[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8714-8716]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I spoke on the 
floor about two of the outstanding Federal workers at the National 
Institutes of Health and I indicated at the time that I would be 
speaking periodically about other Federal workers who are doing 
extraordinary things on behalf of the American taxpayer. People wonder 
where their tax dollars go; I would like to provide a few examples.
  As I said at the time, ``Government workers guard our borders; 
protect us from terrorists; treat our wounded veterans; dispense Social 
Security checks to our retirees; find cures for diseases; guide the 
Nation's air traffic; explore the tiniest particles and the vast 
expanse of outer space; ensure our air is safe to breathe, our water is 
safe to drink, and our food is safe to eat; support our servicemen and 
women in harm's way; and promote our interests and ideals abroad. Who 
does the government work for? Government Works for America.''
  The Partnership for Public Service announced the finalists for the 
2015 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, also known as the 
``Sammies,'' last month during Public Service Recognition Week. As the 
Partnership notes, ``Federal employees are responsible for many 
noteworthy and inspiring accomplishments that are seldom recognized or 
celebrated. The Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals highlight 
excellence in our Federal workforce and inspire other talented and 
dedicated individuals to go into public service.''
  Also last month, on May 5, the Washington Post, citing an Office of 
Personnel Management--OPM--exit survey of senior government managers 
who have retired or moved to other, nonfederal jobs, reported that the 
single biggest factor for leaving is the ``political environment'', 
which was blamed as a contributing factor ``to a great extent'' or ``to 
a very great extent'' by 42 percent of the individuals surveyed. The 
article, by Post columnist Joe Davidson, quoted Brian M. Kent, a 
retired senior-level Federal scientist, who said, ``Expect to be 
overworked, undercompensated and mistreated by both parties on the 
Hill, who do not appreciate the value of our expertise, our dedication 
and our talents.''
  Congress and the American people need to realize that the Federal 
workforce is a crucial asset. There are some people who dislike 
government so much that they want to demonize and demoralize the 
workforce and deter young people from considering a career in public 
service. That is counterproductive. Find and remove the bad apples--
yes, but acknowledge that they are few and far between. Overwhelmingly, 
Federal workers are hard-working and patriotic Americans. Rather than 
denigrate them, we should treat them with respect in acknowledging 
their service to our Nation.
  One way to acknowledge that service is through the Sammies. I am 
proud that so many of the finalists this year work and/or live in 
Maryland, spread across several agencies and several of the award 
categories. I would like to mention a few today.


                      Dr. Gretchen K. Campbell and
                            Dr. Ronald Ross

  The mission of the National Institute of Standards & Technology, 
NIST, which is headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD, is to ``promote U.S. 
innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement 
science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic 
security and improve our quality of life''. NIST's weights and measures 
services, a job assigned to the Federal Government in the Constitution, 
provide the basis for the fairness and efficiency of sales. These 
services underpin the efficiency of about one-half of the U.S. economy, 
or about $7 trillion of the U.S. gross domestic product--GDP. Eighty 
percent of global merchandise trade is influenced by testing and other 
measurement-related requirements of regulations and standards. U.S. 
companies increasingly depend on NIST to help ensure access to global 
markets that create new business and jobs.
  Gretchen K. Campbell is a physicist at NIST and is a finalist in the 
2015 ``Call To Service'' Medal. This medal recognizes a Federal 
employee whose professional achievements reflect the important 
contributions that a new generation brings to public service. We are 
all familiar with electronics. Now, scientists like Dr. Campbell are 
exploring a new frontier--a circuitry system that uses the flow of 
atoms rather than electrons that may lead to a wide range of future 
technological advances. Dr. Campbell, who is just 35, is a pioneer and 
intellectual leader in this new and theoretical field of physics known 
as atomtronics, and has conducted a series of seminal experiments that 
show its promise and possibilities.
  Using light to control matter, Dr. Campbell created the first 
controllable atomtronic circuit in 2011 by moving ultra-cold atoms 
through a wire made of light--just as electrons flow through a metal 
wire. She added a permeable barrier to this circuit, also made of 
light, to serve as the control element, much as a transistor can 
control the current in an electronic circuit.
  Just as electronic devices manipulate the flow of electrons, 
atomtronic devices manipulate the flow of atoms, which are made up of 
electrons, protons, and neutrons. Since atoms have properties that are 
very different from electrons--they do not have charged particles, for 
instance--atomtronic devices have the potential to go beyond the 
capabilities of electronics.
  Atomtronics will not supplant electronics, but may offer new kinds of 
functions and applications. An atomtronic circuit, for example, could 
be useful in applications such as rotation sensors, improving the 
functioning of gyroscopes used to stabilize spacecraft and airplanes. 
Atomtronic circuitry may be able to perform quantum computations that 
could offer a significant leap forward in computing speed, performance, 
and capability and lead to the next generation of technology that will 
enable smaller and cheaper devices.
  Dr. Ronald Ross, a Fellow at NIST, is a finalist for the 2015 
Homeland Security & Law Enforcement Medal. This medal recognizes a 
Federal employee for a significant contribution to the Nation in 
activities related to homeland security and law enforcement. Mr. Ross, 
called the ``rock star of cybersecurity'' by his colleagues, developed

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and implemented a state-of-the-art system to assess risks and protect 
Federal computer networks from cyberattacks, helping secure information 
critical to the Nation's national and economic security. Most recently, 
Dr. Ross helped to establish the government-wide program for cloud 
security assessment and authorization.
  The Federal Government used to rely on a rigid checklist approach to 
securing computer networks, often ignoring changing threats and 
evolving technology, and not always distinguishing what information 
needed higher security and what data was of lesser importance. Dr. 
Ross, belying the image of a hidebound bureaucrat, designed the Risk 
Management Framework as a way for government agencies to decide how 
critical their various data sets are and to pick the right level of 
protection. With the framework Dr. Ross developed, agencies can go 
through an assessment process and decide where to concentrate resources 
and tighten security.
  The impact of Dr. Ross's work includes reducing the cost of 
implementing cybersecurity controls and demonstrating compliance with 
multiple security requirements, and enhancing system interoperability 
among Federal agencies. Dr. Ross and his team have worked with the 
General Services Administration, the Department of Defense, and the 
Department of Homeland Security to test and validate the risk framework 
unveiled earlier this year that will be used by cloud computing service 
providers, allowing them to host some of the Federal Government's most 
sensitive information. And as the principal architect of a new national 
testing program and infrastructure, Dr. Ross also has been 
collaborating with the National Security Agency to develop the first-
ever network of commercial testing laboratories capable of evaluating 
the security of information technology--IT--products.


     Robert Bunge, Michael Gerber, Mark Paese, and Gregory Zwicker

  The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration--NOAA--is 
headquartered in Silver Spring, MD. NOAA's mission is ``Science, 
Service, and Stewardship''. The agency attempts ``to understand and 
predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts; to disseminate 
that knowledge and information; and to conserve and manage coastal and 
marine ecosystems and resources''. NOAA's research, services, and 
products--ranging from daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings 
and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and 
supporting marine commerce--affect more than one-third of America's 
GDP.
  Robert Bunge, Michael Gerber, Mark Paese, and Gregory Zwicker of the 
National Weather Service's Wireless Emergency Alerts Team at NOAA are 
also finalists for the 2015 Homeland Security & Law Enforcement Medal. 
They have developed a fast and geographically targeted cell phone alert 
system, launched in 2012, for weather emergencies such as tornadoes, 
flash floods, and hurricanes that reaches millions of people, saving 
lives and preventing injuries. So far, the system has transmitted more 
than 13,000 warnings for the most dangerous types of severe weather to 
the cell phones of millions of people potentially in harm's way across 
the United States.
  While other weather alert systems have been in use for years, this 
new method of using mobile devices and targeting very precise 
geographic areas is a significant improvement. It took many years of 
coordination with the Federal Communications Commission, DHS, the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the major wireless 
telecommunications providers.
  Previously, weather emergency alerts from one of the 122 weather 
service offices around the country were emailed to the Washington, D.C. 
office and then forwarded to FEMA, which sent the alert to affected 
counties using television and radio broadcast technology. Cellular 
companies could independently text the warning information to their 
cell phone customers in the affected county, but the system was slow 
and too broadly targeted. The new weather alert system structures the 
information into concise messages--90 or fewer characters--and uses 
geo-targeted data to broadcast the messages rapidly over cell phones 
only in the affected areas.
  The team worked with six of the largest cell phone companies to build 
the sophisticated technology needed to make the system work. They 
developed the infrastructure and protocol for the alerts, facilitated 
the decision-making for the weather alerts to be transmitted, and 
conducted extensive public awareness and educational programs. Mr. 
Bunge led the technical team, overseeing the software development, the 
data specialists, the coding, the host servers and other information 
technology needs, and helped create a system that targets the cell 
phone alerts to specific geographic locations. Mr. Gerber is a 
meteorologist and a specialist in how the weather service information 
is disseminated, and he played a critical role in making sure the right 
kind of weather alerts would be available and properly transmitted. He 
also is credited with convincing the wireless carriers to participate 
and make the needed investments. Mr. Paese handled many of the 
complicated management issues while Mr. Zwicker was involved in 
training some 2,000 weather forecasters in more than 122 offices around 
the country to use the system in coordination with Federal emergency 
management officials.
  Here's an example of how effective the new system is: on July 1, 
2013, a tornado obliterated a dome in East Windsor, CT, where 29 
children had been playing soccer. Seconds before the tornado struck, a 
cell phone alert prompted the camp manager to rush the children out of 
the dome and into an adjacent building, preventing injuries and quite 
possibly fatalities.


                           Dr. Hyun Lillehoj

  The Agricultural Research Service--ARS--is the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture's USDA chief scientific in-house research agency, with 
headquarters colocated here in Washington, DC and in Beltsville, MD. 
The agency's job is ``to find solutions to agricultural problems that 
affect Americans every day from field to table''. ARS conducts research 
to develop and transfer solutions to agricultural problems of high 
national priority and provide information access and dissemination to: 
ensure high-quality, safe food, and other agricultural products; assess 
the nutritional needs of Americans; sustain a competitive agricultural 
economy; enhance the natural resource base and the environment; and 
provide economic opportunities for rural citizens, communities, and 
society as a whole.
  Dr. Hyun Lillehoj, a senior research molecular biologist at ARS in 
Beltsville, is a finalist for the 2015 Career Achievement Medal. This 
medal recognizes a Federal employee for significant accomplishments 
throughout a lifetime of achievement in public service. Dr. Lillehoj 
has pioneered industry-leading research to improve the health of 
commercial poultry without the use of antibiotics, protecting consumers 
and making the U.S. poultry industry more competitive by saving it 
billions of dollars.
  There is growing concern over the widespread use of antibiotics in 
poultry and other food industries, which health experts say contributes 
to the development of drug-resistant bacteria. These so-called 
``superbugs'' infect hundreds of thousands and kill tens of thousands 
of Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention.
  During three decades as a molecular biologist at ARS, Dr. Lillehoj 
has helped mitigate the use of antibiotics in poultry, finding that 
certain food supplements, probiotics, and nutrients can replace 
antibiotics as an effective means of enhancing the immune system and 
fighting common parasitic diseases and bacterial infections. The USDA 
estimates that the poultry diseases Dr. Lillehoj is working to combat 
cause more than $600 million in losses in the United States and $3.2 
billion worldwide.
  Dr. Lillehoj has developed novel diagnostic and therapeutic products 
and discovered DNA markers for the genetic selection of disease-
resistant chickens, paving the way for breeding

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healthier chickens that will benefit both consumers and the Nation's 
$45 billion poultry industry. She has done this by creating one of the 
first gene libraries from commercial chickens and depositing more than 
55,000 individual gene sequences from this database into the public 
domain, providing other researchers with information that could lead to 
breeding poultry with superior resistance to parasites. She also has 
identified natural antimicrobial molecules that have anti-cancer 
properties and kill infectious parasites; discovered a second-
generation parasite vaccine with an improved protection profile over 
current vaccines; developed therapeutic antibodies that boost immunity 
for poultry; formulated health-promoting probiotics for veterinary use; 
and discovered organic, plant-derived herbal extracts and essential 
oils that fight infectious diseases affecting animals and humans. She 
is recognized as a world leader in understanding host-pathogen 
interactions of an avian parasite closely related to human malaria that 
is a major cause of disease affecting poultry and livestock. She also 
has done original research on a bacterium that is one of the most 
common causes of food-borne illness in the U.S. Her scientific 
breakthroughs are documented in 10 U.S. and international patents, more 
than 350 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 14 book chapters, and 230 
worldwide collaborations with academia, foreign governments and private 
industry. She has mentored more than 120 young scientists.
  Dr. Lillehoj embodies the American Dream. She is from South Korea. 
She came to the United States in 1969 after her father died, when she 
was just out of high school, and with just $200 in her pocket. At 
first, she wanted to be a cancer researcher, but her focus soon turned 
to immunology and she received a government scholarship. After she 
received her Ph.D., she went to work at the National Institutes of 
Health. USDA successfully recruited her in 1984, and she has been at 
ARS ever since. The government's investment in her has paid enormous 
dividends.
  These are just a few of the Nation's talented, creative, dedicated, 
and hard-working Federal employees. I ask my colleagues and all 
Americans to join me in congratulating them on their successes and 
thanking them for their public service. We are a strong and prosperous 
Nation, in part, because of our Federal workforce. We cannot take it 
for granted.

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