Land Ports of Entry - Modernizing our Border Facilities

In this episode, we discuss land port modernization with $3 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law. GSA's Darin Frost and CBP's Josh Malkin share insights on border projects, highlighting challenges, opportunities, and who benefits. Explore how geography, sociology, and history influence these high-tech, eco-friendly upgrades. Join us!

Want to know more?

Are you looking for more information about the Land Ports of Entry and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law? Check out the resources below!

• Land Ports of Entry & The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

Editor's Note: During the conversation, Darin Frost said that GSA received $4.3 billion dollars in funding. That number is incorrect, GSA received $3.4 billion.

"GSA Does That!?" is the U.S. General Services Administration's first agency-wide podcast, offering listeners an inside look into how GSA and its partners benefit the American people. Hosted by Rob Trubia, the podcast features interviews with GSA leaders, experts, partners, and customers, covering topics such as federal real estate, acquisitions, and technology. The title reflects many's surprise at the scope of GSA's impact. At the same time, the artwork pays homage to President Harry S. Truman, who established GSA in 1949 to improve government efficiency and save taxpayer money. Whether you're a policy wonk or just curious about government operations, you can join the listener community.

For more information about the show visit, gsa.gov/podcast.

Transcript

Rob Trubia
You're listening to GSA Does That, the podcast that uncovers the stories behind the federal agency delivering effective and efficient government. I'm your host, Rob Trubia, and I hope you're having a good day. In today's episode, we'll discuss the crucial task of modernizing our land ports of entry, commonly known as border crossings. Thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law, well over $3 billion has been allocated for more than 50 border station projects.

We'll be speaking with GSA’s, Darin Frost and Josh Malkin from Customs and Border Protection. They'll share details about projects on the northern and southern borders, and talk about the challenges and opportunities presented by this landmark funding. And you'll find out who benefits most from these modernized land ports of entry. This episode touches on geography, sociology, and some history.

Join us as we explore how GSA and CBP are collaborating to develop high tech border crossings in remote locations and all while using the latest green building practices. Thank you for listening. We'd be honored if you subscribe to our show to learn more about GSA Does That!?, visit us online at gsa.gov/podcast. Okay, here we go.

Well, Darin, thank you for being on the podcast. Before we begin our discussion about modernizing our border crossings. I wondered if you might tell us a little bit about yourself and specifically about your role at GSA.

Darin Frost
Sure. I'm the program executive for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Early in my career, I was a GSA building manager for land ports of entry across the northern border and Washington state. I also have a design and construction background and have been involved in building and planning new land ports of entry prior to assuming my current role in GSA.

You know, never before is GSA been tasked with modernizing so many land ports of entry at once. Normally we have a couple land ports of entry, new construction projects going on at the same time. Now we have 26. BIL created a unique opportunity for GSA and CBP to redefine a closer partnership and how we navigate this constantly evolving requirements for land ports of entry.

GSA and CBP project managers really set the tone for this collaboration on each individual project. They work closely together to ensure the requirements are carefully developed, with input from subject matter experts across both organizations. They also work closely together to engage with the local communities where these land ports of entry are located, to ensure community input is fully taken into account.

Now, programmatically, my team and I work closely with CBP leadership to ensure we're addressing CBP's mission needs consistently across the entire program. We facilitate timely decision making to keep projects moving forward. And in that regard, we provide direction and support to the project teams to navigate key decisions regarding scope, schedule, and budget. It really is a dynamic program.

Rob Trubia
Very interesting now. Darin, are you coming to us from the northwest? Is that where you grew up?

Darin Frost
Yeah, I'm from the Pacific Northwest. I live just south of Seattle.

Rob Trubia
So welcome to the podcast, Josh. It's great to have you here. I wondered if you might start by telling us a little bit about your role at Customs and Border Protection, and maybe a little bit about your background. I've heard you served in the Navy and you might be a Longhorn fan.

Josh Malkin
So I am the operational support, facilities director here at, Customs and Border Protection. So I have the entire portfolio for our Office of Field Operations, which includes all our land, sea and air ports of entry along both borders and everywhere, between border patrol, which is a lot of our, you know, our border patrol stations and the checkpoints.

So pretty much all of the operational aspects, of CBP, from a facilities perspective, we've got about 6000 facilities that we're responsible for, both leased and owned, leased primarily through GSA, obviously, across the country and, and a few overseas as well. So it's a pretty exciting portfolio that I'm responsible  for. Happy to be here.

Rob Trubia
That's excellent. It's always fun to have something to look forward to in the fall after a really good summer. Well, clearly, I'm talking to two very experienced gentlemen in their roles at GSA and CBP. This should be a great discussion. You know, Darin, we have talked about the bipartisan infrastructure law and all the great things it's doing several times on this podcast.

I wonder if you might explain a little bit more specifically, modernizing these land ports of entry. What  are these dollars doing in regards to modernization for the land ports of entry? How did you figure out the scope numbers and what are the goals specifically of these funds?

Darin Frost
So, Rob, you know, GSA received $4.3 billion to modernize, modernize our land ports of entry across the northern and southern border. CBP received an additional $430 million to help with the, the fit out of those land ports of entry. Now, the program includes 26 major modernization projects across 11 states. 20 of those projects are on the northern border.

Six of them are along the southern border. We also receive funding to perform repair and alteration paving and roadway projects at 21 locations. We've completed eight of those paving projects to date in upstate New York, California and Arizona. And we have 13 more coming in the state of Texas. Now, the program also includes repairing a modern rising over 30 inspection facilities for the Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Their facilities are located on the southern border, typically, and they're either on land ports of entry, with CBP or adjacent to them. And then finally, we are purchasing, with bill funding, three leased land, ports of entry on the southern border that are currently privately owned. It is a really big program. The goals for the bipartisan infrastructure law land Port of Entry program are pretty straightforward.

First and foremost, to provide a secure, well-managed border, for the inspection facility, inspection agencies that are there, to create jobs and grow the economy, to facilitate trade and supply chain across the border. So a lot of traffic that goes across the border, to improve the human experience as people arrive into our country, whether it's the first time or they're commuting across the border every day, that, you know, that's a that's a significant goal for us, to strengthen community livability in border towns and to be a model of sustainable development when modernizing these and ports of entry.

So it is, it is really broad program, far reaching. And we're really excited about it.

Rob Trubia
Yeah, that's a lot, that's a lot of great goals and a lot of work to do. Darin, I'm curious what are some of the key projects planned across the 12 states?

Darin Frost
Yeah, sure. So some of our largest projects are on the southern border. In California, we're finishing the third phase of the Calexico Land Port of Entry in Eastern California. And we have three major projects in Arizona. We broke ground on the San Luis Island port of entry last summer. It'll be our first net zero port, meaning it will balance the amount of greenhouse gas consumed versus created, in Douglas for building a new land port of entry for commercial traffic outside of town.

This will redirect heavy commercial truck traffic from the downtown core. And in doing so, this will enable us to modernize and expand the existing rural Héctor Castro port of entry in downtown Douglas to noncommercial traffic only, which, will definitely help the local community. Now, in Texas, we're in the middle of a design build procurement to modernize the Brownsville Gateway land port of entry, that was originally constructed in the 1950s and is in dire need of modernization.

And in El Paso, this summer, we're finishing the environmental review and early design options to modernize the bridge of the Americas land port of entry. This is our largest land port of entry project, and we're navigating public input on how best to deal with significant commercial traffic through the downtown core.

Rob Trubia
Lots of great things happening on the southern border. Darin, I'm curious about what about the northern border. What are some of the specific projects you've got planned?

Darin Frost
Yeah, definitely. We have 12 projects across the states of New York, Vermont and Maine. Most of these projects are at smaller locations with historic structures built over 90 years ago. And they have a lot of constrained sites, constraints. Sites mean things like nearby rivers and creeks, railroads, bridges, adjacent residences or businesses, or significant changes in elevation and topography.

So we're working closely with CBP, design firms, community stakeholders to determine how best to modernize these locations within both availability funding and those site constraints. For example, Beebe Plain of Vermont is a historic house built right on the border. the street on both sides. You know, one street side is Canada, the other side is the United States, with very little room to expand the port, a lot of community interest in and keeping the port the way that it is.

GSA and CBP are working closely together with the community on how best to modernize that in a practical manner. Our most remote project is in Alcan, Alaska. This port was last built in the 1970s, serves as the port between Alaska and the Yukon Territory in Canada. It's five hours away from the nearest city, and it really is a self-contained community generates its own utilities that we need to provide residences for the personnel.

It even has its own helipad, given its remote location, harsh winter conditions, designing the new port for a long term sustainability, getting construction materials to the site. Those are major challenges that we're we're tackling hey're up in Alcan. So just a few projects on the northern border, I could I could talk for an hour on all of them.

But they're all really exciting.

Rob Trubia
Yeah, they really are exciting. And I love the fact that they're so geographically dependent. I think that's what's particularly interesting to me. You know, how you approach something in northern Vermont or Alaska is so different than how you have to approach it in, say, Texas or Arizona. So it's pretty fascinating and a lot of amazing projects going on. This is pretty cool stuff.

Josh, your, your team that you're leading at CBP, I mean, and it's your job to really, set the goals out. This is what we really need. This is what we want. You're working with Darin and his team to make this happen. I'm curious how often you and Darin are in touch. I mean, is this a back and forth thing every day?

Do you guys meet once a quarter? How does that. What does that look like?

Josh Malkin
Sure. so we I look at our team as we were essentially the owners reps. I mean, we represent, you know, and if you will, we kind of coalesce all of the the operational and functional needs, the design standards for each of the, modernized land ports of entry so that that requires a pretty frequent dialog. with GSA, sometimes it's I mean, we have standing weekly, and biweekly executive level meetings, but sometimes it's daily, sometimes it's multiple times a day, collaboration, depending on what the issues are.

But obviously a lot of moving pieces with these, you know, significant projects as we get major milestones or as, you know, major decision points come up, our, our collaboration will, will increase both frequency and, and duration. So but it is it's it is it's a really exciting program, like Darin said. I mean, a lot of, lot of good news, really a historic investment in, in some of our most critical and quite frankly, visible infrastructure that CBP is, you know, operates and maintains across the country.

Rob Trubia
Darin. Does GSA work as consultants, like with CBP? Are you doing that type of thing, or is it more of like, hey, you are the real estate experts, so CBP says this is what we need, please fulfill this order. Or is it also you're talking to you're talking to Josh and just saying, hey, hey Josh here's what some ideas with, you know, technology with maybe with real estate, with how you might go about some of these things.

I'm curious about a consultancy or is it really and it's, you know, is it really just kind of taking orders to say, this is we're going to get it done, we're going to get it done on budget. We're going to get it done on time.

Darin Frost
Yeah, I would I would say that we bring a lot of expertise to the table, as well as CBP. you know, the GSA expertise is really in the area of design, sustainability, navigating a lot of complex historic and environmental, requirements required by law. But it's it's definitely a partnership. CBP has a lot of inspection technology with their own subject matter experts.

You know, technology inspection technology, plays a huge role in port design, traffic flow placement of key infrastructure. And so we can't do that on our own. We we're we're good at designing and building the buildings and, and dealing with site constraints. But how the technology plays the role and port of entry is critical for CBP to do their mission to keep traffic flowing.

GSA's role is to ensure that all technology is designed and installed in such a manner that it works seamlessly with the underlying facilities that we build. so yeah, it's definitely a partnership. And we rely a lot on CBP's subject matter experts to to come to the table and help us, design these ports together.

Rob Trubia
Josh, do the officers that work these border crossings, do you take input from them? Is there any kind of, dynamic there? Hey, this is what we really need. This would make the job go better. This is how we could make the mission, you know, faster, quicker.

Josh Malkin
So a couple of things there. So CBP maintains, design standards. In fact, we recently updated our design standard, for our land ports of entry, those when those standards are updated, there is input from the field to make sure that we are capturing the latest requirements, be it, you know, changes in operational protocols, changes in the types of equipment or, other, you know, requirements that they may have, as well as directives from above when we are reviewing and, you know, providing our requirements to GSA to execute these projects, those are coordinated with our field offices that are impacted.

So, for example, we talked about some of the projects up in New England. Those are coordinated with our Boston field office, to make sure that, you know, they are. Again, the overarching guidance comes back to our design standards. So we're kind of standardizing consistent across the agency. But we do make sure that we get their input and we coordinate that.

So when we provide our overall our requirements back to GSA, when they can go and actually do the design and construction, and it does include the field offices. And ultimately the officers that fall under that field office is input.

Rob Trubia
What does a modernized facility look like versus, you know, current facility for an officer that's working the job on a daily basis? How is their job changed with a modernized facility? I'm curious what that looks like.

Josh Malkin
So there there is a number of things. And I think if you visit some of our older ports of entry and we have many, you would see officers working in a, you know, a facility in many cases that hasn't had any significant upgrades for, you know, it could be up to 40 or 50 years, you know, depending on the age of the facility.

So they may be, you know, inspecting vehicle, for example, in, in very, you know, cramped or substandard positions and, you know, conditions, excuse me. And they're not able to, you know, whether it's maneuver around whether it's, you know, being able to have the throughput that they would, you know, either desire or require to keep, you know, traffic flowing.

And it's not just, you know, it's there's a lot of things that happen in these ports of entry. I mean, you've got commercial traffic that's going both ways. You know, across the border you have pedestrians, you have, you know, personal vehicles. In some cases you have buses. So all of you know, the officers I've been to some of our ports entry where you literally have traffic backed up for, you know, hours because the available whether it's the number of lanes, whether it's the, you know, number of inspection bays, you know, for, for vehicles or other other, equipment that needs a secondary inspection.

So the modernized facility will both provide a much, more efficient and you can say this kind of as a general comment about all of them, it provides much more efficient flow for both, you know, pedestrians, commercial, where it exists and, you know, personal vehicle traffic so they can, you know, get through, be processed, be screened, or in some cases, you know, additional secondary screening and then move about their business.

So that obviously, when our officers are able to, you know, keep, keep things moving, it it provides a significant, improvement to their quality of operations and ultimately, the quality of life, if you will, for the, facilities that that, that they are, you know, that that we're giving them also, some of these ports are located in fairly remote locations.

I've no Darin mentioned earlier, you know, the port that we're modernizing in Alaska, which is, you know, actually has has a housing component and, and that's, kind of a unique situation. There's a couple of others like that, like Cobourg or Maine, which is located on kind of the north east or the northwest corner of Maine. And, you know, these are these are, you know, what we used to call in DoD.

They're hardship duty stations, and it's hard to recruit and hard to retain. So when you provide the officers with both an improved workplace, and improve, you know, quality of life from, you know, a housing and support perspective. You know, quite frankly, that's how we're able to maintain and retain our workforce, to do the critical missions and really what our, in many cases, very auster and very difficult, conditions.

I mean, think about working in Alaska in the winter and, you know, being really five hours from anywhere and, and, and again, having these modernized facilities and improving their, you know, ability to do their job and to essentially be able to have, have some reasonable quality of life is is critical to our mission.

Rob Trubia
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like these funds are really helping to, you know, they're modernizing, but they're really helping to retain your officers and provide, you know, better work conditions and a quality of life. That's a big deal.

Josh Malkin
Absolutely. And and think, I mean, these these are, you know, our officers are the frontline. So when things, you know, again, when traffic's backed up or when people are standing outside or, you know, in a less than satisfactory condition, they're the ones that bear the brunt of those complaints. —Being able to provide those new facilities ultimately, again, obviously alleviate some of those issues. But it it directly impacts their, you know, again, their quality of life and their ability to do their job.

And secondly.

Rob Trubia
It reminds me of maybe like when you go to the airport and you go through security, if it's a modernized security facility with TSA, it's smooth, it's really smooth. It goes really quickly. It's a nice experience for the customer. You're in and you're out. And I'm sure it's a much nicer experience for those TSA agents. So I imagine all of this is really helpful to each kind of customer.

You know, you mentioned some of these, land ports of entry are very old, 40 or 50 years that they've been modernized. Some of them are even older than that. I was interested to see that even some of them are registered as a historic site. You know, Darin, I wondered if you could talk a little bit about how do you modernize a registered historic site, still maintaining that history yet bringing it to modern standards.

What's the challenge there?

Darin Frost
Sure, Rob. So, you know, when it comes to historic buildings, you know, GSA has a lot of experience in following the historic, section 106 historic building process, where we really navigate that decision based on the the design and what the requirements are for CBP. whether that building can be adapted. To meet CBP's needs.

The condition of the building is is it still in good enough shape to be reused? so there's times when we come in and remove historic buildings, what, you know, work through the process and get that approved. Sometimes we move them. not a lot, but but that's always an option. And then there's times when we, we figure out an adaptive reuse for them, and we figure out how to keep that structure.

keep the, you know, the historic integrity of the building and, keep it as part of the local community. And so that's always a collaborative process with the local community, the historic preservation experts. We follow the law, and we make sure that it's a deliberative process. Everybody always likes new buildings and and it's, you know, it's easy to build a new building and customize it to meet CBP's mission needs.

Sometimes preserving a historic structure works, and sometimes it doesn't. But we have a lot of experience in navigating that process. And and there are a number of these projects, especially up in the New England area where we're right in the middle of that right now working closely with CBP, their historic preservation experts are preservation experts to really navigate to, to good decisions on those projects.

Rob Trubia
Yeah, I guess GSA would have a ton of expertise when it comes to modernizing historic buildings all over the country. So you've got a wealth of experts at your ready where you can tap into their expertise. Josh, when we think about these rural communities, what kind of impact do these modernized land ports of entry have on the community, is it a financial boon to them?

Is it just more of a convenience thing? Does it just feel good to know that their government is investing in their small community? But what does that look like?

Josh Malkin
Yeah, well, there's a couple of different things. So the I mean, the actual modernization itself. Right? I mean, there's the, the construction impacts, whether it's, you know, working with local contractors or subcontractors and, and all of the I mean, just like any major construction project, you know, you're going to see impacts from, you know, whether it's people temporarily relocating up there or, you know, you know, patronizing the local economy during, during the construction.

But the positive side is, you know, they're if you want to call it negative and positive, but, you know, any type of commercial traffic, any type of, you know, towing, I mean, it's it's trade and travel. So, you know, the more we can facilitate that through our modernized and, you know, infrastructure is, you know, has a direct impact on the local economy.

So for example, when when you get in new and you know, just the convenience factor, obviously, you know, there's a lot of people that live on both sides of the border that, you know, whether they work or live on one side and, and or vice versa. And having again, those improved facilities makes their really their daily life and their ability to, you know, be a productive, you know, be a productive citizen.

again, whichever side you're talking about, that much easier. And, and again, you know, so when we get into, you know, anytime you, you have to close a port of entry or, you know, even temporarily, you may expect some significant pushback from the community because, again, there's the economic loss. There's the convenience aspect because, hey, I now may need to drive an extra hour to, you know, if I work in Canada, I'm living in the United States or vice versa.

You know that that's that much more hardship for me as a person that you know, that lives there. So, yeah, there there is a lot of, interplay and a lot of, what's the word? interdependence, if you will, that, that these land ports of entry support and, and again, the, you know, facilitation of trade and travel across, you know, both both of our international borders.

Rob Trubia
Yeah. It never occurred to me until you said that that's just the convenience, you know, with new construction, you know, we all know this on our highways. The beginning is painful because you're in the construction phase. But, boy, when it's done, it really facilitates a nicer experience and a quicker experience for where you're trying to go. So I guess what you're saying is that when CBP and GSA collaborate, get these things done and make these modernized, land ports of entry and traffic can flow quicker and easier, that's a boon right there to the local economies.

Maybe you've got a favorite restaurant or whatever it might be on the other side, you're like, oh, this is easy. We'll go because we can, we can do it easy. And it's it's very simple and and seamless. So that's, that's an interesting point that you bring up. You know, I'm curious, we're talking about the local communities, Darin, I know GSA likes to use local contractors when it's possible to do so with these projects, are there opportunities to use local contractors to modernize these facilities?

Darin Frost
Yeah. Rob. so first of all, when it comes to local communities, you asked earlier about travel, you know, and do we have people in these locations a lot of our effort on these projects is to communicate and work closely with the local communities on the big project that's coming their way. So through the National Environmental Policy Act requirements, we partner with local communities.

We have community meetings, planning sessions. We bring them into the design process, and we really do prepare the community for the big project that's coming in, what's what's their input and and ensuring that we design these projects with care. You know, as Josh indicated, a lot of it is about traffic flow. And so, you know, how you flow traffic across the border, usually you have to expand the site.

So you need to acquire more land. And so really just prepping the community for all that is step one, step two is about the jobs that it does create and the business opportunities that come. And so, most, if not all of these land ports of entry projects are in remote locations. We've talked about this. This does create a tremendous opportunity to source contracts with and labor locally, you know, because they're remote.

To the greatest extent possible, GSA does a ton of market research. We do industry outreach. We hold events called Industry Days to really generate awareness and local interest in the contracting opportunities before we go out to bid with contracts. Many of these projects are over the small, business threshold. And so usually big construction firms will do big projects and small business can do smaller ones.

So the work really is spread across small and large businesses. But regardless of that, all of our procurements provide an opportunity for either prime contractors or subcontracting opportunities for local businesses to participate in. The key is to make sure they know the work is coming, and we do a ton of industry outreach to to prepare the local community to know that work is coming.

Rob Trubia
You know, I love, throughout this podcast, the series that we've done, GSA, it really is impressive that it comes in very respectfully to communities wherever it's doing a project, and really ends up being more of a partner to the community than, hey, here we are. We're the federal government. We're coming in. This is what we're doing, and it's just going to happen like this.

so I love that you talked about that. And it's impressive. It really is impressive. It's a great testament to the people of GSA and their partner agencies like CBP that we're working with. Darin, I know that, you know, a lot of these dollars are, you know, part of what's attached to them is really making things better for our environment.

And I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about the green building practices that are happening in these modernization efforts. I'm sure there's a lot of cool things going on. Maybe you could share a little bit about them.

Darin Frost
Yeah, sure. So, you know, our sixth goal was to ensure that these projects are models of sustainability. What does that mean? GSA is investing nearly $1 billion in addition to the bill money, using Inflation Reduction Act funding on these land port of entry projects. That funding allows us to make these projects even more sustainable. IRA funding is being used to provide environmentally friendly, clean construction materials that have a lower carbon footprint than regular materials.

We're talking about low embodied carbon produced concrete, asphalt, glass and steel. those four materials make up most of the embodied carbon in new construction. In addition, we're designing, these ports to be all electric and to push for either full net zero or net zero ready operations, again, to reduce their carbon footprint on the on the environment.

Finally, GSA's design standard is to achieve Leed gold for construction and to develop these sites to meet site silver requirements. But in many cases, we plan to exceed those standards and making these ports models for sustainability, through smart design. So a lot of IRA funding is going to help these projects, be as sustainable as possible.

Rob Trubia
Yeah. I mean, it does sound like they're absolutely models of sustainability. Josh, when GSA, you know, wants to do this, but it's also mandated to do this with the, you know, the green the green practices. Does that, do see that's I'm just going to ask you, does you see that slowing down construction. Do you see it as sort of a limiting factor.

Or is it really more look like an opportunity? Josh what is the time frame like. When do you see these projects. When are they absolutely completed. When are the funds exhausted? Is it six months from now? Six years from now. Tell us a little bit about timeframe.

Josh Malkin
And Darin can correct me the the last project to be complete and at the end of 2031, right now, according to the, you know, the current timelines that we're working under.

Darin Frost
Yeah. I'll just yeah, I'll just add in. I mean, we're in the middle of designing, most of these land ports of entry were have active design build procurements on about ten of them upwards of $1 billion. But we've made a lot of progress in the first two and a half years of the program, getting all these projects moving forward.

and so we'll see a number of them enter into construction in 26 and 27, typically to build these projects. It's, you know, they're they're different sizes of them, but you're looking anywhere from 2 to 4 years to construct most of these land ports of entry. So like like Josh said, the, the the last one I think is slated to be finished now in 2030.

Rob Trubia
Darin. When would a citizen be able to go see one of the first, you know, new projects completed, like where could we go to see, this is what a modernized, border crossing looks like. I'm just curious.

Darin Frost
Yeah, definitely. So San Luis, Arizona, that project broke ground last June. and so there's actual site work happening and installation of foundations right now. That project is slated to be done in 2028. And so that that will be our first fully modernized land port of entry, with the bill program will be completed. That project, is going to be all all electric.

net zero and, will completely modernize, be modernized to meet CBP's needs. So we're really excited about that one.

Josh Malkin
Wow.

Rob Trubia
That's pretty neat. Josh, final word to you. I'm just curious, anything that you might want to add. And, you know, specifically, is it been a good has it been a good process so far? You've got years to go working together with GSA. Are you encouraged?

Josh Malkin
Absolutely. So a couple things I would add. You know, this this historic investment, I mean, we, we put together, in fact, we had to re-baseline it this year, every year we put together a, what we call our five year LPE land port of entry modernization plan to Congress. It's a it's a requirement that is put in the appropriations, act every year.

And and truly this this investment, you know, essentially we baseline it zeroed out what our significant backlog of, you know, modernization requirements are. So obviously we have a lot more needs. And we're working to reprioritize those. But I mean, it's been a very positive process. You know, we're very thankful for the opportunity to to invest and modernize all of these, these critical, you know, really these critical facilities that, like I said before, you know, are the foundation for, for, you know, for trade and travel, you know, on both the northern and the southern borders.

The other thing I would add, and even though not not the focus, CBP was also appropriated, as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, $100 million to modernize some of our owned land ports of entry. So most of the most of the land ports of entry, on both borders, certainly the larger ones, like Darin mentioned before, are owned and operated by GSA.

Our partner. and then CBP also does own and operate some, some largely in the northwestern, part of the country. And, and we did receive, again, a significant amount of funding that we are also executing some smaller modernization projects. Nothing on the scale of what, you know, we've talked about for some of these others. But, you know, this it's it's significant and and it's appreciated.

And I think, it's, you know, it's going to pay huge dividends. So I'm really excited. I mean, this is, you know, every time I visit one of these, the ports of entry, whether it's one that we're modernizing or another one, it's you, you know, you you really get a great appreciation. And and honestly, I'm super motivated to come to work every day knowing that we're able to, to, you know, collaborate and provide these kinds of, you know, again, these kinds of capabilities to our frontline, workforce that really are the ones that are making it happen every day.

And the reason why we're we have a job. So. Yes.

Rob Trubia
Yeah. That's excellent. Yeah. It's certainly exciting. The scope of what you guys are doing is absolutely massive. I'm impressed. I hope you're I'm glad you're enjoying it. I, I'd be overwhelmed with it, but that's why I don't do what you do. So, thanks for your service to your country. You've both been doing it a long time, and we're all the benefits of it.

So, you're doing really important work, and I thank you both so much. And thanks for taking the time to be with us. Thank you to Darin, Josh and all the incredible teams working this critical mission. You know, I'm always amazed by the breadth of talent and dedication of those who serve our country. I hope this episode highlights the hard work GSA and its partner agencies are doing every day, benefiting both people and the environment.

But I hope you'll join us in our next episode when we explore some big wins with the government's in-house tech consultancy known as 18F. Hey, thanks again for tuning in to GSA Does That!? please consider sharing this episode with a friend or colleague. If you have an idea for a topic or guest, drop us an email at gsadoesthat@gsa.gov

I'm Rob Trubia, joined by our executive producer, Mr. Max Stempora. This episode was brought to you by the General Services Administration, Office of Strategic Communication. I hope you have a great rest of your day.