John Koskinen Quotations

The only way we got to the point where Y2k became an afterthought was through the network we created.

We hope to encourage companies in both of our countries to share whatever technical information they can with counterpart companies in those countries.

Some communities and some companies still are deciding that they're going to wait and see (what happens when January 1, 2000 arrives) and we think that's a high risk roll of the dice.

One of the great goals of this meeting was to have people know each other and be able to communicate directly. We don't have time for the normal diplomatic procedures.

If they didn't fix the systems, they would not be functioning. Somebody said we did it too well, we made it look too easy. Maybe that's right. Maybe we should have had a control group over here failing.

If anything important happens, obviously we'll talk with the president as well. But at this point, we've agreed that my personal reports will be to the vice president over that weekend.

I think by the time we get to Tuesday or Wednesday, we'll fold up our tents until we see how the world does on Leap Day on February 29.

I think that means that the chances of some unknown or unmanageable catastrophe happening around the world are minimized significantly.

Some of the procrastinators haven't been heard from. I think it will be another few days before we can see definitively.

Let me put to rest the rumor that missiles are going to be flying everywhere by accident.

It doesn't mean the system is going to shut down, but in a lot of cases it means people are going to have to go to manual processes, which may slow, to some extent, emergency response.

It is far too early to declare victory. We have a lot of systems and a lot of countries to go through yet before we'll see what the actual impact has been of the transition.

That will actually look fairly interesting on a T-shirt.

We've made it look too easy in many ways because it has been the success it has. Maybe we did our job too well.

We will encourage communities to bring in principals from hospitals, emergency response services the local banking communities and other services and to engage with the public in a dialogue about what to expect. My goal is to have the public know as much about this issue as I know.

We will not have champagne, but we will try to make sure people can at least take a moment to pause while we enter the new millennium. Everybody will be working hard to see how the country is making the transition.

We think the basic infrastructure in the country is going to be in very good shape, banking, finance, telecommunications, electric power, air and rail transportation.

We think the adequacy of health care will be fine. You'll get good treatment wherever you go.

And then, of course, the world will open for business on Monday, and that's when we'll test software systems and information processing systems.

This fund will help us rebuild the soccer infrastructure of the Gulf area. We are designing a streamlined grant application process so we can provide as much support to rebuild the game as money will allow.

A third of the schools are still working to get those systems done.

As you can imagine, when you have a problem like that you don't talk about it until you get it fixed. We don't want to give our enemies anymore information than they need.

The federal government will be ready for the Year 2000.

Information and the exchange of information is a critical part of being able to remediate Y2K problems worldwide.

I don't think there is any way to deal with determining the nature of the threat, protecting against it and having appropriate mechanisms in place without an effective renewal of those partnerships or networks across the economy.