Federal Employee of the Year Medal Recipients
This medal recognizes a federal employee whose professional contributions exemplify the highest attributes of public service and is accompanied by a $10,000 monetary award.
Lynne Meryl Mofenson—2012 Recipient
Position: Branch Chief, Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal AIDS Branch
Agency: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health
Location: Rockville, Maryland
Achievement: Played a pivotal role in preventing the AIDS epidemic among children by studying ways to prevent mother-to-child transmission.
Paul A. Hsieh—2011 Recipient
Position: Research Hydrologist
Agency: U.S. Geological Survey
Location: Menlo Park, California
Achievement: Provided critical scientific information to convince federal officials that the containment cap on a ruptured deepwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was working, thereby helping end the environmental disaster.
Pius Bannis—2010 Recipient
Position: Field Office Director, Haiti
Agency: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Location: Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Achievement: Expedited the immigration process to quickly unite more than 1,100 Haitian orphans with their adoptive families in the United States following the devastating earthquake in January 2010.
Janet Kemp—2009 Recipient
Position: National Director, Suicide Prevention Program
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration
Location: Canandaigua, New York
Achievement: Established a national suicide prevention hotline for veterans, which has resulted in more than 3,000 immediate rescues.
Richard Greene—2008 Recipient
Position: Director, Office of Health, Infectious Diseases and Nutrition
Agency: U.S. Agency for International Development, Bureau of Global Health
Location: Washington, D.C.
Achievement: Designed and launched the President’s Malaria Initiative, which has provided potentially life-saving services to more than 25 million vulnerable people.
Dr. Douglas R. Lowy and Dr. John T. Schiller—2007 Recipients
Position: Laboratory Chief (Lowy) and Senior Investigator (Schiller), Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, National Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Research
Agency: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health
Location: Bethesda, Maryland
Achievement: Made discoveries that led to the development of a vaccine for the virus that causes a majority of cervical cancers worldwide.
Dr. Nancy Cox—2006 Recipient
Position: Director, Influenza Division
Agency: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Achievement: Leading domestic and international efforts to prepare for a flu pandemic.
Orlando Figueroa—2005 Recipient
Position: Deputy Associate Administrator for Programs, Science Mission Directorate
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Location: Washington, D.C.
Achievement: Led the development of the Mars Exploration Rover project.
Robert F. Clifford—2004 Recipient
Position: Supervisory Special Agent / Legal Attaché
Agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation
Location: Athens, Greece
Achievement: Led investigation that resulted in the conviction of more than a dozen leaders of the “November 17” Group—Europe’s most notorious and elusive terrorist group.
Stephen McHale—2003 Recipient
Position: Deputy Administrator
Agency: Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Achievement: On January 2, 2002, the Transportation Security Administration consisted of two people—and Stephen McHale was one of them. Over the next year, McHale helped grow TSA into an organization responsible for aviation security with more than 60,000 people—the largest mobilization of a new agency since World War II.
William L. Fleming and Ben H. Herren—2002 Recipient
Position: Fleming: Special Agent; Herren: Investigative Research Specialist
Agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
Achievement: Brought to justice two of the men responsible for the infamous 1963 bombing of an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, nearly 40 years after they had committed the crime.
The Service to America Medals are presented annually by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service to celebrate excellence in our federal civil service.
