Career Employees in the Spotlight

The winners -- dressed in tuxedos and sequins -- choked back tears, stammered thank-yous, and dedicated their awards to their colleagues and to world peace, just as they do at the Oscars. But the stars of last Wednesday's glittering tribute, the Service to America Medals, were career bureaucrats who perform for the government well outside the limelight.

An Internal Revenue Service employee was honored for facilitating online filing of federal tax returns. An Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawyer was tapped for fighting gender bias on Wall Street. A Foreign Service officer was commended for organizing elections in Iraq, where he had to convince the men that they could not also vote in place of their wives.

Among the political celebrities who handed out awards were National Intelligence Director John D. Negroponte, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). The most intimidating figure in the Andrew H. Mellon Auditorium, according to Wolf Blitzer, the evening's emcee, was Mark W. Everson, commissioner of the IRS.

The nine winners were chosen from more than 500 nominees for their "contributions to critical missions of the federal government."

Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten captured the spirit of the dinner best when he said: "Here we are at a Washington dinner hall, everybody dressed in formal attire, lots of politicians and political appointees, and not a single one of the politicians and political appointees is getting an award. It's going to the people who really deserve it."

-- Laura Blumenfeld

STEVEN BICE

Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention

Homeland Security Medal

"I probably drive my family crazy. When I look at a map, I see all the possibilities of bad things that could happen."

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