Mr. President, I rise today to express my thanks and appreciation to one of Kentucky’s hardest-working public servants at the end of a long career. Mr. Charles Frank Rapier, the executive director of the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, also called Appalachia HIDTA, will be retiring this November after 46 years in law enforcement.
    
Director Rapier, called “Frank” by his friends, has been leading the Appalachia HIDTA program since 2003. Prior to his appointment, he served as deputy director of that program for Kentucky. The Appalachia HIDTA program was established in 1998 to combat one of our country’s greatest problems: illegal drug trafficking and drug abuse.
    
The problem of drug abuse that Frank has pledged his career to fighting is particularly bad in my home state of Kentucky. Kentucky ranks in the top three of marijuana-producing states. More Kentuckians died of drug overdoses in 2009 than in fatal car crashes, an astounding 82 per month.

The threat from illegal meth use poses a problem across the State as well. This rampant drug abuse increases crime and destroys families in Kentucky. Under Frank’s leadership, the Appalachia HIDTA program has attacked drug trafficking organizations in the tri-state area of Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee head-on.
    
And let me say, Mr. President, that he has done an amazing job. Specifically, in 2009 Appalachia HIDTA disrupted or dismantled 82 separate drug-trafficking organizations. That translates to hundreds of thousands of marijuana plants destroyed and hundreds of arrests. In 2006, they kept an estimated $1 billion worth of profits off of illegal drug activities out of the State of Kentucky.
    
Frank played an integral role in arranging a visit to Kentucky earlier this year by Mr. R. Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy—better known as this Nation’s “drug czar.” The director’s visit, which I was proud to help facilitate, has been an important step in maintaining our focus in Kentucky to stem drug abuse and save our family members, friends and neighbors from the dangers of drug addiction and drug-related crimes during a time of shrinking federal resources.
    
As a strong supporter of efforts to fight drug abuse in Kentucky, I’ve gotten to know Frank and see first-hand his efforts. He is a humble man but he is highly respected in the law-enforcement community throughout the State, and even the Nation, for the job he has done. I know his dedication and leadership in this important fight against illegal drugs will be greatly missed.
    
Frank knows the area he’s worked so hard to protect well. Born and raised in Corbin, Kentucky, he received his bachelor’s degree from Eastern Kentucky University, where he began his law-enforcement service as an EKU campus police officer. He attended graduate school at Xavier University, served as an instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy at Glynco, Georgia, has taught at numerous police academies, and has been a speaker at many law-enforcement conferences.
    
Before working with Appalachia HIDTA, Frank was a special agent with the U.S. Treasury Department for 32 years. He was a member of the National Undercover Resource Pool and the National Response Team. Over the course of his long career, he served many assignments with the U.S. Secret Service and State Department, including working as a member of the Southeast Bomb Task Force that investigated the Olympic bombing case in Atlanta in 1996.
    
While with the Treasury Department, Frank received four Special Achievement Awards, a Special Act Award, a Performance Award and the Director’s Award/Masengale Memorial Award.
    
Now after 46 years in law enforcement, I want to wish Frank congratulations on a job well done and best wishes in his retirement. Countless Kentuckians owe their thanks to Frank as well.
    
Frank regularly describes the practice of asking his granddad, “What did you do in the war?” He feels prepared to be asked that same question himself now as he nears the end of his career. He knows someday there will be an accounting. He has worked all his professional life so that his answer to that question can be, “I fought back against the tide of illegal drugs and saved lives.” He has certainly done that—and more.

I know my colleagues in the U.S. Senate join me in thanking Director Rapier for his decades of service. The work he’s done for so many years has created a safer, stronger Kentucky.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.