Ten senior executives from the VA received the presidential rank award. Jena Ardell / Getty Images
Award-winning VA leaders show the impact that federal employees can have serving the public
The presidential rank awards recognize outstanding senior government executives.
When Neil C. Evans, a senior technology leader at the Veterans Affairs Department, found out that he had won a presidential rank award, he was surprised that he recognized the very first name on the 236-person list of honored senior government executives.
“This summer I spent some time with one of my teenagers on a service trip in the Dominican Republic. And one of the other adult leaders on that trip was a guy named Jason Hafemeister, who's a good friend of mine…he's worked for the Department of Agriculture,” Evans said. “When I opened up the presidential rank award list, the number one person on that list — Jason Hafemeister. Neither of us knew it, but we were both somehow, months later, going to be recognized with the very same award in two entirely different departments.”
Senior leaders from 30 federal agencies were recognized as part of the most recent PRA class, an awards program that honors outstanding members of the senior executive service and whose winners are chosen by the president. Ten of the 2024 recipients are from VA.
The government executives honored from VA, in particular, demonstrate the impact that even a single federal employee can have on the public as well as the amount of work it takes to turn legislation and policy from words on a page into life-changing programs for veterans.
While Evans now is a senior executive, he started his career at VA as a primary care doctor. In fact, he still treats some patients who he started taking care of 20-plus years ago.
“One of the things that has been really important to me in leadership and in being a senior leader in the organization is the ability for me to stay connected with our mission on the front lines of care, while simultaneously being able to shape the direction that we go as an organization from an institutional perspective,” he said. “I think it’s a pretty amazing opportunity, and it's an important part of, in my mind, federal service — the ability to really have a connection directly to the mission delivery, even as a senior leader.”
Evans is the acting program executive director for electronic health record modernization, an initiative to streamline veteran health record sharing between VA and the Defense Department that has previously experienced technical challenges and cost overruns. He also is the chief officer of the Connected Care program that promotes the use of digital technology in VA health care.
According to Evans, there was a 13% increase during 2024 in VA telehealth usage compared with 2023, which equates to more than 2 million veterans receiving some portion of care in their homes and 10.5 million video health visits.
“We have a very large health care system. How do we connect health care providers in a meaningful way to veterans, to deliver care that's more convenient, care that provides better connections over time, care that is trusted and high quality,” he said. “It's a super fun mission to be driving our execution on, in my mind, a key part of how a modern health care system meets the needs of those who entrust their care into it.”
Phillip W. Christy, another VA PRA recipient, brings coffee and donuts if he is ever late to a meeting. He said the practice holds him accountable and is rooted in his time in the military.
That service motivated him to join the VA.
“The idea that I'd be able to continue on with my talents and serve veterans — my battle buddies, my foxhole buddies — and help them in their post-active duty times, it was just a great fit,” he said.
Christy is the deputy executive director in the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction. As he puts it, he’s responsible for how VA buys and builds things from conception to full operation.
“It could be IT, it could be services, it could be medical equipment, it could be gravestones. Everything that we buy at the VA falls underneath the [OALC],” he said.
Christy was integral in the contracting needed to implement the Community Care program, which offers health services to veterans through non-VA providers. The program has grown rapidly and provides health care to 2.8 million veterans, the Government Accountability Office reported in August.
“I don't know how cool it is to walk into an elementary class and say you helped establish a health care system, but it's a big deal,” he said.
Like Christy, Brianne Boyd Ogilvie has a personal connection to her work at the VA. Her husband was deployed while she was in law school.
“I saw a lot of the impact of the wars on him and his friends and his colleagues, so I was very drawn to VA’s mission,” she said. “I think we have the best mission in government, and I think anyone would say that in the VA.”
Ogilvie is the VA assistant deputy undersecretary for Policy and Oversight.
“In the VA, there's health benefits, there's cemetery benefits and there are other types of benefits. We oversee the other types of benefits,” she said. “Education, compensation, pension, insurance, loan guarantee — all the benefits that are available for many veterans who served our country.”
She received the PRA, in part, for helping to execute requirements in the 2017 Appeals Modernization Act, which overhauled the claims and appeals process for VA benefits.
“The law really changed the way that appeals are run in VA, and veterans who were waiting years and years and years for a decision on an appeal and some resolution, they were able to get a decision in a matter of a few months, and that really made a difference to them,” she said. “When I talk to attorneys who represent veterans now, and I hear about the improvements and how it's really made a huge difference for them, and they really like the way that the process is working now, and it's nice to know I had a hand in that.”
Lisa M. Pape
Lisa M. Pape had wanted to be a social worker since she was around 13 years old when she read a Reader’s Digest article about such a professional helping a blind person use a service dog. She was “hooked” on the VA, specifically, after an internship at one of its facility’s acute psychiatric units.
While she started as a clinical social worker, Pape has held numerous leadership positions at VA and currently is a senior advisor to the deputy undersecretary of Health.
“I started to realize that I could help so many more folks if I were in a higher level position, helping set policy that made sense at a broader level than what you can just do as a clinical provider,” she said. “That drove me to work on getting to a position that may be able to impact and affect change at a much broader level, and that was in the homeless programs.”
Pape said the “highlight” of her career is helping to institute a housing first policy at VA, which began in 2012. Under the policy, veterans are put into housing and then receive assistance with access to health care and support, and Pape's work on it played a significant role in her rank award .
“What we used to do was require people to go through treatment, get better, stop using drugs and alcohol, deal with any mental health issues, get on medications and then the reward was ‘you get a house,’ she said. “That just doesn't make sense. We can't ask people to be well before they get a house. It's a human right to have safe, affordable living.”
Last November, VA reported a 55.6% reduction in veteran homelessness since 2010. In celebrating the decrease, the department pointed to the housing first approach.
“I'm just so humbled to be recognized for the work I do,” she said. “I was so surprised, and just humbled and just grateful — I’m getting emotional — I'm just grateful that I could do what I get to do for veterans.”