Every year about this time, some of the nation’s movers and shakers, its most prominent philanthropists and visionaries, people who still genuinely believe that good government can be something more than a punch line, put on their black ties and tails or most elegant cocktail dresses and headed to what might be, in this era of hyper-cynicism, something of an anomaly. It’s the Partnership for Public Service’s Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal Award Ceremony, affectionately known as The Sammies.
THE RED CARPET
Winning—earning, more accurately—one of those Service to America Medals, is no easy task. If you’re a political appointee, forget it. These awards are about those men and women, those civil servants, who go to work every day across the United States with absolutely no fanfare and put their hearts, souls, minds, and plain grit to work. Day, after day, after day. The products of their persistence, patience, intellect, and innovative spirit are worth celebrating. And that’s what last night was about.
Last evening, nine medals were awarded, for achievements related to Security and International Affairs, for answering the Call to Service, for achievement over the course of a career in government service, for Management Excellence and Homeland Security and Law Enforcement, among others.
THE RIGHT STUFF
Recognized was FBI’s Kirk Yeager. Kirk’s the FBI’s bomb forensics expert. He’s the best that there is when it comes to deciphering the infinitesimal clues that betray the origin of bombs and the profiles of the bombers so the Feds can track ‘em down. Think of any recent bombing incident, and Kirk’s probably been involved. “Yeager has assisted with virtually every high-profile bombing of the past several years. After the terrorist bombings in March, he aided authorities in Brussels. In 2014, he led the effort to counter a bomb threat posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He was the FBI’s lead explosive scientist for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the attempted 2010 Times Square bombing in New York and the 2009 case of the underwear bomber arrested in Detroit.”
Kirk’s a chemist. He’s an engineer. He’s a teacher. What Kirk learns, Kirk shares, and he equips other Federal agents and agencies with a little bit of his expertise so that, together, they can keep all of us safer. According to Deputy Assistant Director Alice Isenberg, FBI Laboratory Division, “Yeager’s work has saved the lives of countless U.S. civilians, law enforcement personnel and military troops . . . .” That’s great government service. And save but for the Sammies, you’d have never known about it.
A VERITABLE CYBER HONEY BADGER
Cybersecurity is front page, above the fold, headlines news today, because cyberspace is where a lot of the criminal action is, and so companies are spending billions of dollars trying to protect information and keep damns, railroads, cellphones . . . your Tesla . . . running. That’s where the U.S. Secret Service’s own Boy Wonder comes in. He’s Tate Jarrow, a relatively young man who crawls around the darker corners of the world wide web to bring cyber-crooks to justice.
Jarrow’s colleague Special Agent in Charge Kenneth Pleasant describes Jarrow like this: “’very unassuming and very humble, but once you turn him loose, he is a pit bull. He has the ability to step into cases, dig deep and track things down quickly.’” Not too long ago, Jarrow went to work on behalf of some 100 million people, victims of “the largest single theft of customer data from a U.S. financial institution in history.” Jarrow led the Secret Service, collaborated with the FBI, “followed hundreds of leads, obtained authorization to examine servers domestically and overseas, traced numerous illicit business dealings and followed the flow of tens of millions of dollars.” And that’s just one of the reasons he was recognized last night. Wait until you read about the other one!
AND THEN THERE’S . . .
I could write about this all day. That’s only a few of the details of two of the nine winners. Take a few moments today to read their stories, consider their contributions, and resurrect your hope that there are many, many great people out there working in civil service, true civil servants, who are examples for all of and who rightly deserve our warm congratulations and thanks.
