC to send them through. I am currently a federal LEO, which I'm not so sure is helping speed the process along; however, things are moving fast compared to the "G" standards that I'm used to. Best of luck in whatever you try for.

Keep on rollin',
RKC

[Arjace]

Wendell Shingler
,s favorite saying is:
&You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?
8 This modest cop left his established career at the Marshals Service to fix an agency with one of the most important missions in government
* guarding and protecting federal employees and federal property.
When Shingler started as director of the Federal Protective Service in January 2002, it was a bereft law enforcement agency, a retirement destination for federal employees. More than 500 positions were vacant, and morale was low.
Today, the agency is almost fully staffed. FPS officers are now confident and proud of what they do.

&The only thing I brought to the table here was trust in [the officers] to do their jobs,
8 he said.
&I measure myself on [the troops]. If they
,re happy to come to work, they
,re doing their job. . . then I feel like I
,m starting to make a difference.
8 There
,s no question Shingler has made a difference in the agency, said Chris Yingling, an FPS inspector since 1997.
&Overall, as an agency, I think we
,re more proactive than we were in the past,
8 he said.
Shingler is out in the field with the front-line officers, attending roll calls and making sure his troops have what they need, said Yingling
,s twin brother, Rob, also an inspector since 1997. Shingler attends Federal Law Enforcement Academy graduations, replies to e-mails, keeps good on his promises and resolves equipment problems.

&Those are things we never saw before,
8 Rob Yingling said.

&He backs the troops so it makes us want to work that much more,
8 Chris said.
That management strategy is one Shingler learned from his own bosses over the years.

&They could see something in me,
8 Shingler said of his bosses.
&I
,m a really poor loser, and that
,s really how they got to me most of the time. They would always say,
+If you
,re saying that you can
,t do it, then OK, I
,ll take your word for it.
, Normally that would generate something in me to find a way to make it happen.
8 Before coming to FPS, the biggest challenge of Shingler
,s career was developing a vulnerability assessment of federal buildings after the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995. Shingler, then chief of judicial facility and security programs for the Marshals Service, was tasked with representatives from other agencies to assess security of federal buildings and crank out a report for the president within 60 days. This assignment was also his first introduction to the Federal Protective Service, he said.
Shingler didn
,t get much sleep during those two months. But he remembers how his managers trusted him to handle the assignment.
&They weren
,t meeting with me every day to find out what we were doing,
8 Shingler recalled.
&They just trusted me enough that they knew we were going to deliver a product in the time frame.
8 He completed the study, which is still used today to outline minimum security standards for federal facilities.
Shingler
,s first peek into the Federal Protective Service was not off base.

&It was very disorganized,
8 he remembers. Inventories of buildings and security measures in place should have been standard, but they weren
,t. There was no systematic way to measure a building
,s security either, he said.

&As large as FPS was or as national as it was, they should have been doing those kinds of things proactively, not reactively,
8 he said.
&I think they had a different mindset and they were competing with different priorities.
8 FPS was part of the General Services Administration from 1949 until 2003 when it transferred to the Homeland Security Department.
&The mission of this agency is perfect for Homeland Security because it protects one of the most valuable pieces of the homeland
* that is the government which is supposed to be protecting it,
8 he said.
&If the government is not safe to protect the homeland, then the homeland is never going to actually be safe.
8 For decades, FPS was thought of as GSA
,s security guards, a reputation it
,s nearly shed since becoming part of Homeland Security.
When Shingler came on board nearly three years ago, his work was cut out for him.

&There were people here that probably should have been somewhere else a long time during their tenure, so there were some people that we had to make career adjustments for, I
,ll put it that way,
8 Shingler said. Shingler was not afraid to clean house.

&Some people say,
+You can
,t do that in the government,
,
8 he said.
&Well, yeah, you can.
8 Shingler began putting together a team. He brought in a couple hundred new officers. After he sorted out the
&less productive folks,
8 he made way for in-house officers to start filling the upper ranks. There had been a major void between the career FPS officers and management, he said. He attended roll calls and solicited feedback from the officers, asked them what they would do if they were king for a day. The officers were skeptical at first, he said, almost brutal,
&Yeah right, we
,ve heard all this [expletive]
before,
8 they
,d say.
But, Shingler said,
&When you deliver, that
,s what matters.
8 Shingler made sure officers had the right equipment, selecting vehicles and weapons based on the agency
,s mission. He gave officers the training they needed so they could respond to anthrax situations. FPS officers were going into buildings suspected to have anthrax in their basic uniforms and without hazardous materials training. He enhanced the agency
,s K-9 program; he bought more bicycles and motorcycles so officers would not be stuck in another Sept.
11, 2001, situation when Washington shut down and roads were gridlocked; he decentralized offices, stationing some officers inside certain federal buildings; and after the terrorist attacks, when many officers left the agency to go to the Federal Air Marshal Service, for example, Shingler offered retention pay and allowed officers to take vehicles and weapons home with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And he did this within the existing budget.
&I made sure the money went to the right things,
8 he said.
Shingler works long days, sometimes seven days a week. He gets to work around
6 a.m. and starts responding to e-mails from his troops. The transition into the Homeland Security Department has added hours to his days, but the change has been rewarding.
&You
,re actually making a difference for the government as a whole,
8 he said, adding that his bosses are working 14-hour days as well. His office is almost a shrine to his 30-year career, with soccer trophies and pictures from his coaching days to Senior Executive Service award plaques.
Shingler doesn
,t see himself at the agency forever, but he has a couple years worth of work left to do. He compared FPS to an engine
* it
,s supposed to be eight cylinders and it
,s at about six now. When he arrived, it was at two cylinders, he said.

&This is not Wendell
,s organization. Wendell just came here to fix the place, and I like to fix things,
8 Shingler said.
&I
,m not good in organizations that just come to work, do your eight hours and go home. I normally like to volunteer for challenges
* the things that can
,t be done, so to speak. Thats what motivates me. He said, &Whoever envisioned FPS many years ago, hopefully they can sleep well in their graves, because we are walking the walk.

[Arjace]

I have been employed with FPS for 9 of the last 10 years. I left the agency but came back when FPS was transferred to DHS. I can tell you FPS is a great agency to work for and it is getting even better. All officers currently have take home vehicles. Our job series may change from 0080 and 0083 to 1801 & 1802 which will give us the law enforcement retirement benefits we deserve. Our Director, Wendell Shingler has literally moved mountains for FPS and he continues to get us on par with other federal law enforcement agencies. As far as the hiring process each region does their own hiring and since 911 the hiring process has been lenghthened considerably.

[Navy Intel]

Arjace,

Which region are you in?

[Bearcat06]

I I can tell you FPS is a great agency to work for and it is getting even better.

Obvisouly you don't work in the DC area.....and I will leave it at that....

If you are a FLEO, please get with myself or DC Law and get yourself verified......

[Arjace]

I work in Region 3. How do I get verified?

[Bearcat06]

I work in Region 3. How do I get verified?

Send myself or DC Law a private message......and we will get you taken care of....

[masreyno]

My timeline has been as follows:

November 05 - Applied
January 05 - Contacted for and had interview
February 05 - Notified of C.O.
Also Feb 05 - Received paper C.O. and Background paperwork
March 05 - Drug Screen and contacted to set up appt for physical
April 05 - Pre-employment physical

Now I don't know how "typical" my timeline is or has been, but it's been pretty expedient, at least in my eyes. I have been told by the powers that be that the admin types are trying to get all persons currently in the process on the same page, so that once everyone gets an EOD, they can have a class ready at FLETC to send them through. I am currently a federal LEO, which I'm not so sure is helping speed the process along; however, things are moving fast compared to the "G" standards that I'm used to. Best of luck in whatever you try for.

Keep on rollin',
RKC

Thanks for posting your timeline. Do you, or anyone else, know what else lies ahead in the process? For example, is there a physical fitness test, poly, psych evaluation, etc?