While Donald Trump castigates federal employees as “rogue bureaucrats” and “deep state” operatives, and promises quick action to fire them if he again wins the presidency, actual government stories show the real deal.
Their accomplishments were on glittery display during a Kennedy Center gala last week, where the Service to America Medals (a.k.a. Sammies) celebrated the outstanding work of federal civil servants.
“They protect our health and safety, come up with innovative ways to benefit our country, and provide critical continuity across presidential administrations,” Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, told the black-tie gathering. “And they do it no matter who is in the Oval Office.” The Partnership sponsors the awards.
Stier didn’t mention former president Trump or his campaign pledge to reinstate Schedule F, an executive order Trump issued late in his first term to undercut the civil service by essentially allowing some feds to be replaced by political loyalists. The order was quickly revoked by President Joe Biden when he took office
But Stier’s message was clear.
During a phone interview, he said his gala call supporting “the merit-based and apolitical nature of the federal service” as essential to a strong American democracy was a reference to Trump’s order. “I think Schedule F would be a terrible upending of that tradition of professionalism and merit,” he added during the interview. But it’s not the only problem.
“The fact that we have 4,000 political appointees,” he said, “in my view is a vestige of the spoils system.”
The Sammies honor feds, and by extension the federal workforce, who make America better in many important ways. Here are their accomplishments:
Federal Employees of the Year: Nancy Alcantara, Shannon Rebolledo, Justin Uphold and the Packers Sanitation Investigation Leads Team in Chicago. Their 2023 Labor Department investigation uncovered extensive child labor violations involving 102 children, as young as 13, the Partnership said, doing “sanitation work at processing facilities, cleaning bone saws, skull splitters and other dangerous machinery during overnight shifts at 13 meat slaughterhouse plants in eight states.”
Recalling her “traumatic” slaughterhouse inspection during a phone interview, Alcantara said “it’s musty, it’s foggy, it’s wet, it’s cold.” On the floor were “the arteries, the veins, the internal organs of the animals,” said Alcantara, the director of enforcement for Labor’s Midwest Wage and Hour Division. The children, she added, were “coming in at night to clean all this. So, they’re walking into literally blood.”
As a result of this case, Labor changed its child labor investigation strategy, including greater use of simultaneous inspections at different plants. In fiscal 2023, investigators found almost 5,800 children employed illegally, an 88 percent jump since 2019.
Paul A. Volcker Career Achievement Medal: Christopher Mark, of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration in Pittsburgh. “A world-renowned expert, he’s credited with saving an untold number of miners’ lives” from falling mine roofs, according to the Partnership. A former teenage miner, who later earned a doctorate in mining engineering, “Mark developed software tools to help determine what size pillars to use, how much roof support to put in and how to evaluate horizontal stress. He created a mine roof rating scale now used globally, and he published more than 160 technical papers.”
Emerging Leaders Medal: Jerry Ma, director of emerging technology and chief AI officer for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in West Lafayette, Ind. Ma is a 27-year-old agency leader in developing AI tools to improve the lengthy, complex patent approval process. One tool, according to the Partnership, “an AI-powered search, goes beyond traditional keyword-based search methods to identify relevant information, and now processes thousands of searches per day.”
Management Excellence Medal: Amira Boland, formerly the Office of Management and Budget customer service lead in Washington. “During nearly six years and two administrations, Boland has used her platform at OMB to work with 38 High Impact Service Providers — federal entities that provide services to millions of Americans every year — to gather customer feedback and identify areas for improvement,” the Partnership said. “In 2022 and 2023, that led to streamlined Medicare enrollment, simplified online disaster assistance applications, and a new pilot program allowing eligible applicants to renew U.S. passports online.”
Science, Technology and Environment Medal: Marc Levitan and Long Phan and the Tornado Wind Loads Team of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg. They “created the world’s first tornado-resistant building codes, conducting groundbreaking research that will save lives and protect critical facilities like schools, hospitals and emergency centers from extensive property damage,” according to the Partnership.
Safety, Security and International Affairs Medal: Steve Calanog, Tara Fitzgerald, Pete Guria and the 2023 Maui Wildfires Emergency Response Team of the Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco. They led the removal of “tons of hazardous materials from the Maui wildfires while respecting local cultural norms and setting standards for federal response teams that followed,” according to the Partnership. That included developing a liquid mixture to decommission highly dangerous, damaged lithium ion batteries.
People’s Choice Award: Yan Ping (Judy) Chen and Jay D. Evans of the Agriculture Department in Beltsville, Md. Honeybee populations are in decline, which is a problem for humans. The buzzing insects “are vital to the world’s food supply, pollinating $18 billion worth of agricultural products in the United States every year, including 150 varieties of fruits, nuts and vegetables,” the Partnership said. Chen and Evans “revolutionized bee disease diagnosis and treatment, introducing cutting-edge technologies to detect virus pathogens and developing novel medicines to enhance bee health and prevent colony collapse.”
Speaking at the ceremony to the honorees and federal employees everywhere, Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, said, “Every day, you protect our homeland, our health, our environment, our economy, and so much more. We are grateful for your service and sacrifice, and that of your families.”