[Jgfamembers] Partnership for Public Service

[Marjorie Alfs]

Honoring the Stars of Government

By Stephen Barr
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; Page D04 Washington Post

The Oscars are over. It's time to pick up the red carpet and move on 
to the Sammies.
Nominations for the 2007 Service to America Medals, presented 
annually to honor government employees for their achievements and 
commitment to federal service, are being accepted at the nonprofit 
Partnership for Public Service.


The deadline for submitting nominations, at 
http://www.servicetoamericamedals.org, is March 8. The medals, which 
are presented at a gala dinner, are accompanied by cash prizes -- 
from $3,000 to $10,000.
Unlike the stars of the silver screen, most federal employees work 
behind the scenes and rarely on camera. Previous medal winners 
include the Federal Trade Commission team that created the National 
Do Not Call Registry, a federal scientist leading the effort to 
prepare for a catastrophic flu pandemic, and an Internal Revenue 
Service employee responsible for the e-file system that speeds tax 
refunds.
Nicole Nelson-Jean of the Energy Department won the award in 2004, 
when she was 28, for leading a U.S. delegation to negotiate an 
agreement with Russian officials to help secure Russian nuclear 
weapons. She went on to serve as director of the Energy Department's 
Asia office in Tokyo and currently heads the department's North and 
South American threat-reduction office.
Winning the award, she said, renewed her appreciation for government 
service and has brought her opportunities to speak up for public 
service. "It is an unfortunate image of federal workers, or the civil 
service, that you get stuck in a job that is bureaucratic, and not 
fun, and that you don't meet interesting people," Nelson-Jean said. 
"That is so untrue. It is so not that."
The partnership was founded by businessman Samuel J. Heyman in 2001 
to call attention to the importance of federal service and to help 
improve the way the government works. Max Stier serves as the 
partnership's president and chief executive.
The group recently received a $4 million grant from the Annenberg 
Foundation to finance two projects over the next four years.
Stier said the partnership will launch the Walter and Leonore 
Annenberg Federal Leadership Institute, and the Walter and Leonore 
Annenberg Public Service Speakers Bureau this year. The late Walter 
H. Annenberg was an ambassador to London, and Leonore Annenberg was 
the U.S. chief of protocol during the Reagan administration.
The leadership institute will focus on mid-level federal supervisors 
and help build their management skills, while the speakers bureau 
will send federal employees to college campuses to talk up government 
careers.
The 2007 winners of the Service to America Medals will be honored at 
a Washington gala in September. Campbell Brown, a NBC News anchor and 
correspondent, will be the master of ceremonies, the partnership said.
-- 

Marjorie M. Alfs
Campus Coordinator Stanford in Washington/
John Gardner Public Service Fellowship Coordinator
Haas Center for Public Service
Stanford University
562 Salvatierra Walk
Stanford, CA  94305-8620
Phone:  (650) 725-2870
Fax:  (650) 725-7339
E-mail:  mmalfs at stanford.edu

http://haas.stanford.edu
Stay informed! All information about Haas Center Public Service 
Fellowships is distributed through our listserv. To subscribe, send a 
message to majordomo at lists.stanford.edu with "subscribe service4all" 
in the body of the message.

>




                           
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.lmi.net/pipermail/jgfamembers/attachments/20070227/37bbdb58/attachment.html