[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 135 (Thursday, October 7, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2055]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E2055]]



        HONORING RETIRING STAFF OF THE ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 7, 1999

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, October 1, 1999, I celebrated a 
final day of work with twenty-seven members of the Architect of the 
Capitol staff from the House Office Buildings. Of the twenty-seven 
employees leaving us, eighteen are my constituents. These valued 
employees are retiring under a buyout program developed earlier this 
year by the Architect of the Capitol and approved by the House 
Administration Committee, of which I am the Ranking Member. The buyout 
program has provided excellent retirement opportunities, which at the 
same time creating new avenues of advancement for the staff of the 
Architect who continue with us.
  The staffers retiring today have an average of twenty-nine years of 
service each, and together, they have provided 798 years of service. 
The Architect of the Capitol fields a work force that is indispensable 
to us, and often labors unnoticed in the shadows, or more aptly, in the 
basement and tunnels of these buildings. Like public employees 
everywhere, they do some of the toughest jobs under the most adverse 
conditions in the country. They do it always with smiles and friendly 
greetings, and a job well done. These employees were never looking to 
get rich and they do not do it for public acclaim. They do their jobs 
and they do them well because they know we all rely on them. Lyndon 
Johnson understood this. He said of public service ``so much of what we 
achieve as people depends upon the caliber and the character of the 
civil service.''
  I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you on behalf of 
all my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican. Farewell to those 
employees leaving us today, we will miss them and we thank them for 
their contribution to our daily lives. They are: Lewis Bowles, Jr., 
John Callahan, Jr., Douglas Colbert, Ernest Cook, Margaret Donnelly, 
Lillie Drayton, Alvin Gayan, Hubert Gray, David Ingram, Solomon 
Landers, Earl Lemings, Carroll Lumpkins, Jr., Norman Lynch, James 
Mattingly, Luke Mattingly, William McWilliams, Bernard Merritt, Robert 
Merryman, Walter Montgomery, Allen Nichols, Talmadge Nowden, Anthony 
Pilkerton, James Quade, Robert Quade, Raymond Stager, George Stein, and 
Leonard Vanryswick.

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