People:
Peter Baish, SEP '84
When U.S. Customs officers caught a suspected terrorist trying to smuggle
bomb parts into the country in December 1999, few people were as pleased
as Peter Baish, SEP '84. He was then director of the agency's outbound
program, with responsibilities for planning antiterrorism efforts. "It
was a great, great job by the inspectors," he says of the case, which
sparked a nationwide "millennium bomb" scare.
Baish retired in January after 30 years at Customs. His next port of
call is the private sector and the business of trade facilitation through
the Internet. His duties in his last U.S. Customs position included
monitoring exports—not just for compiling trade statistics but
also to thwart illegal movements of everything from drug money to stolen
car parts and military goods. "Things are always changing," he notes.
Recently, for example, officials encountered a trend of currency smuggling
to Israel, a major source of the banned drug Ecstasy.
Baish, who lives in northern Virginia with his wife, Mary Alice, also
supervised the rollout of a new electronic system for export filing.
The Automated Export System was fully implemented last year, but not
without complaints from some exporters and forwarders. His experience
at the Business School came in handy: "It sensitized me to the potential
disruption that government actions can cause business." The agency also
has had to keep up with traders' growing need for speed in an age of
just-in-time inventories and global operations, he adds. "Stanford provided
me with insights that allowed the federal export agencies to increase
accuracy and improve compliance with minimal disturbance to the goods
and materials exiting the U.S."
Baish especially enjoyed the enforcement part of the job and recalls
one of his first busts, in the summer of 1971. An inspector at Peace
Bridge, Buffalo, he was checking a Volkswagen van returning from a rock
concert. It reeked of marijuana, and the nervous driver's legs were
shaking so much he actually collapsed. Armed with a screwdriver, Baish
found 25 pounds of the drug in the vehicle. "I always felt sorry for
him. He wasn't a very good smuggler."
—CHERIAN GEORGE
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