GSA celebrates 50th anniversary

The General Services Administration has been around for 50 years, and for 50 years, Rosamond Cardreon and Nancy Potter have been around the General Services Administration.

As GSA celebrated its golden anniversary last week, Cardreon and Potter received honors for sticking with the agency since its inception, July 1, 1949.

"It's been a joy," says Cardreon. "I have enjoyed every minute of it."

Congress created GSA as the federal government's centralized procurement and property management agency to take advantage of the economies of scale Uncle Sam wielded in post-World War II America. By the time GSA celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1974, it had 38,000 employees and managed more than $11 billion in assets.

GSA has since shrunk to 14,000 employees-but manages more than $500 billion in assets and another $52 billion in federal procurement dollars each year.

Cardreon and Potter saw it all, from GSA's fledgling start-up to its bureaucratic heyday to its streamlined present. Potter was just 16 when she started earning money for her family and her college education by working as a clerk at GSA's predecessor, the Federal Works Agency, in Washington, D.C. Back then, she tapped out forms and letters on an old Remington typewriter. These days, as deputy director for budget at GSA, Potter has a Dell 486 and Lotus Notes for punching out memorandums to her staff of 25.

Back on the other side of the 1950s, Cardreon had recently left his post as first sergeant with an Army paratrooper division when he landed a 30-day temp job unloading rail cars in California for GSA.

Fifty years later, Cardreon has been a warehouseman, chief of the shipping department, assistant manager and supply officer. Most recently, Cardreon is a property utilization officer.

"Maybe one of these days, I'll just hang it up," says Cardreon, who runs 10 miles and lifts weights five days a week.

GSA celebrated the half-century mark with a bash at the Ronald Reagan building in downtown Washington last week.