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As a company executive who spent ten years in federal service, I am often asked what I regard as the biggest difference between working for the government and working for a private company. My invariable response is to say that I look back on my time in government as one of the most exciting and challenging experiences of my life. Furthermore, I never worked as hard as when I was a public servant. When I worked for the government, I worked with some of the finest, most competent and most committed people I have ever met. I was impressed by the overall quality of our career civil servants then, and I still am. But one of my greatest concerns now is that I will not be able to hold this same high opinion in the future. Career public servants are leaving government in alarming numbers, and qualified replacements are becoming harder and harder to find. Good people who leave career government service are striving for highly paid positions in private enterprises. We depend on government to keep this country safe in an uncertain world, to secure justice and domestic order and to solve a host of pressing problems. We need the best possible people performing and overseeing these vital tasks. A high-quality, professional federal service has been a source of national pride for more than a century. But what we have built up during a hundred years can be lost in less time than we imagine. We cant afford to let this happen. We must act now if this country is to be assured of the quality public service it deserves. | 
