February BRIDG Meeting Recap

Last week, we held our February Bimonthly Records and Information Discussion Group (BRIDG) meeting. Almost 200 records professionals from across the Federal Government attended in person or watched our live stream. One of our goals for this year is to provide summaries of BRIDG meetings here on Records Express.

The highlight of the meeting was a surprise appearance by The Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, who closed the session by thanking all of the attendees for their professionalism and the work they do every day in preserving and protecting the records of the United States. His remarks are below and can be watched here.

I just wanted to say Good Morning and I am really here to thank you. Thank you for the work you do everyday because I bet you don’t get many “thank yous” on the job. What you do is tremendously important. Not only for managing the work of the government today, but for our history. You are in the process of making sure that our history is recorded, kept, and preserved so that future generations can hold the government accountable for its actions and for people to learn more about our history through our records.  So thank you for what you do.

This is a particularly important time as we transition to a new administration; 4100 new political appointees coming to town. Your responsibility in terms of ensuring those people are trained about the rules and regulations around records management gives you an opportunity to pass on the importance of maintaining and preserving our records. So, thank you very much for the work you do.

The rest of the program included presentations from:

• Jay Trainer, Executive for Agency Services, introduced two of his new directors, who made their first presentations to the BRIDG audience.
• Alina Semo, Director of the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), discussed OGIS’s role in resolving FOIA disputes and reviewing agency FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance.
• Mark Bradley, Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), discussed his office’s responsibilities for overseeing the Executive Branch’s system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying classified information.

Other presenters included:

• Don Rosen, who discussed Senior Agency Official reporting,
• Kim Gentile, who provided an overview of the Civilian Personnel Records Center Mission and Activities,
• Margaret Hawkins, who reviewed the 2016 Records Management Customer Satisfaction Survey Results.

The presentation slides can be accessed as a .pdf here. You can watch (or rewatch!) the entire meeting below.