Finalists for the 2024 government service ‘Oscars’ unveiled

Sammie Tafoya, a foreign service officer assigned to Haiti, said she didn’t know what the State Department was when her African history professor encouraged her to apply to work there. 

“Whenever I wrote for his class, he said…‘I think what you are looking for — the idea of being able to push change and to be able to write to inform the people that have power to make policies — there's actually an agency for that. It's the State Department. It’s the Foreign Service,’” she said. 

Tafoya is one of 25 finalists announced Monday for the Partnership for Public Service’s 2024 Service to America Medals. Nicknamed the Sammies after the award’s namesake, Samuel J. Heyman, who founded the nonpartisan organization, the program has been around since 2002 and honors excellence and innovation in the career federal service. 

The finalists will be recognized at a reception on Thursday, and winners will be announced ahead of an awards ceremony on Sept. 11 at the Kennedy Center. 

Tafoya is a contender in the emerging leaders category, which recognizes federal employees under the age of 35. She led a policy to revoke visas for Haitians involved in criminal activity and human rights abuses as well as contributed to sanctions packages and a U.N. resolution to impose penalties against individuals undermining peace and stability in the country. 

“We’ve done everything from advocating for U.S. businesses that are being bribed, being mistreated by officials in Haiti to ones that are trying to keep their businesses alive or keep imports coming into the country, and it’s very difficult circumstances,” she said. 

The U.S. military in March conducted an operation to improve the security of the embassy in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and evacuate non-essential personnel as gang violence worsens in the Caribbean country. 

Tafoya said she comes from a history of strong-willed women, particularly her mom, who was a nurse and single mother, and great-grandmother, who was a member of the Cherokee tribal council. That instilled in her a strong sense of justice, service and community, she said.

“Now that I’m here, I relate much more to my mom than I ever have in my life,” she said. “Just the idea of the service that you have to your community, for her it’s to her patients.” 

Jerry Ma — another finalist in the emerging leaders category, who is the director of Emerging Technology and chief artificial intelligence officer for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office — also said a parent influenced his decision to become a public servant. 

“My dad really wanted to be a physicist or engineer when he grew up, and due to the current educational regime at the time in China he was relegated to working on agriculture,” he said. “So if I were to have grown up in China, then I think my life path would also be hugely different in so many ways, including possibly not getting to do the things I really love and that I enjoy doing which, by and large, relate to technology.”

Ma said the USPTO is a “perfect home” for him because of his interests in software engineering, intellectual property and artificial intelligence. At the agency, Ma has developed new technology tools and spearheaded its approach toward using AI in the patent process. 

“I believe that technologists can have an outsized impact in making our public service and public administration more responsive to the needs of today, the needs of the 21st century,” he said. “By becoming a technologist in public service, I can essentially do my little bit to help reverse this asymmetry between public sector and private sector tech capabilities, which thereby furthers belief in government and our society and our way of life.” 

Kyle Gardiner — a fellow emerging leader finalist who is a senior policy analyst at the Office of Management and Budget who played a leading role in streamlining government forms, especially for public benefits — gave much of the credit for this recognition to his colleagues. 

“Nothing in government is ever done by one person. It's always done by like, literally at a minimum, dozens of people. And so there's a definite sense of humility. It's an honor to have been considered for this and to be a finalist, but at the same time, I'm just so aware of and appreciative of all of the other folks who have worked with me on this initiative,” he said.   

“Every federal form has to come through our office for review and approval. I try to put myself in the shoes of somebody who may be in need and may be experiencing challenges or barriers outside of simply trying to complete this form," he added, "and trying to think about what are the ways — either from a design perspective or from a policy perspective — that we can simplify or sort of streamline the ability for this person to be able to demonstrate their eligibility for the program.”

The Partnership for Public Service received more than 530 nominations for this year’s Sammies from supervisors, supervisees, colleagues and friends who wrote about an individual’s or team’s work. 

The other categories are: Paul A. Volcker career achievement (which honors an individual with a federal career of 20 or more years); Management Excellence; Safety, Security and International Affairs; Science, Environment and Technology.

Other finalists include:

• Thaddeus A. Ryba Jr., a general engineer for the Air Force, who played a significant diplomatic and scientific role in international negotiations to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria and Libya. 
• Mike Schmidt, who is the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology program office for implementing the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. 
• EPA’s 2023 Maui Wildfires Emergency Response Team, which oversaw the removal of tons of hazardous materials in Hawaii. 

A full list can be found here. 

Monday’s announcement of the Sammies finalists kickstarts Public Service Recognition Week, which since 1985 has honored federal, state, county, local and tribal employees during the first full week of May. 

Winners will be selected by a committee of leaders in business and government, including Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla. and longtime PBS NewsHour reporter Judy Woodruff. 

But Ma said material rewards aren’t what’s most important, noting his younger brother, who started an independent technology consulting business while in high school, made more money than him last year. 

“In industry, the way people get recognized now is stock grants, stock options, all this waterfall of money that comes your way if you have anything remotely to do with AI. I was conscious that I'd be giving that up and I wasn't sure when I was entering public service, sort of how do we motivate people to really give it their all and do their best,” he said. “And so when I came to the PTO, I started realizing that a lot of the motivation that folks across the government had is really purely intrinsic. You go into these organizations, and you see top-tier talent, the best of the best.”