CBP’s funny man, (Part II)

Gina

   In the last issue, and online in my weekly “Washington Notebook” commentary, I wrote about some jokes delivered by Al Gina, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s assistant commissioner for trade, during an address to the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America conference in Washington.
   Digging through my notebook turned up some other amusing quotes. I figured I’d share them because they got a good laugh during the speech. So they’ve been audience tested.
   In his self-deprecating style, Gina noted the irony of the top trade compliance official at CBP having limited international experience and previously heading the Office of International Affairs. 
   “How does a gentleman who spent 29 years doing mostly enforcement and has been mostly in South and Central American countries” get to lead International Affairs? 
   “I’ve never been to Paris; I’ve never been to London. I’ve never been on trips with my colleagues to Australia,” he said. 
   Commissioner Alan Bersin assigned Gina to his current post last spring as part of a reorganization designed to bring more enforcement expertise from Field Operations to the Trade section to better target shippers trying to evade trade laws while speeding up processing for legitimate companies. 
   The move has proven successful so far and underscores the agency’s willingness to use its best and brightest even if their career path has diverged from the norm.
   Gina joked that CBP officials feel like intellectual midgets compared to Bersin. 
   “You know the commissioner’s background. Harvard, Yale, Rhodes Scholar. Me? Queen’s College. I’m a realist. I mean, half the time I’m with my colleagues and I’m saying, ‘O.K., what did he mean by that?’ 
   “You think everybody’s reading their BlackBerries, but everybody’s just Googling the words he used in a staff meeting,” he said.
   Gina said that during the transition to his new job he asked staff members how often he would have to testify on Capitol Hill.
   “You don’t mind giving briefings. You don’t mind coming to lunches, but what you always want to know is, like, how many times are you going to have to go and testify before a full committee.
   “So they told me that since [the Office of] Trade was created, that separate office with Mr. [Dan] Baldwin, we don’t believe he testified at all.
   “So my good fortune,  three months in — three hearings,” he said.
   One of those hearings was before the Senate Finance subcommittee on international trade, customs and global competitiveness, chaired by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., about the agency’s ability to only collect a portion of antidumping and counterveiling duties owed by importers.
   “All I can say is it was a character-building moment. And I have enough character for the next 10 years,” Gina said.  – Eric Kulisch