You're on the job working next to the same people you see every day. People you know as well as you do your own family. Think again. The fact is that the hard-working Joe or Jane in the workstation next to yours may just have a life outside the office, interests and pursuits of which you know nothing, unknown accomplishments and unsung victories. How well do you really know the people who work for Customs? Read the "mystery profile" below, pay attention to the "clues," and see if you can guess the identity of this long-time Customs employee.

Profile
He works at a desk, one topped off with paper, reports, executive correspondence, and a telephone that rings all day, every day. But he'd rather be outdoors. That was the plan, somehow, a long time ago, when long-distance running was a priority and his heels and ankles were good. Before the desk, the career, and the suit.

Let's rewind. Our mystery man has never heard of U.S. Customs. In fact, he's still in school, swimming, playing basketball at a Jesuit College in Denver, Colo. He majors - no, not in law enforcement - but in English, American History, and Spanish (reading ability is better than speaking), and runs every day. He graduates from college and gets a job teaching 7th and 8th grade English in Westchester County, New York. He coaches girls' softball, and boys' basketball. In 1970, a friend suggests he should take the government exam; an agency called U.S. Customs is looking for agents to win Nixon's war on drugs - interesting, challenging work.

A few more years pass. Our man's running career is winding down. His heels and ankles go, a protest against too many years of 25 milers, so he turns to competitive swimming for distance and speed. He joins the U.S. Masters Swimming Association, swimming in Police Olympics. He medals in every event - 200 meter free style, 100 meter individual/medley, 50 meter butterfly. At Customs, he does a good job as well. Promotions keep him in the office or tied to a case, but there is still that "other life" - the one that dares him to face off, not with the bad guys, but with nature.

His "other" life
He hunts - mule, deer antelope, elk - at high altitudes in Colorado or Wyoming. There's trout or fly-fishing on the north fork of the Shenandoah River or the upper Potomac. He takes up ocean kayaking in Maine, at Bar Harbor, where he and his wife have "his" and "her" kayaks. Hers, he says, is faster.

Pohick Bay, near Quantico, is another, closer opportunity to haul the 14-foot kayak into the water, when the wind iss good and you can go "as fast as you want or just cruise. . . ."

"As fast as you want" becomes "as fast as you can" in the Chesapeake Bay One-Miler, a grueling swim meet where our mystery employee finishes 5th out of 16 for his age group. Not bad for a 54-year-old Customs guy who makes competition swimming in the cold waters of the Chesapeake a regular event - three times so far. The key, he tells you, is endurance, not just the physical kind, but mental endurance. Twenty-five percent of the 600 swimmers who enter the Chesapeake Bay competition drop out. He focuses on staying in.

Eventually, he takes up running again, maybe not 25 milers, but shorter stretches - the Annapolis 10 miler, for example, the Rock Creek 10K and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra 10K. (Does this mean he's a music lover as well?) Our mystery employee doesn't say, but he does offer up his latest reading: "Itt Doesn't Take a Hero," by H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Peter Petre.

On the job
It's time for this Customs veteran to go back to his office, to the work he does five days a week for an agency he has come to understand and appreciate. His career at Customs has been filled with twists and turns, but he's philosophical about that, convinced that it's what you bring to the job that makes it important, not what the job, or its title, does for you.

"I'm very busy right now," he says, "but it wasn't always like that. Sometimes you feel like you're not operating at top speed, but then you find out that what you're doing is important in ways people don't understand. In my last assignment, I found myself working with some of the most interesting, talented people at Customs, and even though my present position has more visibility, I'll never forget the innovative, creative group I worked with in a relatively 'hidden part' of Customs for two years."

If you think you can identify February's "Mystery Customs Employee," e-mail us at usct@customs.treas.gov. The names of those who correctly identify the mystery employee will be placed in a hat on March 29. The person selected will receive a writing padfolio, and his or her name will appear in an upcoming issue of U.S. Customs Today, along with the name of the "Mystery Employee."