Sammies bring recognition to high achieving feds

The 2021 federal "Sammies" prizes, officially the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America awards, were announced last week, to be followed up with a Monday, Nov. 1 online celebration of the awardees, public servants who have made a difference.

Kicking off the events honoring these federal game changers, on Thursday, Oct. 28, the nonprofit good government group the Partnership for Public Service (PPS) hosted an awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington. More than 300 attended, according to PPS, including members of Congress, executive branch secretaries and deputy secretaries, business and nonprofit leaders and others.

A range of leading federal employees were chosen. Of particular note over this last, extremely difficult pandemic year—and perhaps not surprisingly, this top award goes to those feds who massively helped curb COVID’s deadly wrath: Two feds—Dr. Barney S. Graham and Kizzmekia S. Corbett, both of the National Institutes of Health / Vaccine Research Center (VRC).  Before the pandemic struck, the two already had been working with the private firm Moderna on vaccines against coronaviruses. Their work helped form the foundation for Moderna’s product as well as other vaccines now being used all over the world to fight the death and severe illness caused by the disease. Dr. Graham is the director of the NIH unit.

Also recognized for the highest achievement in the battle against COVID, Dr. Gary Gibbons and Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable claimed the COVID-19 Response Medal. Gibbons serves as director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), while Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable holds the post of director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). The two received their accolades for their extraordinary work developing programs to make sure underserved communities were able to participate in COVID-19 testing and vaccine clinical trials. 

The Emerging Leader Medal was given to Callie Higgins, an employee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Higgins has done extraordinary things by “creating groundbreaking technology to detect and remedy microscopic flaws that threaten the safety and reliability of 3D-printed products,” as PPS described her accomplishments.

The Management Excellence Medal was extended to three feds, Michelle Daniels, Charles D. Eldridge and Ryan E. Jones—all of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The group created a new and innovative housing voucher program, one that provides assistance for rental costs and other support to 18- to 24-year-olds who are aging out of foster care. 

Another award—named for Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Chairman under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan—was passed to Evan Kwerel, of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), for his pioneering work on allocating public airwaves. Kwerel’s innovations in the distribution of these key frequencies earned him the Volcker prize, and according to a release in excess of $200 billion for the federal government. 

Max Stier, PPS’s president and CEO, spoke to the importance of recognition for great work that the Sammies bring to feds.“Letting employees know their work is valued and giving the public a chance to see them in a different light is a powerful way to make our government better,” he said.

For the full list of Sammy awardees, click here.