February 27, 2013 — Last May, a month after a special judicial master’s second report on misdeeds by NOAA enforcement lawyers had been delivered to the secretary of commerce, NOAA General Counsel Lois Schiffer led her national staff of 145 lawyers on a three day training program in Philadelphia at a cost of $288,500, according to documents released to the Times under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
The conference featured a self-understanding exercise led by vocational placement company to determine what roles in a fictional medieval kingdom the lawyers imagined themselves playing — “bishop,” “benevolent ruler,” “shepherd,” “black knight,” “scientist,” “discoverer,” “merchant,” “prime minister,” “engineer-builder,” “dreamer-minstrel,” “white knight” and “doctor.”
The so-called “Kingdomality” training was invented and provided to NOAA’s legal staff by Career Management International from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on the first day of the conference, based on an online questionnaire the NOAA lawyers completed before meeting in Philadelphia, according to the partial response to the Times’ FOIA last month.
Costing $2,500, the Kingdomality training describes the value of imagining living in medieval times for self awareness.
“With today’s diverse workforce, the corporate kingdom that acknowledges and nurtures these personality preferences could become an organization as successful as Camelot of old,” the placement company website explains.
At the time of the conference, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was in damage control mode after news reports beginning in the publications Government Executive and Politico reported that another arm of NOAA, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, had advertised for a magician as a motivational speaker for a June conference at NOAA’s general offices in Silver Spring, Md. That ad was posted on the day the Philadelphia conference began — and was withdrawn on its final day.
The three-day cost of approximately $2,000 per participant in it was elevated by the decision to take the conference out of the metropolitan District of Columbia, of which Silver Spring, Md, is a suburb. Sixty of the 145 participants live in the metropolitan D.C. area, according to NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen.
“NOAA reviewed a number of sites, including in and around Washington, D.C., and chose Philadelphia based on cost, convenience, available dates, and accessibility,” said Smullen. “The majority of General Counsel staff live outside of the D.C. region — of the approximately 145 total staff, 85 live outside of the D.C. region, in Alaska, Hawaii, California, Washington State, Massachusetts, and Florida.
The conference was based at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, approximately a 90-minute drive or about 100 miles from D.C. The government paid $0.565 per mile for travel in a private vehicle, and $0.24 per mile for travel in government vehicles, as well as train and air fare and in city travel, totaling $108,000. Site costs including rooms, meals, meeting space and furniture were $174,000. Speakers fees including added another $6,500.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times
View the budget and agenda for the NOAA General Counsel's 2012 training session
Learn about the "Kingdomality" seminars
Take the "Kingdomality" test and discover your medieval personality