Excerpt – from My White House Book

NAME TAGS ARE IMPORTANT:

My team was so great, we had been working for over 24 hours, we were working very well.  Everyone was pulling their weight.  It was about 1am or so and we were going strong.  We were almost finished and the President would be coming at noon the next day.  There was no sleep for anyone on the team.  We would work until we were finished, up until the last minute if that was what it would take.  It was dark out everyone else had already left the building and it was extremely quite in this big old castle.  My guys were still pulling telephone cables and crawling under desks and behind things.  I had my jacket and my tie pulled down and I was helping.  We were all pitching it.  While I was under a table in the office area pulling cable, I heard someone at the door of the room.  It was after mid-night and here was a very nicely dressed man and women standing in the door.

I got up from the floor, tighten my tie and put on my jacket that had my name tag and my White House pin on it.  I introduced myself to the visitors and told them I was with the White House advanced team and we were getting the office set up for the President’s visit.  I apologized for making too much noise and hope my team and I were not bothering them.  This nice couple asked a few questions about what I was doing and asked me about me and my team.  Lastly, they ask if they could do anything for me and my team in a very proper English with no Spanish accent.

Then one of the guys that was working for me that had taken my place under the table finish pulling the cable said he could really use a hamburger and some fries and a drink.  All I could think was want a smart ass, but I knew he was tired and we had been working non-stop.  I was a little hunger too, but this is not how you asked for support.  I told this nice couple we were fine and had everything we needed.  That my team had been working long hours but we were almost done and would get some food and drink when we got done.  I again apologized for interrupting this nice couple and they left.

As this couple left I was thinking to myself what was this couple doing in a secure area?  The Secret Service had already secured the castle, and had were posted around the castle to ensure that the castle stayed secure.  I was thinking about different scenarios of who this couple was and was thinking I should call the Secret Service and report a security breach.  No one was supposed to be in this area, maybe this couple new of a secret passageway in this old castle?  I was just ready to call the Secret Service when I heard another person running down the hallway.  I looked out the door of the room and saw the building manager running down the hallway putting on his jacket and dressing as he was running.  The man was the man I had been coordinating with in and around the castle to get the access I needed and coordinate all the needs of the White House within these facilities.

The facilities manager came up to me and said please, please if you need anything I could ask him for anything.  I didn’t need to ask “the King and Queen”!  He told me that he had woken up the kitchen staff and that there would be food in the dining room within the next 15 min and that there would be food in the dining room 24hours a day for the rest of the visit.

I told my folks that we would now have to send someone to the dining room for the rest of the visit.  I set up a schedule with my folks, the Secret Service and some of the White House staff people, so that someone would go to the dining room about every 15min for the rest of the visit.  If the king and queen told his staff to provide food, my staff would be eating it.  The biggest problem was however the kitchen staff was cooking King and Queen type food, think caviar and salmon ordure’s and my guys wanted burgers and fries – oh, well we made our bed and had to lay in it – or eat it.

The moral of this story is if you meet someone in a secure area and they don’t have a security name tag/pin and or do not introduce themselves they are probably someone you should already know who they are!  I had now met the King and Queen of Spain and almost created an international incident, so much for my first overseas visit with the President.

The rest of the story is this was my first overseas trip and I was called off vacation to come straight to the overseas location.  I was not aware that I was supposed to receive a briefing from the State Department with information about all the VIPs, to include pictures.  I had never seen a picture of the King and Queen and did not know who they were.  This never happened to me again, I always made sure to ask for and get a copy of the visit packet.  I would never again not be prepared.