2012 Service to America Medals Awarded

Winners of the 2012 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals awarded in September. The “Sammies,” as they are informally known, are considered among the most prestigious awards for U.S. civil servants. 

“In this political season, we see people again and again tearing down our government,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, which sponsors the awards. “We will never get what we want out of our government if we focus solely on its shortcomings and fail to celebrate its successes.” 

Here are the 2012 winners:  

2012 Federal Employee of the Year

Lynne Meryl Mofenson

Branch Chief, Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal AIDS Branch

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health

Rockville, Maryland

Achievement: Played a pivotal role in preventing the AIDS epidemic among children by studying ways to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

2012 Career Achievement Medal Recipient

James Cash

Chief Technical Advisor, Office of Research and Engineering

National Transportation Safety Board

Washington, D.C.

Achievement: For nearly three decades, has used his engineering expertise to extract information from airplane cockpit recorders and other devices to determine the causes of major transportation accidents, and once analyzed a quarter second of noise to help determine why a 747 exploded 12 minutes after takeoff.

2012 Call to Service Medal Recipient

Jacob M. Taylor

Physicist

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Gaithersburg, Maryland

Achievement: Came up with an original scientific theory that could lead to medical imaging in microscopic detail for better health care, while also developing innovative technology to allow greater quantities of data to speed across the Internet with less energy and at lower cost.

2012 Citizen Services Medal Recipient

Susan Angell, Mark Johnston and the Homeless Veterans Initiative Team

Executive Director, Veterans Homeless Initiative (Angell); Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs, Office of Community Planning and Development (Johnston)

Department of Veterans Affairs (Angell); Department of Housing and Urban Development (Johnston)

Washington, D.C.

Achievement: Led an interdepartmental program that reduced veterans homelessness by 12 percent in one year as part of an ambitious national goal of finding shelter for all veterans by 2015. 

2012 Homeland Security Medal Recipients

Nael Samha and Thomas Roland, Jr.

Program Manager, Office of Technology (Samha) and Program Manager, Office of Field Operations (Roland)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Alexandria, Virginia

Achievement: Created a smartphone application that allows customs and border agents in the field to access law enforcement databases in real time, which has led to enforcement actions against more than 450 drug traffickers, weapons smugglers, illegal aliens and potential terror suspects since March 2010.

2012 Justice and Law Enforcement Medal Recipient

Louis Milione and the Operation Relentless Team

Special Agent and Group Supervisor

Drug Enforcement Administration

Washington, D.C.

Achievement: Led a high-stakes federal undercover investigation spanning three continents that resulted in the arrest and conviction of the "Merchant of Death," the world's most notorious arms trafficker.

2012 Management Excellence Medal

Elliott B. Branch

Deputy Assistant Secretary, Acquisition and Procurement

Department of the Navy

Washington, D.C.

Achievement: Through savvy acquisition and procurement, ensures our warfighters have the right equipment when they need it, at the best possible value for the American taxpayer.

2012 National Security and International Affairs Medal Recipient

Charles Scoville

Chief, Amputee Patient Care Service

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

Bethesda, Maryland

Achievement: Enables combat amputees to lead active lives and potentially return to duty, through an internationally recognized rehabilitation program that uses a novel sports medicine approach.

2012 Science and Environment Medal Recipient

Neal S. Young

Chief of the Hematology Branch, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institut

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Achievement: Saves lives through cutting-edge research and treatments for patients with bone marrow failure diseases, including the rare and once deadly blood disorder known as aplastic anemia.