And the federal employee of the year is… someone who quit in protest
It should say something about the whiplash the Trump administration has inflicted on the federal workforce that the person who received an MVP award for government service on Tuesday had resigned in protest from his federal job earlier this year.
'Sometimes you're defined by what you achieve and sometimes by what you decide not to do,' former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said while introducing David Lebryk, who was the top career official at the Treasury Department until he tangled with DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Geithner and Lebryk worked together at the Treasury Department early in their careers, but while Geithner went on to become a Democratic appointee, Lebryk, who started in government service as an intern in 1988 during the Reagan administration, worked mostly in nonpartisan anonymity for presidents of both political parties.
Lebryk quit in protest this year when Trump-affiliated officials tried to stop expected government payments to shut down USAID spending. It was one of the first major indications that the Trump administration would be playing outside the rulebook to upend the federal government.
Now, the world has essentially been turned upside down for federal workers, according to Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, the nonpartisan good government group that bestows the Service to America Medals — aka the Sammies, for Partnership founder Samuel J. Heyman.
'Indiscriminate cuts to federal agencies, personnel and programs and moves to politicize the hiring and firing of career civil servants are jeopardizing the effectiveness of our government and threatening our democracy,' Stier said at the awards ceremony.
There was a definite chill over this year's event, held at the recently opened Hopkins Bloomberg Center near the US Capitol.
No political leaders from the administration appeared onstage or were evident at the event, and while Lebryk came on stage to accept his award, other honorees did not.
'The last thing we want to do is put our honorees at additional risk,' Stier said, as if being given the award would be a black mark for a public servant whom Trump might view as part of the deep state.
Lebryk was hailed as the type of nonpartisan official who makes the federal government work. In accepting his award, he told a respectful story about Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who worked in the first Trump administration.
They were trying to figure out how to get hundreds of millions of support payments out to Americans during the pandemic, a bipartisan effort that helped to stabilize the economy. Lebryk could tell similar stories going back to the Mexican peso crisis of the early '90s. He was in government for all of that but was never the center of attention.
'So much of what we do in the public sector goes unnoticed and unrecognized,' Lebryk said. 'In fact, most of my career was spent trying to be unnoticed.'
It's that sort of workaday public service that good government groups fear is in danger as the Trump administration looks to rework the federal workforce. The Sammies tried to showcase what's good in government today.
Kathleen Kirsch was honored for her work coordinating US efforts to help maintain the power grid in Ukraine through USAID, the foreign aid agency that is being dissolved by the Trump administration.
Dr. Laura Cheever, who recently retired, was honored for her work implementing and scaling AIDS treatment and prevention programs in the US and Africa that have saved millions of lives.
National Weather Service scientists were honored for developing a revolutionary heat alert system.
Luis Coronado Jr. and Matt Pierce helped create an online passport renewal system at the State Department.
Maya Bretzius was honored for her work improving IRS call centers and reducing call wait times. (The Trump administration has been working to drastically reduce the number people employed by the agency.)
Department of Health and Human Services officials were honored for negotiating prices with drug companies for Medicare, something made possible by a law passed during the Biden administration.
Renata Miskell and Linda Chero were honored for their work at Treasury cutting down on improper payments, saving the government billions of dollars.
Employees from the Small Business Administration's Office of Inspector General were honored for their work identifying and clawing back fraudulent Covid-19 loans.
Susan Xu, of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, helped develop better protective gear for firefighters.
Yakov Pachepsky and Moon Kim from the Agricultural Research Service were honored for developing technology to develop foodborne illnesses on farms and at factories.
Kyle Knipper, also of the Agricultural Research Service, is helping farmers in California use less water for their crops.
The list goes on. There were awards for developing the world's most powerful supercomputer to help ensure nuclear safety, creating satellites, responding to African Swine Flu, and prosecuting criminals.
While the Partnership for Public Service is a nonpartisan group and tries to appeal across the political spectrum, there were only two Republican presenters at the event. Joshua Bolten, who served as White House chief of staff under the George W. Bush administration, did not attend in person, but did record a video. Sean O'Keefe, who was NASA administrator during the Bush administration, introduced a group of honorees recognized for innovation.
Standing alongside O'Keefe was one of last year's honorees, Jerry Ma, who helped develop AI tools to streamline and improve the process of approving patents at the Patent and Trademark Office.
Ma told me he has since left government service and is working at a private AI company. Many civil servants are wondering if they should follow such a path.
That is something the Trump administration is hoping for. The White House has unveiled a new system to vet potential government workers for their knowledge of Trump's executive actions. Tucked into the Senate version of the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' on Capitol Hill is language that would make new hires either pay much more toward retirement or forfeit protections enjoyed by the professional civil service and instead become at-will employees who could in theory be fired for any reason, including politics.
Stier said the Sammies are one way to help make Americans understand what civil servants contribute.
'Our honorees accomplishments are a stark reminder of the services and benefits we will lose if civil servants continue to be traumatized and pushed out of government,' Stier said.
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