Spotlights

Change was the dominant theme when U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s trade advisory group met virtually on March 17, for its first quarterly meeting of 2021. As the COVID-19 pandemic marked its first anniversary, members of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, known as COAC, met with CBP’s new Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller for the first time. Miller, who has been leading the agency since mid-January, co-chaired the public gathering and emphasized the importance of having a strong partnership with the trade community. “What’s been clear to me in my almost two months…

Aviation Enforcement Agent (AEA) Alison Garduno has been around aircraft her entire life. Her father was a Naval officer stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, and her mother managed a base flying club. Eager to find her own path to the sky, Garduno changed course in college and joined the Navy as a Naval Aircrewman Mechanic. In her two years of specialty training and flight school, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) was discussed as the “golden goose” of aviation careers. Ever since those conversations, she knew a career with AMO was exactly what she wanted...

It is said that if you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace and sleep for it, that with the help of faith, hard work, and perseverance you’ll get it. Jay Bishop, an Army veteran and current Management and Program Analyst within the Office of Congressional Affairs (OCA) at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) headquarters in Washington, DC, personifies this mantra magnificently. Bishop explains, “My path to participation in the VA’s Non-Paid Work Experience Program (NPWE) internship wasn’t my first choice upon...

Agency delivers massive security effort at Super Bowl LV during global pandemic. On Sunday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs kicked off Super Bowl LV to a stadium about 38% full – the lowest in-person attendance ever recorded in the history of the big game. Though millions more watched the big game – the first ever held during a global pandemic – from the comfort and protection of their own homes this year, and the stadium was filled with more cardboard cutouts than people, for CBP, it was business as usual leading up to and through game day. The Super Bowl, America’s most…

Presidential Management Fellow Adam Sulewski was recently selected to the supervisory position of branch chief of the Trade Agreements Branch for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement – better known as the USCMA.