Service a key theme in screening force

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

A dancer from upstate New York. A guy who sold clothes for the last 12 years. A Honolulu woman who comes from a long line of "airline people." A security guard in Waikiki.

Among the new certified screeners for the Transportation Security Administration at Honolulu Airport are, from left, Donald Jones, Letrice Titus, supervisor Lizette Haneberg and Shiloh Pritchard. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

In fact, just about the only things most of them have in common is a willingness to serve their country and a lack of experience in airport security.

Only about 60 of the more than 500 people hired so far to be airport screeners and supervisors in Honolulu worked there for private firms before the federal government took over, officials say.

"Experience wasn't a big consideration," said Sidney Hayakawa, federal security director for the airport. "A more important part of the assessment process was finding people who could speak well and comprehend reading and writing well."

Communication is the key part of airport screening these days.

"It's part of our mantra that we emphasize every day: Greet the passengers, help the passengers, screen the passengers and thank the passengers," Hayakawa said.

For those who have been hired, that has translated into a friendly, family-style work environment with a deadly-serious goal: preventing any more Sept. 11-like terrorist attacks.

"We know it's not a fun process for passengers to be touched or searched or to have their bags gone through," said Lizette Haneberg, a screening supervisor for the new Transportation Services Administration in Honolulu. "We just try to make it as pleasant as possible for them."

They do it with words and a smile, professionalism and personality. They make small talk with passengers, ask questions and tell them everything they are going to do before they do it — which explains why communication skills were so highly sought in the hiring process, officials say.

'Big, happy family'

Nationwide, TSA received more than 1.5 million applicants for the new jobs, and has hired more than 44,000 new screeners so far.

According to the TSA Web site, 35 percent of the "big, happy family" are women and 40 percent are minorities.

Local officials say they don't have specific figures available for hirings in Honolulu, but think the statistics here are at least comparable to the Mainland. Locally, the TSA still expects to hire at least 300 more workers to help with baggage-screening operations, Hayakawa said.

Once hired, employees underwent 104 hours of classroom and on-the-job training, learning customer courtesy, how to work the security stations, hand-held wands and metal detectors.

Screeners work six separate checkpoints throughout the airport and rotate six different tasks at each: line monitor, X-ray monitor, baggage search, explosive detection, metal detection and hand wanding.

Most of the jobs pay $23,600 to $35,400 plus a full range of government benefits. There are ample opportunities for promotion, although Hayakawa admits that some qualified private screeners at the airport were passed over for higher-paying supervisory positions because of a mix-up in hiring.

"We're going to try to rectify that in the next round of hirings," he said.

Those who have the jobs say they are pleased with the pay and even more proud to be serving their country.

More than anything, their feelings are summed up by the patch they wear on both sleeves of their new TSA uniforms: A bald eagle stands defiantly against a backdrop of the American flag, designed with nine stars and 11 stripes, a reminder of Sept. 11, 2001.

Here's a look at four of the TSA hires at Honolulu and how their new jobs have transformed their lives.

The dancer

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Letrice Titus was a dancer and choreographer with the Paul Robson Dance Ensemble in Syracuse, N.Y., when the terrorists struck Sept. 11 and several people she knew were killed.

When her husband, Kenyatta, a supply sergeant in the Army, was transferred to Schofield Barracks, she decided to study behavioral psychology at the University of Phoenix in downtown Honolulu. She is 30 credits shy of a bachelor's degree.

The education was put on hold, though, when the TSA started advertising for positions. Titus got the job. Personal skills such as she learned in psychology classes were high on the list of qualities TSA job screeners were seeking.

Like most other new employees, Titus works four 10-hour shifts a week, starting at 3:30 a.m.

Since the family has one car, Kenyatta gets up in the middle of the night to drive Letrice from Mililani to the airport, goes home, catches a little sleep, then makes sure their two children, 7-year-old Kierrah and 3-year-old Kiannah, get to school on time. Letrice gets off at 2:30 p.m. and heads home to help with the kids.

There isn't much time left over. She was cast for a role in a local production of Smokey Joe's Cafe, but had to bow out when she got the TSA job.

"I'll always be a dancer, but being a native New Yorker, I knew this would give me an opportunity to feel good about myself and my country," she said. "It was my chance to help."

The supervisor

Lizette Haneberg was born to her new job as assistant screening manager at the Honolulu airport.

"I come from a long line of airline people," she said. Her father was a vice president for Hawaiian Airlines, where her brother also worked. Haneberg started her own career with the old Trans World Airlines, and stayed until it went bankrupt. She then moved to the Federal Aviation Administration in Honolulu as an airline security inspector. That position has been rolled over to the TSA.

Her background gives Haneberg, a mother of three and grandmother of two, broad understanding in dealing with security issues and passenger screening.

"I've got a background in regulations and know how to follow correct procedures," she said.

Part of her new job includes teaching younger, less experienced hires how to be both friendly and professional. Another involves working with the airlines to help meet customer demands such as on-time takeoffs without boarding a passenger carrying a weapon.

"We all take our new responsibilities extremely seriously, but we know we've got to be courteous, too," Haneberg said. One of the best parts of the job is knowing both are possible, she said.

The salesman

Donald Jones was born in Texas to a Samoan mother, raised in Detroit and came to Hawai'i in 1990 in search of an education. When he found out how expensive out-of-state tuition could be at the University of Hawai'i, he decided he might as well get a job right away.

For 12 years, he's been selling clothes, starting on the sales floor at Kramer's for three years, then moving on to American T-Shirt, where he was a warehouse shipping supervisor. His wife, Edwina, works as a legal secretary.

Jones always thought he might be better suited for law enforcement. He was wading through the long application process with the Los Angeles police and sheriff's department when he heard about the TSA openings and applied.

In the summer, he got a phone call asking him to report to a Waikiki hotel for a 12-hour physical, interview and assessment session. A few weeks later, he was undergoing a security check, and by Sept. 17 he was told to report to a job orientation Sept. 22, leaving him just enough time to take a long-planned four-day vacation.

The new TSA job pays about the same as his previous job, but "the benefits are incredible," he said.

He's even more enthusiastic about the work.

"Time flies. We're so busy, there's never time to think or get bored," Jones said. "I'm always getting to meet new people, different people with all kinds of backgrounds. The repetition of what we do is good. It makes you better at it."

The security guard

Shiloh Pritchard was supposed to be a baker. Born and raised in American Samoa, he planned to join his family baking business after he went to school in Arizona.

Things didn't work out that way. He dropped out of the technical institute, got a job making cables, met his wife, Delores, and started a family. Today, they have three children, Shiloh Zephiniah, 7; Jeremiah, 5; and Zachariah, 4.

He was back working in Samoa when the Sept. 11 terrorists struck.

"Even in as small a place as Samoa, it kind of shook us, too," he said. "My brother lives in Virginia, close to the Pentagon."

Pritchard moved his family back to Hawai'i in the spring, landing a job as a Wackenhut security guard for $8.50 an hour at hotels and shopping centers in Waikiki.

His new job at TSA pays $11.50 plus a cost-of-living allowance. And he figures he's getting in early on a good thing.

"Can you imagine being here at the very start? The only place to go is up," he said.

Someday, he may try to move back to Samoa, but not as a baker.

"The TSA needs screeners at the airport back there, too," he said.