Maybe the third time’s the charm for President Donald Trump’s Department of Veterans Affairs.

Trump’s third pick for VA secretary, Robert Wilkie, won easy Senate confirmation on Monday. Wilkie, 55, has been the interim secretary since May. Trump fired his first choice, David Shulkin, five months ago. His second nominee, Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, withdrew his nomination amid allegations of questionable conduct.

At his confirmation hearings Wilkie said he intends to “shake up complacency” among the 360,000 employees of the VA with its $200 billion annual budget. The second-largest federal bureaucracy, it has struggled with long waits in providing treatment to millions of veterans.

Change is coming, and the VA must stop following the trends. It must get in front of the trends instead. Wilkie understands this.

“It is clear that the veterans population is changing faster than we realize,” he said in his opening statement before the Senate committee. “For the first time in 40 years, half of our veterans are under the age of 65. Of America’s 20 million veterans, 10 percent are now women. The new generation is computer savvy and demands 21st-century service — service that is quick, diverse and close to home.”

But seeing and declaring a plan of action is one thing; implementing it successfully is another.

For guidance and inspiration, the new VA secretary should take a page from the playbook of native Western Pennsylvanian Tom Ridge.

When he was on the U.S. House seat now occupied by Butler’s Mike Kelly, Congressman Ridge butted heads with entrenched state and federal bureaucracies — in particular the Federal Emergency Management Agency following a string of massive tornados raking his district in 1985; and an overreaching Pennsylvania Department of Natural Resources interfering with projects ranging from Lake Erie beach erosion to “protected wetlands” designations in industrial parks and Interstate median strips. Elected governor in 1994, Ridge broke up the DNR into two separate agencies — the departments of environmental protection, and conservation of natural resources — and limited the authority and jurisdiction of each.

Following the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, Ridge left the statehouse to create the Department of Homeland Security. He became the department’s first secretary in January 2003.

Ridge is credited with the largest reorganization of government agencies since the Truman administration, assembling a department out of more than 180,000 employees from a combined 22 agencies — including FEMA, an agency Ridge had chastised and helped reform nearly 20 years earlier.

Secretary Wilkie has a massive task ahead of him, but it can be accomplished. Massive bureaucracies in the past have been pulled apart and reassembled to become more efficient and more effective. The Pennsylvania DCNR/DEP, and U.S. departments of FEMA and Homeland Security are proof.

Approaching his 73rd birthday, Ridge probably has moved most of his career mountains. And he made it clear during the 2016 campaign he’s no friend of Trump.

Other than that, Ridge would be the perfect man for this job. But he’s not the man. Robert Wilkie is. Wilkie would do very well to study and even consult with Ridge about how best to accomplish his objective, for the good of the nation and its military veterans.