Robert Klein, the District’s Veterans Affairs program manager, (second from left) briefs Brig. Gen. David Turner, commander of the South Pacific Division, during his tour of District projects in late August. Klein was named the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Program Manager of the Year for 2013.
(Photo by David A. Salazar)
Award-winning program manager is customer of his customer
Kristin Skopeck
lated more than 44 years of military service. He was enlisted
for nearly 10 years and then transitioned to the officer ranks
for more than 34 years, retiring as a colonel. While an offiLOS ANGELES — He’s not the type of person who says
cer, he commanded an engineer company, a signal battalion,
one thing but does another. He isn’t someone who does just
an engineer brigade, an infantry brigade, and a tactical
enough to get by. In fact, Los Angeles District Program Mancounter-drug task force.
ager Robert Klein’s impressive dedication was recognized by
He has been a long-standing customer, as a patient, of
headquarters when they selected him as the Corps’ Program
the VA, so he is able to personally experience some of the
Manager of the Year for 2013 in July.
Klein oversees six project managers, each of whom manage improvements made via the projects that he and his team
numerous projects at five Veterans Affairs hospital facilities in help complete.
About two years ago, Klein retired from the military,
Southern California. Since the VA program inception, there
has been more than 250 VA projects with District involvement but he wanted to keep working for the Corps on VA program
management, so he applied to continue doing the same work
at a combined cost of about $500 million. He said the work
often involves renovation, like moving walls, expanding rooms as a civilian.
Klein said the secret to ensuring the VA projects stay on
and putting in specialized equipment, but working in a hospitrack and within budget is having a thorough understanding
tal environment presents several challenges.
of the customer’s desire, which often means doing home“As examples, our construction sites are always occupied,
work.
they often have infectious control needs, negative air flow
“I have to understand the customer’s intent and what it
requirements, and there are patient privacy issues,” Klein said.
is that they really want,” Klein said. “When I’m working with
“Additionally, we are the Army and they are another federal
any level of customer, I like to figure out what is pressuring
agency, so there are terminology and other differences in how
them and see how I can help. My whole job is to service the
we each legally do work.”
A veteran himself, Klein served in three wars and accumu- VA, and I try to read about what is going on in their organi-
6 NewsCastle
zation and relate that information to our projects.
They are sometimes too busy to see trends going on
outside their hospital.”
Klein doesn’t shy away from challenges in his
personal life either. He decided to run for congress
in 1997 in the Torrance and Redondo Beach areas of
California, which required him to temporarily retire
from active duty.
“You can’t be in the
Army and run for Congress, so I had to get out
for 90 days to run,” he
said. “It’s hard to do,
but it isn’t impossible. I
wasn’t elected, but I got
to meet a whole lot of
people.”
This drive Klein has
for being involved in
change or social moveKlein
ments actually caused
him to retire from the Army several times. After
the short retirement to run for congress, he formally retired in 2004, but he asked to go back on
active duty to participate in the war in Iraq, and
then he retired again but asked to return for the
war in Afghanistan. Before he ran for congress, he
participated in the combat operations in Panama.
He retired for good in 2011, but he obviously hasn’t
stopped working.
What Klein said he has learned throughout his
career is that it is very important to lead by example.
“There is a lot of mandatory training we have to
do in the Corps, so whenever a new one comes out
I do it personally to see what it is all about before I
ask my team to do it,” he said.
When asked about what he still wants to accomplish in the future, he said he wants to continue
working for the Corps on VA program management,
but eventually write a book or two. He’d also like
to continue doing some “extra” work in the movies
and writing movie scripts. He said, all in all, he is
pretty content.
“I just happen to be the manager of a great program with excellent project managers who make me
look good,” he said. “Matt Shun, Jenn Rivo, Captain
Daniel Feldpausch, Captain Jonathan Parot, Monica
Eichler, and Brian Childers, are the project managers, and Mark Harvey is a budget analyst. I’m proud
of the effort this team continually puts forth.”
Klein noted that, besides the VA, the District
assists many non-DoD federal, state, local and
tribal governments by providing engineering and
construction expertise. Known as Interagency and
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