Matt Pierce, deputy assistant secretary for passport services in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs, led the implementation of the first-ever online passport renewal system alongside Luis Coronado Jr., chief information officer for the Bureau of Consular Affairs. Since its launch in September 2024, nearly 9 million applications have been successfully processed online.
Reimagining Passport Renewal
The push for change came after years of seeing the same problem repeat itself. In 2023, Passport Services had experienced what Pierce described as its third major backlog of applications in roughly 15 years.
Serving as a passport specialist and adjudicator following his time at Flagler, Pierce experienced those backlogs firsthand before eventually moving into leadership roles responsible for addressing them. His experience made one thing clear.
“I really had this realization, along with many in passports, that we could not do things the same way. We had to do things differently,” Pierce said.
Turning that realization into a working system, however, would take time. The department had attempted online passport renewal before, but those efforts had not been as successful as hoped. This time, Pierce and his colleagues approached the challenge with the lessons of those previous attempts in mind.
“We could not only focus on the average American citizen's experience with the system. We also needed it to work for our employees. We needed it to work at scale,” Pierce said.
Passport Services processes millions of passports each year, making efficiency critical on both sides of the process. A system that worked well for customers but created inefficiencies for the employees who are processing applications could ultimately create the same slowdowns the department was trying to eliminate.
The team ultimately found a way to make the system work for both, helping pave the way for its successful launch and continued expansion.
Despite the lessons learned from previous attempts, moving forward still required a willingness to take a risk. Pierce said one of the biggest challenges was overcoming the organization's own hesitation after seeing previous versions of online renewal fall short.
“Just because it didn't work before it doesn't mean it's not going to work this time,” Pierce said.
That leap of faith paid off. As the new system launched, feedback from both customers and the employees using it internally gave the team confidence that they had finally found an approach that worked.
Taking on the Unexpected
For Pierce, taking on challenges without knowing exactly what to expect has been a recurring theme throughout his career. After joining Passport Services following college, he steadily took on assignments that pushed him outside his comfort zone, including becoming director of the Washington Passport Agency in late 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I always learn the most from the assignments I felt the least prepared for,” Pierce said.
That mindset would continue to serve him as he took on new challenges, including leading the State Department's efforts to evacuate American citizens from the Middle East during the military conflict with Iran earlier this year, an assignment that came unexpectedly and required him to navigate a situation he had never encountered before.
Long before Pierce found himself taking on those unexpected assignments, however, his path toward public service had already begun to take shape.
Pierce said he had always been interested in geopolitics and international relations. Coming from a family of public servants, his father served in the military, his aunt and uncle were FBI agents, and a mentor who worked in the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs helped introduce him to the field he would eventually enter himself.
But his time at Flagler also expanded the way he viewed the world.
“I came to Flagler like most 18-year-olds thinking I knew everything,” Pierce said. “And I realized very quickly that I did not.”
He said his experience at the College opened his horizons to new perspectives and viewpoints, while reinforcing his interest in a future career in government.
Pierce initially envisioned a career that would take him overseas. But after meeting his wife, Leah (Cousart), while they were both students at Flagler, those plans changed. Deciding that an overseas assignment was not the right fit for them at the time, Pierce instead applied for a position in Passport Services shortly after graduating.
It would become the start of a career that has now spanned nearly two decades.
A Lasting Flagler Influence
Along the way, Pierce said Dr. Rachel Cremona was among the Flagler faculty members who left a lasting impression on him, particularly through her influence on how he considered different political viewpoints and the way government operates.
Those lessons continue to influence how Pierce approaches his work today.
“I spend a lot more time observing than I do speaking, and that is not my default, but I learned that, and I think I learned that first at Flagler,” Pierce said.
Pierce also pointed to the importance of listening to others, observing different perspectives, and learning to work alongside his fellow students, skills he has carried with him throughout his career.
That perspective also shapes how Pierce reflects on the transformation of Passport Services. While the online renewal system has become a major milestone, he said the accomplishment extends far beyond the technology itself.
“What makes me the proudest, and it's not just the online renewal system, it's the large-scale transformation we've gone through as an organization to improve our processes internally, to remove manual steps, to become much more efficient,” Pierce said.
And the work is far from over.
Looking ahead, Pierce said Passport Services hopes to continue bringing more services online while giving Americans the ability to complete more of the process from the convenience of their homes. At the same time, maintaining security remains a central priority.
“There’s so much potential, so much more we can do and so much more we’re going to do,” Pierce said. “So, I am just excited to give Americans a great experience.”
For Pierce, that experience carries particular weight because a passport may be the only interaction many Americans ever have with the State Department.
“Most Americans will have no interaction with the State Department outside of the passport process,” Pierce said. “So, we want to make sure that process is smooth for everyone.”
The opportunity to make that kind of impact is what has kept Pierce committed to a career in public service.
“I think that it's very rewarding to me to serve the American people, to be in a career that has a real impact not only on the experience of Americans each and every day, but also in how Americans look at their government and the trust that they have in us to deliver,” Pierce said.
As a Flagler student who once thought he knew exactly where his future would lead, Pierce's own career has instead been shaped by opportunities and challenges he could not have planned for.
His advice to current Saints is to embrace those moments.
“What I'd say is that you can do it too. Anybody can do it,” Pierce said. “Just take those opportunities. Don't let opportunities pass you by. Try to do the hard thing. Do something outside your comfort zone because you never know what you're going to learn from that and what that'sgoing to do in the future.”
