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Written by Dr. Ron Jarmin, Deputy Director
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ?The only constant in life is change.? I?m no philosopher, but I can say I?ve seen a lot of change in the 30-plus years I?ve been at the U.S. Census Bureau. When I got to the agency in the fall of 1992, you could still hear the tapping of typewriters and smoking was allowed in designated places like private offices. How we work at the Census Bureau has also transformed dramatically. When I arrived, there was no internet data collection since there was barely an internet, and the agency was struggling with moving from FORTAN to the statistical software platform SAS. But we stopped smoking inside, tossed the typewriters, adopted SAS and now couldn?t imagine executing our mission without the internet to collect data, collaborate with colleagues or disseminate our data products to you ? the public.?
While our mission is the same, the Census Bureau of 2023 is virtually unrecognizable from three decades ago and I?m sure will be radically different three decades from now. We know that to continue being the nation?s leading statistical agency, we must keep up with the world around us. It?s up to all of us to build the Census Bureau of the 21st century ? one that provides our users the high-quality data they need to thrive in a changing world.
Transformation is not new for the Census Bureau. We have a legacy of innovating, changing and adapting to emergent socioeconomic trends to provide the American public relevant and actionable data. But as my examples from my years at the Census Bureau demonstrate, we?re already transforming! Everything we do to improve our processes, operations, communications, culture and customer service is at the heart of transformation.
Transformation is happening all around us at the Census Bureau. It happened when we had to adapt as a workforce and work from home during a global pandemic; it happened when we quickly stood up the Household, Small Business Pulse surveys and the COVID Data Hub to help gauge the pandemic?s impact on Americans.
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