Carl, Regina and Lee have led numerous efforts at the State Department to improve how citizens receive passport services, at a time when demand for passports has been surging. In 2016, the State Department dispensed 18.6 million passports, up from 15.5 million the previous year. Thanks in part to the efforts of Carl and Regina, the department has been able to meet this rising citizen demand for passport services while at the same time improving the customer experience.  One of their key achievements was an effort to create an online option to report that a passport has been lost or stolen.

Prior to 2015, citizens could only make a report by calling the National Passport Information Center, mailing a paper form to the Consular Lost and Stolen Passport Unit or visiting a passport agency or another facility that accepts passport applications (for example, a post office) and completing a paper form. Those options are not convenient or easily accessible for some citizens. In 2015, the Carl, Regina and Lee helped launch an online option in an effort to provide customers another way to report their lost or stolen passport— through travel.state.gov.  Once the online option became available, the department experienced an immediate spike in the number of reports. Previously, it received approximately 6,500 reports of lost and stolen passports per week across all of the reporting options. Soon after implementing the online option, it began receiving more than 1,000 additional weekly reports. By early 2017, as more citizens became aware of the online option, the total number of reports was more than 9,500 per week, a 46 percent increase since the option was launched.

As a result of Carl, Lee and Regina’s efforts, citizens now have a much better experience when reporting a passport lost or stolen.  They can file the report quickly online at their own convenience. They also get a very fast confirmation from the state department that the passport has been reported lost and is being cancelled. Previously, citizens had to wait much longer to receive this confirmation through snail mail, leading to anxiety on their part about whether or not the report had been received and the passport cancelled.  Additionally, the improvements to this process have led to important national security improvements.

After launching this online option, the State Department realized that previously many citizens had not been reporting their passports lost or stolen because they found the process for doing so inconvenient.  Now, citizens are much more likely to report their passports lost or stolen, ensuring that the State Department can cancel those passports and prevent criminals or terrorists using them for nefarious activities.