HUD EMPLOYEES HONORED WITH AWARDS RECOGNIZING ACHIEVEMENTS

• Details of Awards

WASHINGTON - Department of Housing and Urban Development employees around the nation were honored today with a series of awards in an Employee Appreciation Ceremony that was held to thank HUD staff for improving the Department's performance.

Three HUD officials received the federal government's highest awards for civil service managers, two of HUD's programs were honored with top academic and industry awards, a former Assistant Secretary was honored, and 12 teams of employees received internal awards from Secretary Andrew Cuomo.

The outside honors are the latest in a series that HUD has received under sweeping management reforms initiated by Cuomo in 1997 and implemented by the entire HUD staff. The HUD 2020 Management Reform Plan has drawn widespread praise from independent experts, as well as from President Clinton and Vice President Gore.

"Just a few years ago, our harshest critics said HUD should be abolished," Cuomo said. "You don't hear that anymore, because the talented men and women who work so hard at HUD have restored the public trust in this Department."

"Today HUD is back in business and serving the American people better than ever," Cuomo said. "Members of the HUD Team have transformed the Department and are helping to transform neighborhoods and improve the lives of families across this nation by creating homes, creating jobs and revitalizing communities. If I could meet individually with each person in this Department to express my gratitude for all they have done, I would say the same thing to every one: Thanks to you, HUD works."

Cuomo said the good work of HUD employees was the most important factor in winning enactment of the landmark $26 billion HUD budget for Fiscal Year 2000, which provides $1.5 billion more for HUD programs than the Department received in Fiscal Year 1999.

Those honored at today's ceremony were:

• Joseph F. Smith, General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration, who received the Presidential Rank Award; and Frank L. Davis, Director of the Office of Departmental Operations and Coordination, and David M. Gibbons, Acting Chief Financial Officer, who received Meritorious Executive Rank Awards. These awards, presented by the Office of Personnel Management, recognize the government's top civil service managers. Only 50 of the government's 6,700 Senior Executive Service employees received the Presidential Rank Award this year, and just 200 received the Meritorious Executive Rank Award.

• The Office of Community Planning and Development's Continuum of Care program, which helps homeless Americans get housing and become self-sufficient. The program received the prestigious Innovations in Government Award from the Ford Foundation and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Cuomo recognized Deputy Chief of Staff Jacquie Lawing, CPD Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs Fred Karnas, and Director of the Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs John Garrity for their leadership in attaining the award.

• The Real Estate Assessment Center, which will receive a Technology Leadership Award from Government Executive Magazine for its National Property Inspection System.

• Elizabeth K. Julian, former Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity and former Secretary's Representative for the Southwest, who recently left HUD.

• Twelve HUD teams for their work in improving HUD's products and services. The teams are: Community Planning and Development/Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Front-End Review Task Force; Procurement Team; Model Building Codes Working Group; Northern Plains Office of Native American Programs Team; Philadelphia Welfare-to-Work Team; Boston Housing Authority Civil Rights Enforcement Team; Multifamily Accelerated Processing Team; Multifamily Tenant Characteristics System Team; Income Verification Task Force/Tenant Assessment Subsystem Project Team; Team 2000; the Office of Multifamily Housing Assistance Restructuring Launch Team, and the Mortgagee Review Team.

Content Archived: January 20, 2009