Tell us about why you’ve decided to leave HUD?

Deputy Secretary Ron Sims: It was time for me to go home, and although HUD is an amazing place, doing incredible work, and I’m working with talented people—I mean, they rock here—I began to daydream about being at home. I realized that that’s where my heart was. I’ve been here for two years and I have no family here—they’re all back in Seattle.

What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from this stint at the federal level?

Several things. There are gradations of flexibility and speed. Obviously, I’m still a local person and so I think local government moves very quickly and that there are expectations that the federal government cannot, but I think that it is important that the federal government understand that every community is unique and that we learn to listen.

I always say: “There is no one-size-fits-all.” What you have to do is establish goals and then let people tell you how they’re going to achieve those goals and do that not just with your money, but what are they doing to leverage other funds: philanthropic community funds, business community funds, local government funds, faith-based community funds, so that we’re bringing what I call the wealth of a community to bear on the things that we want to do. The sustainability grants are written that way and I think they broke the ice not only because we had the grants but because so many people applied for them because of their willingness to move in that direction. It’s taking the accumulated wealth of a region and applying it to their issues with the federal government being a partner and a stimulus. So I feel really good about that.

But I’ll miss the employees we have here who believe in what they do. I believe that you are only as good as your employees are and you only as bad as you allow yourself to be, and that if you empower your employees, we can achieve anything. Employees here are empowered and there’s enthusiasm for tackling all of the problems facing our communities and a desire to get things done differently.

Have you fulfilled your goals?

Obviously, there are things left to do—there are always things left to do. But, for years the word “HUD” was never said with affirmation. There was a young lady in the Baltimore office who said “When people ask me where I work, I used to say ‘the government.’ Now, when people ask me where I work, I say “the Department of Housing and Urban Development.” She was so proud to be able to say that, and I think it’s really important that we instill belief in people, as well as attract a lot of talented people here.

If you look at HUD’s fundamental statute, we were supposed to be the group that helped end poverty. We were supposed to be the group that made sure that people had a chance to buy a home whether it was through FHA or multi-family homes. We’re the ones charged with ending homelessness and now I think now people are beginning to see the agency’s depth and breath. It was amazing being part of that and being around amazing talent in the field offices, regional offices and headquarters that could make that happen. And of course, in the end, it is whether or not we are able to prove ourselves to stakeholders.

What do you consider your greatest accomplishment at HUD?

I’m an old school person. I believe in the totality in a team not the stars on it. I believe what I was able to do here at HUD is articulate the need to get out of silos, to tackle a problem, and not to fix blame if something went wrong. If you take risk and succeed you deserve applause, you deserve praise. If you take a risk and you fail, you deserve applause. It’s the failure to do anything that should be a bad day for you.

Secretary Donovan set out to create a new DNA for HUD. That’s how he described it. That is, risk taking, moving more responsibility to the local level, and setting goals that were once deemed impossible. All of a sudden you say, “Impossible or not, I’m going to do it.” Policy aside, changing the culture here is a great accomplishment.

And in doing that, what were some of the challenges and how were you able to overcome them?

We have 80 field offices, but there’s always been this idea that things should be run out of headquarters. This is where empowering the field offices needs to happen. On the local level, you need speed. No matter who is president and who controls Congress, what you want is the ability for people to make quick decisions and I don’t think federal government does that very well. Another thing I’ve tried to do is to instill the idea that it’s OK to make a decision. Another lesson I’ve tried to teach is that process should never eclipse product. What good is the process if it gets money out late, ties up money, requires a gazillion reports before anything is spent, and says you can make no mistakes? This is the stuff that makes people timid, and it’s not what we should do. In my time here, people have discarded those things and realized that speed and risk taking were incredibly important and meaningful. Over time we saw the Recovery funds accounted for and sent out the door faster. I had less fraud than the other departments, and part of that was getting out of the way of the people doing the work. They take pride in their work, they work really hard, and they love the mission.

So, I don’t want to point out specific challenges to this program or that program because I was lucky. I got, at times, to be the coach to call the plays, but somebody made a great catch. And it succeeded. I encouraged smart people and people who believed in public service to do what they do best.