[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16330]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO TOBY HYMAN

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, Toby Hyman has become something of an 
institution in the Senate over the course of her 17 odd years of 
service in the Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment. I 
understand that she has consistently and tirelessly devoted herself to 
ensuring fairness for both Senate employees and their offices, helping 
them sort through anything from day-to-day concerns that arise to 
courtroom arguments to union disputes, even in the midst of an anthrax 
attack on her own office.
  Those who know her best say that she displays compassion for 
employers and employees alike, a deep understanding of employment law 
and conflict, and great skill resolving disputes and achieving fair 
outcomes for all involved parties. By all accounts, the Senate body is 
better today for her efforts, which is why her retirement is received 
with bittersweet, much deserved well-wishes for the future by her 
colleagues.
  Before her time here, Toby spent 20 years as a fine attorney at the 
prestigious Proskauer Rose firm in New York City. Prior to that, she 
served as the first female law clerk for the Honorable District Court 
Judge John F. Dooling, Jr. And prior to that, she was a fine young 
citizen of the great State of Massachusetts.
  Toby grew up in a family like so many in Boston. She is a proud 
product of Boston's public schools, including the Girls' Latin School 
in Roxbury, who excelled in her studies and earned admittance to the 
government program at Radcliffe College, from which she graduated magna 
cum laude. Toby then continued to impress her friends and peers at 
Harvard Law School, where she performed as an able editor of the 
Harvard Law Review and, once again, graduated with distinction.
  To afford these years of schooling, Toby simultaneously pursued a 
degree in Jewish Education from Hebrew College in order to earn money 
teaching in Hebrew schools. She wanted to give back to her community, 
pass on an education that she so enjoyed to the coming generation, and 
work with children, all while making a little money to sustain her 
during college. And so she made it happen. Pleased parents 
affectionately labeled one of her classes the ``Hebrew Sesame Street.''
  Service to others--standing up for fairness and justice--has been a 
common thread running through Toby's life. From her days back home in 
her native Massachusetts, to her career in New York City, to her visit 
to the Soviet Union in the late 1970s where she greeted oppressed 
Soviet Jews with encouragement and a helping hand, Toby has treated 
people with compassion and respect and has stood up for their rights 
and dignity. Most recently, during her time as an advocate for us all 
here in the Senate family, she worked with our offices to ensure a good 
and fair relationship between employers and employees.
  So it is no surprise that Toby intends for the next chapter of her 
life to involve volunteer work teaching young children. She will 
continue in the example she has set throughout her life and career as 
an educator, mediator, and advocate for fairness. I thank Toby for 
dedicating so many years of her life to service in the Senate and look 
forward to all that she has yet to accomplish--and wish her 
congratulations on a well deserved retirement.

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