While Donald Trump castigates federal employees as \u201crogue bureaucrats\u201d and \u201cdeep state\u201d operatives, and promises quick action to fire them if he again wins the presidency, actual government stories show the real deal.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey protect our health and safety, come up with innovative ways to benefit our country, and provide critical continuity across presidential administrations,\u201d Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, told the black-tie gathering. \u201cAnd they do it no matter who is in the Oval Office.\u201d The Partnership sponsors the awards.<\/p>\n
Stier didn\u2019t 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<\/p>\n
But Stier\u2019s message was clear.<\/p>\n
During a phone interview, he said his gala call supporting \u201cthe merit-based and apolitical nature of the federal service\u201d as essential to a strong American democracy was a reference to Trump\u2019s order. \u201cI think Schedule F would be a terrible upending of that tradition of professionalism and merit,\u201d he added during the interview. But it\u2019s not the only problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that we have 4,000 political appointees,\u201d he said, \u201cin my view is a vestige of the spoils system.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sammies honor feds, and by extension the federal workforce, who make America better in many important ways. Here are their accomplishments:<\/p>\n
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 \u201csanitation work at processing facilities, cleaning bone saws, skull splitters and other dangerous machinery during overnight shifts at 13 meat slaughterhouse plants in eight states.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recalling her \u201ctraumatic\u201d slaughterhouse inspection during a phone interview, Alcantara said \u201cit\u2019s musty, it\u2019s foggy, it\u2019s wet, it\u2019s cold.\u201d On the floor were \u201cthe arteries, the veins, the internal organs of the animals,\u201d said Alcantara, the director of enforcement for Labor\u2019s Midwest Wage and Hour Division. The children, she added, were \u201ccoming in at night to clean all this. So, they\u2019re walking into literally blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Paul A. Volcker Career Achievement Medal: Christopher Mark, of Labor\u2019s Mine Safety and Health Administration in Pittsburgh. \u201cA world-renowned expert, he\u2019s credited with saving an untold number of miners\u2019 lives\u201d from falling mine roofs, according to the Partnership. A former teenage miner, who later earned a doctorate in mining engineering, \u201cMark 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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, \u201can AI-powered search, goes beyond traditional keyword-based search methods to identify relevant information, and now processes thousands of searches per day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Management Excellence Medal: Amira Boland, formerly the Office of Management and Budget customer service lead in Washington. \u201cDuring nearly six years and two administrations, Boland has used her platform at OMB to work with 38 High Impact Service Providers \u2014 federal entities that provide services to millions of Americans every year \u2014 to gather customer feedback and identify areas for improvement,\u201d the Partnership said. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201ccreated the world\u2019s 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,\u201d according to the Partnership.<\/p>\n
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 \u201ctons of hazardous materials from the Maui wildfires while respecting local cultural norms and setting standards for federal response teams that followed,\u201d according to the Partnership. That included developing a liquid mixture to decommission highly dangerous, damaged lithium ion batteries.<\/p>\n
People\u2019s 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 \u201care vital to the world\u2019s food supply, pollinating $18 billion worth of agricultural products in the United States every year, including 150 varieties of fruits, nuts and vegetables,\u201d the Partnership said. Chen and Evans \u201crevolutionized 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at the ceremony to the honorees and federal employees everywhere, Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, said, \u201cEvery 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While Donald Trump castigates federal employees as \u201crogue bureaucrats\u201d and \u201cdeep state\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}