FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 28, 2004

2004 SERVICE TO AMERICA MEDALS AWARDEES HONORED

Federal Employees from the FBI, State Department, Department of Energy, FEMA, NIST, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, and FTC Hailed as Public Service Heroes

Washington, D.C. – National leaders from government, business, Hollywood, and the media converged in the nation's capital on September 28, 2004 to honor the eight recipients of the 2004 Service to America Medals, which honor the finest achievements of federal employees across the country.

The awardees represent eight federal agencies:the FBI, State Department, Department of Energy, FEMA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Federal Trade Commission.

The 2004 Service to America Medal awardees are:

• Robert Clifford, the FBI agent from Charlotte, North Carolina who helped convict more than a dozen leaders of the “November 17” group – Europe's most notorious and elusive terrorist cell;
• Ambassador Prudence Bushnell from Falls Church, Virginia who guided the U.S. Embassy in Kenya through the 1998 bombings and was a leading voice for the nation in urging a response to the ethnic genocide in Rwanda;
• Nicole Nelson-Jean, a Department of Energy employee who, at 28 years of age, led a U.S. delegation to the Arctic Circle to negotiate an agreement with Russian officials to better secure Russia's nuclear weapons stockpiles;
• Brad Gair, a FEMA employee from Brooklyn, New York who oversaw the government's recovery efforts at Ground Zero after 9/11 and supervised other FEMA rebuilding work in the wake of multiple natural disasters;
• Dr. Deborah Jin, a National Institute of Standards and Technology physicist from Boulder, Colorado who created a new form of matter that may have the potential to improve the nation's energy efficiency;
• Stephen Browning from Sausalito, California who led U.S. efforts to help Iraqis rebuild their electrical infrastructure and acted as the Administrative head of multiple Iraqi ministries;
• The “Operation Kids for Cover” team led by Peter Darling from Newbury, Massachusetts which shut down an international drug smuggling ring using rented babies to smuggle cocaine in baby formula cans; and
• The FTC team led by Eileen Harrington from Kensington, Maryland who created the national “Do Not Call” registry, which has reduced the number of telemarketing calls for more than 60 million Americans.

“It is all too easy to overlook the important and daily contributions of the men and women in our federal workforce, but they are the heroes behind the headlines who do the nation's work,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. “We congratulate the 2004 Service to America Medals honorees for representing the very best in public service.”

“The Service to America Medals honor the finest achievements of federal employees, and their stories of service teach us valuable lessons about why government matters,” said Timothy B. Clark, editor and president of Government Executive.

The Service to America Medals were created in 2002 by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization committed to revitalizing federal government service, and the Atlantic Media Company (publisher of Government Executive, National Journal and The Atlantic Monthly).

Nominations for the 2005 Service to America Medals open today. Nominations must be submitted at www.servicetoamericamedals.org.

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© 2007 Partnership for Public Service