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A Public Servant to the Last

"As long as I'm here," the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Ed McGaffigan told colleagues, "I'm going to be dedicated to making you all improve." (By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)

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"The odds are very, very stacked against me," he said. "But I'm going to remain commissioner as long as I'm of use."

Jeff Sharkey, McGaffigan's chief of staff, calls his boss "one of my heroes."

"He invests his entire character in this mission," he said, pausing to compose himself. "You want to do your very best for him."

A few weeks ago, McGaffigan asked his staff to help him write his obituary.

Filled with detailed instructions and proud anecdotes, "it shows what's important to him," Sharkey said. "He continues to be someone who shows others the way, . . . how to deal with things honorably, with grace and with dignity."

Today, Ed McGaffigan and his daughter will drive together to work. He's showing her the ropes, because too soon, Meggy McGaffigan will be working there alone.

"It's one of those things that goes unsaid," she said. Anyway, she knows what her father would tell her.

"Just go on to work like any other day," she said. "Just go on."

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