A job for Superman
One late April morning, Clark Kent Ervin sat in a packed congressional hearing room and calmly let fly. The head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Adm. David Stone, had been praising a pilot program that allowed airports to use private security screeners under federal supervision instead of screeners actually employed by the federal government. The private screeners, reported Stone, had performed just as well. But Ervin, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, saw things differently. The two groups, he said, had only one thing in common--they performed "equally poorly."
Ervin isn't one to pause when it comes to dishing out bad news. It's his job to investigate the problems--and achievements--of the DHS, the hydra-headed agency President Bush stitched together in response to the 9/11 attacks. In his 15 months on the job, Ervin, 45, has given Congress hundreds of recommendations on how to improve the DHS. Over the coming weeks, he'll release potentially troubling new studies on undercover tests of U.S. airport baggage screeners, DHS visa processing in Saudi Arabia, and the Federal Air Marshal program. Given Ervin's political pedigree--he's a Houston Republican with close ties to the Bush family--the findings could be uncomfortable, but Ervin doesn't seem bothered in the least. "I hope the president is reelected," he says, "but it does not matter to me what the political consequences are of the work we do." As the country struggles to protect itself in the face of continued terrorist threats, Ervin's blinders must be on tighter than ever.
So far, insiders say, he hasn't pulled any punches. Ervin has said the TSA's oversight of screener hiring practices was "inadequate," and he concluded that there is "no process for identifying or keeping track of lost or stolen passports." He has also cited "weaknesses" in the targeting of high-risk cargo. Lawmakers like Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, use Ervin's reports as ammunition because they "really hit home." And the DHS knows it. The investigations "get public and internal attention . . . and spur action," says one agency official. That's what happened last summer when Ervin confirmed reports that some questions on TSA's screener tests were less than challenging. "What is the role of a detonator in an explosion?" read one query. The correct answer? "Creates a small explosion that detonates the main explosive charge." Helped by Ervin's urging, the agency changed the tests.
Thank-you notes. In Ervin's job, tensions are inevitable, but he softens his blows and maintains relationships with an almost mythic reputation for politeness. As general counsel to then Texas Attorney General John Cornyn in the late 1990s, Ervin was tasked with telling state legislators of legal decisions that hadn't gone their way. But he always did it "in a very gentlemanly, calm fashion, in a way that did not unnecessarily ruffle feathers," says Cornyn, now a U.S. senator. Ervin's handwritten thank-you notes for dinner invitations, Cornyn says, "almost show up the next day, as if he hand-delivered them."
Ervin has been surprising people all of his life. Born a month premature, he struggled in the hospital but showed a tremendous "desire to survive and overcome odds," says Art, one of Ervin's two brothers, who was 11 at the time. It was Art--a huge Superman fan--who suggested that his baby brother be named after the superhero's alter ego, Clark Kent. Today, Ervin loves the moniker and signs it with a flourish. "Of course," he chuckles, "my parents would have drawn the line at Batman."
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