 We are back alive and on the air. This being the Senate institutions committee, part two of this afternoon, this afternoon being March 12th, 2021. We are here for a brief update on the MOU that we had talked about a few weeks earlier. Commissioner Fitch has now joined us. Thanks for joining us late because we all got to talk about you while you were gone. Right. We lost points for being late. Yes, we are just kidding, by the way. I would, um, We also have your confirmation discussion up this afternoon. I don't think about three hours. I'm sure it will Mazza. I do understand that, um, we have your resume up available too, which might provide us some levity this afternoon. Um, let's start by on the MOU and what can you tell us? Uh, thank you, Senator Benning. So for the record and to make sure that I've got this down now, um, my name is Jennifer Fitch and I am the BGS commissioner. I have with me today, um, not only some folks from my staff, but Janet Miller is here as well as chief Romeo. Um, and I'm not, I see Rob shell here as well, representing the court administrator for the judicial branch. So we have been working what I would consider extremely well together and we've made, um, considerable progress since the last time we met with you. We have gone back and we have revised the MOU. We have met once internally. Um, there was one comment from the court administrator and several comments from, uh, Janet Miller. All of those comments have been incorporated into the MOU. I sent out the revised draft. Um, sometimes I want to say late last week. I've checked in with the team a couple of times. I got some final edits today from Janet Miller and we made those. So I believe, though, I don't want to speak for the rest of my partners, um, that we have a final draft MOU for consideration. But again, I don't want to speak for the other partners here, but from my perspective, uh, the MOU is, is ready to go. Is there a document that we can see or is that, um, I don't know. I don't know. There sure is, but you're going to probably ask me to share it on my screen. And that is where I have extreme limitations that I'm not good with my screen sharing and zoom. Um, just taking into account Senator Mazas for the confirmation hearing. The skill set. No, I'm just taking notes here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a ding. That's a ding. I can, um, if I can send it to Denise, I can send it on my screen. Um, Six of one, cause Denise could put it up or she could make me a host and then I can put it up. I'm ready for either the moment. She's out chopping the nice. Yeah. For the cocktails. Denise, are you out there? He's going to do. I made Eric a co-host. So Eric, let me send it to you right now. Standing by captain. I don't know. All right. Here it comes, Eric. Oh, good. Reminds me of, uh, Abbott and Costello with the rivets on the guys. I got a hot one. And I also publicly want. I'm very happy to see you guys putting all this together and presenting it to us. Thank you. Thank you. Can you see me now? I can see you now. Can you increase the size of that a little bit so we can actually read it? I can. Here we go. Whoa. Let me make that go away and I'll get you even more screen. How is. That. That's perfect. Right. And I will just scroll as we go. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner. I don't know if you want to walk us through this or what you would like to do. Happy, happy to walk through it. And then, um, I know that Janet, uh, hasn't introduced herself yet, but I just want to encourage any of my partners. If they want to jump in at any point. Um, and add comment as we go through it more than welcome to do that. So what I did, uh, Senator Benning is I took a recently established MOU that we had done with the office of historic management. And I, you know, I've been working on it for a long time. And I sort of use that as the format and the flow for this one, because I felt that it was written very well. So as you can see here in following that flow right up front, as I mentioned before, uh, we put in all the relevant statutes and thank you to Becky for all of her homework because we definitely leveraged it. So thank you to her. So upfront here, you're seeing again, like I just said, all of the relevant statutes. Um, and it really spells out sort of what's existing in the capital complex. Um, so what we have done is we, we put in the, um, we put in the link or the reference to the statute that explains exactly what the capital complex is. And in the end, you'll see that I also reference, uh, an appendix. So we're going to put a map in so that you can visually see it as well as go back to the sort of statutory language. Around what it is. Um, but you'll see that mentioned here. And I see a space there, uh, Eric, we'll have to take that space out. I was just noticing that there. Yeah. We'll have to fix that. I thought I caught all those, but I guess I did not. So that's what the sort of upfront piece. And then, uh, the next piece is we talk about event preparedness, planning and response. Much of this was taken from the existing MOU, but we expanded upon it. And we also reordered it and kind of bend and bucket it a little bit better. So this is really around our parties getting together. Uh, we talk about getting together at least twice a year to pro actively plan and develop what we call, um, an incident command template, if you will, basically depending on the type of event we might be, um, planning for, we would, we would grab the correct template, right? And you use that to then further refine for the system. So we're going to do that at least twice a year, if not more often. And then the other thing that we added is that we are going to be meeting on a monthly basis as needed to review any known events in the complex. So that might be request to use state facilities. For example, it could be the court administrator or Janet Miller is aware of some type of event happening in spaces that are underneath their jurisdiction, but we may, it might be prudent to notify the commissioner so that I can then communicate out to other state employees, right? That might be impacted, um, by that event, right? So we do a lot of communication with all the other tenants in the complex. So we have that in there as well. Um, and then we're going to do after action reviews. So this is pretty common in law enforcement, but after we, you know, we plan and then we have a specific, specific event coming up. And we refine the plan and make it site specific or event specific. Then we all execute our duties. And then we get together after, and we do an after action review and we say what worked well, what could be improved upon. And then we take what we've learned and we incorporate those back into the template. Um, so we're, so we're committing to doing those after action reviews together so that we can continue to strengthen our relationship and strengthen our response over time. So that's really for planned and known events. And that's what section one is about. Um, section two is really around, uh, emergency response. And as we learned again from the testimony, which was great for me, uh, law enforcement is compelled to act. So no matter what's going on in the complex, if there's a law enforcement officer, regardless of, you know, who they work for, uh, they are compelled to act. And so really with emergency response, it's nothing that's planned. And this MOU just, uh, further solidifies the commitment from the surgeon of arms and the court administrator because they do have. Sheriff's deputies. There's one right now in 111 state street at the Supreme court. If they are available and they could take action. This MOU just verifies that they're going to do so, even though they will not be able to take action. This MOU just verifies that they're going to do so, even though they would anyway under mutual aid, but it just again, further, further refines it or kind of sediments it into this MOU. And then the goal is, is that obviously they need to, they need to act. And that's the most important thing. But when they're done to notify the BGS commissioner, just so I'm aware of what has occurred. Um, and then can obviously communicate that information to whoever I need to communicate it with. So that's, um, emergency response. The conveyance of enforcement section. This was updated. Um, so not only can the surgeon of arms and the Capitol police enforce state rules, but we are then further, uh, providing that to the court administrator and her sheriff's deputy. So same thing. We have state facilities rules for both state buildings and, uh, our grounds, right, which includes the state house lawn. And so this conveys that they can. At my request that they can enforce those rules. And I, and I extended that to the court administrator. So that's the conveyance of enforcement. Um, the notice of facility related work. This was in the 2016 MOU. I basically just copied and pasted and brought it over. But essentially if we're going to be doing work in any of the spaces they occupy, we need to notify them in advance. We do that anyway with all of our buildings and all of our tenants, but we felt it was in the last one. And it's a good thing to have in this MOU. So we left it in. And then the last thing that I added, uh, really was the limitations. So right? This is for, this is only for when the three parties, BGS, the court administrator and the surgeon of arms are working together on a planned event or an emergency event. But once another law enforcement entity comes, let's say the Montpelier PD or the Vermont state police, then this MOU is no longer applicable because it goes beyond the three parties that are referenced within this MOU. And so that's the limitation. And we also added at the, uh, Chief Romeo's request and we support it. Um, he noted that yes, you know, we want to come and we want to support you with law enforcement, but we have to take care of our own shop as well. And so we added in, uh, nothing in this MOU. I'm going to have a really hard time saying this word so you can give me another ding. Um, Abrogates, the Capitol police, Capitol police as a law enforcement agency. So, uh, we did put that in at the, uh, Chief Romeo's request and we support it. Um, did he use that word or was that your idea? He used that word and I didn't even know what that word meant. I had to look it up. I'm impressed chief. I'm impressed. Um, and then we just added a little bit more detail around termination and review before it just basically said, you know, any one of the parties can terminate at any time. I really liked the one from historic preservation that said, let's give ourselves 30 days. Right. So if this isn't working well, and we have one or more parties that are frustrated, right? With how well or not well we're working together. Uh, let's give ourselves 30 days to see if we can work it out before we just terminate the MOU. So I felt adding the time was important. Um, and not just being able to get out of it whenever anybody wants to. Um, and I think that that, and I left in that the agreement will be reviewed and updated by annually, which was in the prior MOU. And I think that that summarizes it. And then we have some attachments. Like I said, a capital complex map. The mutual aid agreement with the capital or with the Montpelier police department. I think there's a couple more in there. I can't remember, but it was around, um, those types of documents, state facilities, rules. We have a link to those because they're referenced in the MOU. Um, And I think that that there might be one more. I think there's an appendix D Eric, but I can't remember which one that one is. Off the top of my head. Here it's coming. Oh, in the Washington County agency's mutual aid agreement as well. So these are placeholder headings right now, but there's will be with it. Okay. That's correct. We'll end up pulling those documents into the MOU. All right. So that gives you a really high level. Broad brush overview of the MOU. And again, I don't want to speak for my partners, but I can tell you that, um, I did send it back out for review. And other than one comment about, this is another thing I need to learn. Not spelling capital with an A and spelling it with an O. Um, which is something I need to know. Other than that comment that I got from chief Romeo today, and I made those corrections. I have not heard any other suggested edits. Committee. Any questions. Yeah. Mr. Chair. Senator McCormick. Yeah. So. Who calls whom in, I mean, on a sleepy day with nothing happening, the Capitol police. Are. Running the show, right? Do they call in Montpelier police? Or can the Montpelier police take it upon themselves. To say, I think we need to go in. So if we're talking a planned event. Um, the way the MOU is structured, right? Is that the. All of the buildings. And grounds under my jurisdiction. The team gets together. And they may, they basically come to me and they say, Hey, we think we need to have an incident command. Plan. Um, and law enforcement present at, let's say an event on the state house lawn. And they come and they justify that to me. And then if I agree, great. They're off and planning together as a team. Three of them. The three teams, BGS, the Capitol police and, um, the court administrator. Or I say, no, I, I don't agree with you. Right. And then we would not have an incident command plan. So, so the buildings under my jurisdiction and the grounds under my jurisdiction, ultimately the BGS commissioner in theory has the final say on planned events. For emergency events. That's a different story, right? And then we have a, we have a, we have an incident command plan. And then we would have an incident command. And then we would have an incident command. And then we would have an incident command events. Or emergency events. That's a different story. Right. And with emergency events, it's really what law enforcement presence can respond the fastest. So if that's the Capitol police, great. If that's the sheriff's deputy for the court administrator. Great. If it's the Montpelier PD, great. Is an emergency law enforcement has just compelled to act. It's not about who you work for. I'm happy to see those two terms broken up. Which two terms. The difference between a planned event and an emergency event. In this MOU, I think it was very important. Did that answer your question? I had asked at the previous testimony about what is the pecking order and who's and who answers to home. And the answer was that, that there really isn't any, and everyone gets along fine. So I guess if it's working, then, then it's, I have nothing to objective. It just, I can't believe it works. Well, it says, you, that inevitably you get to a point where you have different points of view as to. What ought to be done and whose call it is. Yeah, I think, Dick, your comment was based on the fact that those two terms. Planned event versus emergency event were not divided. Yeah. And I think that was some of the frustration that I at least was hearing. And this document takes care of that. And I, I see the pecking order, if you will, for a planned event is very clear. And the emergency situation is. What anybody would expect the closest law enforcement. Authority with an understanding of it. Developing problem is supposed to take the lead and run. So I'm very happy to see those two terms divided. Personally, I want to say this is a great piece of work. And I don't know what the timeframe is for signatures getting attached. That would be the next question. When does everybody plan on signing? Can I ask, we take the document down so I can see everybody because I can only see three people at a time. That's on me, sir. One moment. And I also, if you'll give me the time, I also want to say, and again, I don't want to speak for others here. Bill McSullis, who is my director of the office of state safety and security, Rob shell and chief Romeo, I did meet actually on Tuesday. To start planning because when we met the last time to talk about the MOU, I said, well, why do we need to wait for signatures? If we think we should be meeting on a monthly basis to start the meeting. And then we can start the meeting. And then we can start the meeting. And then we can start the meeting effort with the templates and taking a look at planned events. Why don't we just start now? And so Bill held a meeting on Tuesday and they did exactly that where they've started to plan. And I, again, I can't speak for everybody else, but the feedback coming back from Bill was that it was a very collaborative meeting. They covered a lot of ground. And it was a great foundational meeting for moving forward. So again, that's our perception. And I'm not sure who signed, but in terms of your question, Senator Benning, and I would have to look to Janet and there she is. She indicated to me previously that it needs to go in front of the capital complex security advisory committee before we could all sign Janet. Is that true? I think so. I mean, I think it would be a good. Cause then all the entities would be there to see it as well, like Montpelier police or anybody else that might be responding. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I just want to just hear about it. And so I just would like to just touch base on one thing, Jennifer. So when Senator McCormick asked that question. When we were going to meet in our monthly meeting to go over the planned events, I think that that will be a time when we might not agree all the time on your perception of what it is, or maybe what our perception is as far as whether it should be a time when it should be. And I think as a group, then we could decide, right? That was kind of our intention. We can, we can. I mean, I think at the end of the day, what's important for folks to understand and I don't want to be, I don't want to be one of those people because this is not my personality at all. Who's jurisdictional. It's just not who I am. It's not how I'm built. I'm an engineer. Okay. We don't have jurisdiction. We want bridges to stand up. That's what we want. Right. So we want this relationship to work and we're very collaborative. Right. So ultimately at the end of the day, the way the statute is written currently, I am responsible. Right. The grounds and, and buildings underneath my jurisdiction, I am statutorily obligated, right? To provide safety and security measures. So at the end of the day. If, if, if. Um, If, if, so at the end of the day, I'm responsible for what happens on the lawn, I guess is what I'm saying, right? So, right. If, if somebody in our group is recommending something, I'm going to take it very seriously. Part of this is going to be built on trust Janet, right? You need to trust me and I need to trust you in the same thing with Pat Gable that we're going to trust and listen to each other. I hope that I've done the extending of the olive branch. And I hope that we're starting that, that trust process. I know that I feel that way from my side. Um, in my perspective, and you're right, Janet, there may be times where we don't necessarily see eye to eye. All I can commit to in the circle of trust is that we're going to listen to each other and we're going to, and we're going to trust each other and we're going to collaboratively work it out. But I think at the end of the day, I am ultimately still responsible for whatever decision is made. So there is that extra layer for me that I'm being held accountable. So, you know, that's just something for folks to keep in mind as we continue to plan and work together. Yep, understood. Um, chief from me, I can't see you, Robert shell. I can't see you. I would, um, I guess ask the next question. Janet is here for as far as the chief is concerned, but you all have a respective employers you are working under. Is there any requirement that your bosses are authorizing you to enter into this document? And I guess that I'll start commissioner with you. You obviously are a member. I think we lost Joe. Joe's speechless. Wow. The administration. I don't know whether you need to get official clearance from himself in a moment. Take, can you all hear me now? Yeah, we can. Yeah, I'm watching you worry you were speaking. You sped up for a second. That was bizarre. Yeah. Interesting. Well, it's telling me that my internet connection is unstable, which is nothing unusual today. I just, I want to make sure that each one of you who is a signator has the authority from your respective boss to be able to sign on to this document. We get that understanding as the answer to my next question. Are you all authorized to sign? Hi, it's Rob shell. The court administrator who's who I'm keeping well informed on this will ultimately sign this document and we'll want to just give it an internal review as all documents coming to the judiciary do. However, you know, the, our discussions are good. Our coordination is good. This this arrangement is something that's been in practice and the MOU just is able to formalize that moving forward. So it's it's it looks good. So Robert, can you tell me Pat Gable is the court administrator. Does she need to receive permission from the Supreme Court in order to be a signature or any document? I would have to ask her and I can get in touch with her in the course of this call now if you would like. My immediate response is no. Okay. It may be good to get that confirmation and I don't need to necessarily hear it right now, but I just want to make sure that everybody who is potentially lined up to sign is making sure they're getting clearance from anybody else above. And I'll tell you the reason that I'm bringing this up, Janet, you talked about the cat, the capital complex security committee that's due to expire in the not too distant future. Right. I have not heard anybody making a formal statement yet. I do understand that there is language. Potentially in the capital bill, but we don't have that bill yet. And I'm waiting to see what the other bodies. In version of our committee is actually talking about. So I'm not sure what the timing would be for us. To be reviewing this and putting our okay on it. And I'm not sure it's actually necessary for us to have that. Okay. My preference, frankly, would be to have the parties who are working together in the document. All be authorized to sign. And go ahead and sign it. Come and present it to the committee. And just let us know that you guys have worked out the deal. That would be my preference. But let's first make sure that each one of you signing on board has the authority to go ahead and say, this is how it's going to be. I don't want to delay the conversation anymore. I think we're. I will congratulate all of you first for taking the time to work this through. I think it's a wonderful addition. I think with the appendices that. Other documents that were previously referred to are now actually cited. And are able to be reviewed by anybody that wants a copy of this document. I think that is very important. So I'll congratulate all of you for. Demonstrating that everybody could play nice in the sandbox from time to time. And I think that's a great thing. Pat, I see you're joining us at the moment. Okay. I think the protocol is with the Supreme court. And perhaps you can tell me really quickly. The court administrator signing on to this document. Would that need to have the Supreme court's okay, or do you simply have that authority anyway? I don't need the Supreme court's okay. I was watching you on the YouTube, but I wasn't invited. That's why I was. Oh, oh, oh. Well, that I'll take responsibility for that. I never thought to ask the question of whether the signature was. Actually authorized. To place a signature on there. So. Whatever Pat Gable says is law. That's it. That's right, Senator. I'm glad you understand that. Yep. Yeah, that's it. Okay. Yeah. I won't go there because I'm on judiciary. And I know there's all kinds of, I was going to say, you don't need your permission from Senator Sears on this one, but I don't want to overstep. Senator Sears know that Senator Mazza has confirmed that. Right. Yeah. Senator Mazza can tell me that, but I didn't want to overstep my authority. So we're good. And I guess commissioner, I just want to make sure are you. You know, I just want to make sure that you're clear and you have that authority without having to go up a step with the letter. Okay. And my, my peeps have been, you know, they, I've been keeping my leadership informed as well. Okay. The next request is when you are all officially signed a board. If you would deliver a copy of the document to both Denise. I'm just going to make sure that we have the documents and the institutions. So that they have a copy of it as well. I'm going to just tickle this out with Denise for a couple of weeks to make sure it's on my radar screen to make sure that that gets done, but we'd like to have the document with the signed authorizations on it. So we can place that whatever circular file we normally place those kinds of things. Okay. Yeah, Senator Benning. Becky Wasserman is online and I know Becky knows when the capital complex security advisor group sunsets. Becky at the end of June. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I did not see her. Yeah. Becky, what is the language? And is there also a scheduled meeting of that committee at any time in the future? I think it is set to expire at the end of June, June 30th, I believe, and I'm not aware of any scheduled meeting. Okay. We'll put that on our radar screen as well and get the committee to meet. Am I still the chair of that? Or is that slipped over to Alice with the change in the biennium? I know I emailed with the sergeant at arms about that. Yeah. I'm not remembering off the top of my head. I believe you might be the chair still, but I will confirm that. Okay. In any event, I'd like to get something scheduled just to say, we have all had a chance to have this conversation. So. Yep. Go ahead. You're the winner because I think Becky, you said during the last email that last meeting suggests that you were the chair of Senator Benning in 2019. And you were the chair. And then in 20, we didn't meet. So now we're in 21. So you're, you're it. Okay. Well, let's, let's get something on the schedule. I guess Becky, I'm going to let you and Denise try to work out something with with. Alice on the other side to see if we can't get a universal agreement. I think we're going to have to do that. And then call everybody in and hopefully by that time, the signatures will be on board and we can rubber stamp whatever's out there. Sounds good. Any other issues out there. Chief Romy, I am very impressed. Abrogates. A legal term. I was really impressed with that. Well, I just got my framed. Well, you can't see it from the background, but you can't see it from the background. So I'm going to add it in the midst of a pandemic. So I had to make that a master's degree worth something. I'm very impressed. Guys, I really do appreciate it. You've done some. Classic work here. And I, I hope everything works out going forward. Let's all pray we never have one of those emergency situations in the meantime. So everybody here who is a witness is free to go except the commissioner. And the bridesmaids. The bridesmaids. Yeah. Or anybody else who wants to make comments about her that, you know, you've already talked about our Phil Corms. So you can't say any worse. Hacing, right? Isn't that what's supposed to take place right now? We are so far behind in our hazing. I mean, we've, we've got two or three brand new legislators. Who've all given their first reports and we haven't hazed any one of them because this zoom hazing just doesn't work well. It doesn't go over well. No, not at all. So the first magical question would be, why the heck do you want the job? Wow. Well, how long do you want to listen to my story? I guess is a better, is a better question. So here's what it's got to be out of here by three o'clock. So that's how much time you've got. Okay. So, so here's what I would tell you, which is, um, I went into engineering because I love math and science and I love logic and process. Um, and as soon as I went into the workforce, I've never been a traditional engineer. I've had a very untraditional engineering track. And I remember a very pivotal conversation early in my career with someone named rich, who was the chief engineer at V trans the Vermont agency of transportation at the time. He sat me down and I wanted to have a conversation about my career. And he said, look, then you have two tracks. You want to go down the technical track or do you want to go down the management track and the leadership track? And, um, from that conversation, I really thought about it afterwards and, um, I love people and I love creating positive change and I love leadership and I'm just really drawn to it. And I'm a, I'm a non-traditional engineer and that I think that I can say things that are complicated in ways that, um, you know, people can understand fairly easily. Lots of times as I'm sure you know, Senator Benning, uh, engineers can have a hard time communicating, right? Complex things to other people. And so again, I've just been a very non-traditional engineer. And then throughout my career, um, my, uh, management and leadership has continued to invest in my career and invest in putting me into leadership training, taking me under their wing. I have about 50 mentors out there. Um, I have a funny story about that sometime, but I have a lot of mentors and a lot of people that have taken me under their wing. And as I have continued to progress in my career and have had the opportunity to, to grow my influence, I think that I've done a really good job. And so because of that rate, it's been sort of the self perpetuating ladder for me. Um, and the last piece that I'll give you just because I want to say thank you to commissioner Cole, who was the prior BGS commissioner. I remember when I was at V trans and I went for a very high level job and Eric's part of the story too. I went for a very high level job in, uh, the Vermont agency of transportation. My heart was in it. I really, really wanted it. I thought I rocked it out of the park and did a great job. And ultimately I didn't get it. And I was very sad. And I was, I was heartbroken and I thought my career had come to an end. And I remember this again, this very pivotal moment with Chris Cole. And he said, you know what, Jennifer said, you can either be really upset, right? And this can be an impasse in your career. Or you can use this as an opportunity to better yourself by going and talking to everybody on the interview panel and talking to everybody on the interview panel. And you can use this as an opportunity to learn how you can become a stronger candidate for that position in the future. And I did just that after a hug from, from Eric, because I was pretty emotional at the time who also helped me out. And, uh, and I listened to Chris and I took that advice and I went around and I talked to everybody. And from that, my network grew. And when, and Chris was so impressed that when he became the commissioner BGS, he asked me to become his deputy. And I had a conversation with him and I had a conversation with him. He was talking on the phone. And I was like, you know, I'm just doing track. Over into a leadership track. And I have really appreciated and honored my time at BGS. I have grown tremendously. Eric's in the room so he could talk about that. But I've grown tremendously. I've certainly made some mistakes that every rookie makes. But every single time I make a mistake and every single time I get knocked down, I'm very resilient. I learned from it. I picked myself back up and I keep moving forward. BGS is an amazing organization. We work really hard. We have some of the most dedicated and committed state employees and state government. And as such, it's an honor to be able to lead them, but also as a detriment, unfortunately, when you don't have a lot of resources, it's really easy to do what you've always done. And one of the things that was really lacking within BGS was modernization, right? Continuous improvement, efficiency. How do we work better, right? Greater emphasis on customer service. And Chris came in and he did a great job setting BGS in a positive trajectory for the future. And now I'm sort of kind of taking over where he left off. And we have all these wonderful things going on in BGS. I think I'm the right person at the right time to continue what we started. I've got a great leadership team behind me and a team of very dedicated staff who are ready to move forward and are excited to do so. Thank you for that. Denise or Eric, I'm not sure who's controlling the screen right now. I got to read the first paragraph and that was it. Is there a way to pull that back up again? I keep trying. I keep trying. Committee, any questions while Denise is trying? Senator Mazza. No, I'd like to say, when she took the deputy's commissioner job under Chris Cole, I worked with a lot of commissioners and deputies and she grabbed right on to it really fast. She did a great job. Any of the testimony will be ever heard from her. And I was very, very impressed with her. Chris had spoke highly of her and she certainly proved it when she was in the committee many times. So I was hoping that she would take the position of being commissioner because I think she's the right person for the right time. And I very impressed how fast she's caught on to everything. There's a lot to learn in state buildings and it's not an easy task, but doing a great job and I thank her very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Mazza. I appreciate that. And I've had been surrounded by great people like Commissioner Cole and like Eric. Eric is amazing when it comes to helping me learn the legislative world. Eric Blatt, Eric, it's Patrick. We like to pick on him a little bit, but you know, it says he tolerates it very well. Yeah, he does a good job with it. Eric, I just passed you over the bio to see if you can do anything with it. You want me, you emailed it to me? I did. Oh, look, there it is. All right, I'm back in the game. I can't do anything with it. Fair and a screen. And... And I would agree with you, Senator Mazza. There's a lot of learning with BGS because, and what I love about BGS is that we interact with all the state agencies and departments in state government and all the branches. So I have learned so much in my time at BGS about how state government runs. And what's great now is if there's something that I need or something that I'm trying to progress, I knew who to call, which is really cool. And working at V-Trans was amazing and I love it. And maybe someday I'll go back there. But now I feel like I'm a much stronger leader in state government now that I know how it functions and now that I've made productive working relationships across what we like to call across the enterprise within the executive branch. Yeah, there's so many divisions of state buildings. One of the big ones was yesterday we had some testimony in transportation about the car fleet, the vehicle fleet. There's hundreds of vehicles that you're responsible for and purchasing. And I remember Senator Ash had asked to have the half of the fleet be hybrid or electric. And boy, you had a great lady yesterday gave us a presentation, excellent job and has completed that mission. Or it's just fascinating that people don't realize that the automobile section is so large. I mean, what is it? 600 cars and trucks, it's huge. And that's just one of the segments that we don't relate to state buildings, but it's a big part of it. I'm curious- We do a lot of different things. Sorry, Senator Benning. I'm curious, what is lean six sigma green belt stand for? So lean is a process, basically it's a process mapping type exercise which basically means you take a process, you map it out, you look for inefficiencies in the process and then you take out what's called the waste. That's what it's labeled at when you're in lean, but you take the waste out and then you create a much more efficient process. I got to do that when I was in V-trans and got my lean belt, my green belts. And then I've utilized those principles in this role since I've gotten that training. And since I've been, I've gotten my green belt. We thought it was a diet probably, or something we all could, or we know something's gone, you know, it's not that. Okay, all right. The MOU that you've just gone through, is that your first time actually working with different department heads to try to collect all the various cats into a coherent unit? You definitely gave me a tricky one there, Senator Benning. I'm not gonna lie. One of my strengths that I rely on a lot is I call myself what's called a collaborative leader. So this is very similar to project management, right? In that there, what Eric likes to call the preferred alternative, which means there's a goal and you've got multiple different people, right? Who all wanna achieve that goal, but they wanna achieve it in a slightly different way, or they may have things that are really important to them personally. And it's about working with that team to collaborate, right? And listen and hear everybody and say, not everyone around this table is going to be able to get exactly what they want, right? But we're gonna give everybody what they need. And we're gonna really focus on this higher level goal we're trying to achieve, right? So let's make it about the goal. Let's not make it about me or anybody else individually. And that's what I did with the Capital Complex MOU, the other piece to that that I will let you know is that I could tell working with some of the partners that there were some other concerns that weren't necessarily related to BGS. And I listened to their concerns and I said, I understand where you're coming from. So why don't we take your concerns, right? I'll advocate for you. I'll be a partner with you to help share those observations and opportunities for improvement. And we'll work with this larger group to achieve them. And that's exactly what we did. I advocated on behalf of a few people and we ended up having a after-action review for the unified command that we had over the Presidential Inauguration Week. And so that's an example of how I try to collaborate and work with others to create partnerships, right? To achieve higher level goals. And that's what I did with the SEMOU and again, what I did to help kind of get that after-action review off the ground. I'll have to say that when I work with groups of senators, the term herding cats, in this case, cats on steroids laced with Ritalin is more the thought process that I go through. But you had some very strong individuals there in their respective departments. And I am impressed with the import product that has come out. I think it looks very good. I'll tell you to conclude my only engineering story. I literally was on a brand new Harley that had the capability of adopting a phone system into it with my helmet. And I was riding up the Alaska Highway through the Yukon when Senator Mazza happened to call me to talk about the need for a Republican to be on some committee as chair. And this was the particular committee. But as I was riding along talking with him, I was noticing the Alaska Highway and wondering how they built it. And it suddenly occurred to me that they went down and dug two parallel channels and threw all the debris from each into the middle. And then they leveled off the top of it. That's my only engineering experience, but I figured that out. You got more than I got. Well, yeah, I know you could, I got a lot more on that conversation than you did. I definitely did. Now I'm chairing this committee. In any event, I do appreciate you coming by today. I will call for a motion from the committee unless anybody else has any questions. I move the confirmation of Jennifer Fitch as the commissioner of state buildings. Okay, Eric, can you take the screen share down because I can't see everybody. Stand by. There we are. Any other discussion? If not, all those in favor, please unmute, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Contrary to say no. Now's your chance, Eric. He said it before the program, but sir. I'm here to support my commissioner. Oh, wow. Nice, good job. All right, Jennifer, thank you very much for coming by today, Eric, you too. Committee, we will see you all next Tuesday. Have a great weekend. And Jennifer, just for your notification, I don't know that we actually have to say anything officially on the floor. We'll find out about it. There may come a point where we have to take an official vote. I think now we have to take a vote on secretary. We have to take a vote at commissioner. You have to present or someone on the committee. Yes, yeah. Okay, I haven't actually made it across the finish line. This is just making across the first finish line. Is that what you made the cut? Have you heard from Chris Cole? All we talked about in the other day. I've been trying to get a hold of him. Is he doing anything or Eric? Chris Cole is a very busy consultant now. Doing consulting. What he got? He got design work. Transportation. $15 studies. Oh my God. He's he's yeah, he's he's doing studies, sir. For what are you? Um, a couple of different organizations. I think he's doing some transit equity work. And he never answered me. So I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, you know how to text, sir. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is he working on any of the projects we've been talking about? No, $500,000 paychecks for design. No, sir. He has nothing to do with buildings. I assure you, he never did. And he is fully observant of the ethics code that we all sign as executive branch employees. But he is doing some work on, I think, some public transit and other transportation equity is what I know about. Oh, God, we go way back. A lot of memories with him. He was AOT and oh, God, we had a lot of fun. Yeah, he could talk his way out of anything. He could talk Jennifer and I into anything here we are today. He always was able to stay in the background and let everybody else do stuff. Oh, he was a genius at that. I used to kid him about that all the time. So if I could say one more thing, I just want to say that I thank the governor for pointing me. And while this isn't necessarily the last step, I thank you all for taking the first step to confirm me. It really is an honor and a privilege. When I thought about the path in my life, I never thought that it would be this. And so this is an amazing opportunity. I'm going to make every single day count. And I'm going to do my best to have a positive influence and impact on state government. Appreciate that. Where's your residence, Jennifer? Is it in my play area? I live in Montpelier. Oh, okay. Okay, guys. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Okay, guys. Thank you. Have a great weekend.