Awards program spotlights the federal government’s ‘unsung heroes’ at a critical time for public service

One of TenaVel T. Thomas’ childhood heroes growing up in the U.S. Virgin Islands was Neil Armstrong. Now, they share something in common. Both are recipients of the Arthur S. Flemming award, which has honored outstanding federal employees for 75 years. 

“The thought that my name is now on a list with his was extremely overwhelming,” she said. “When I called my dad, and I told him about the award and started to tell him about previous recipients, I mentioned Neil Armstrong, and he said, ‘Oh my God, my daughter's walking on the moon!’ It’s like, daddy not quite, but I guess that’s a good association.” 

Armstrong received the Flemming award in 1969, the same year that he became the first person to walk on the moon. Thomas, who works for Customs and Border Protection, is the first employee from the Homeland Security Department to be given the honor. 

She has led a specialized human trafficking unit and spearheaded the establishment of a center at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City that can process thousands of asylum seekers. Despite the partisan acrimony associated with immigration issues, she said that CBP officers rise above the fray. 

“We serve the American people. We serve the government regardless of what the administration is. We take an oath to perform our duties every single day, and all of the CBP employees do it so valiantly,” she said. “We're able to block out the noise, if you will.” 

Thomas is one of a dozen federal employees who will be honored at a ceremony on Wednesday, Nov. 13. The awards are part of the fall meeting for the National Academy of Public Administration, which co-coordinates them with George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. 

Dr. Kathryn Newcomer, a professor in the school and president of the Flemming Awards Commission, said they are like the “EGOT” of government service, describing an individual who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award. 

"Government does so much for people, and yet people hate government. Trust in government has really gone down. Mostly, what you hear are failures, like we didn't do enough after a hurricane...but there are so many heroes that are doing wonderful work and are just unsung heroes,” she said. “And that's what is very exciting about the Flemming awards.” 

Newcomer said there are typically 50 to 75 nominations submitted in a given year and that selecting the recipients involves three levels of judging. 

The awards are named after Arthur Flemming who served more presidents in an official capacity than any other individual, according to the awards commission. He was the Health, Education and Welfare secretary under Dwight D. Eisenhower, chaired the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for almost a decade and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton. 

“[Flemming] was concerned about racial inequities, gender inequities and age. He was worried about ageism. There wasn't even a word for ageism. Social equity wasn't even a term that people even used, and yet Arthur Flemming was there,” Newcomer said. “That's why he's my personal hero.” 

Dr. Douglas Morton, another Flemming recipient, created the Amazon Dashboard at NASA that uses satellite data to track deforestation and forest fire activity and provide real-time information to stakeholders. 

“My own research has focused on how will human activities alongside forests — that are both responding to a drying, warming climate that becomes ever more flammable — how will those two elements interact over time?” he said. “By monitoring the world's largest rainforest [the Amazon], satellite data are a critical tool because we don't have eyes and ears on the ground.”

Morton, however, began his career researching monkey habitats. 

“It turned out that I needed to see the bigger picture, literally, the forest for the trees,” he said. “And so as I started to scale up and look at the larger patterns of how human activity was changing habitat, and what that would mean for the future of some of the most important biodiversity on our planet, I started to scale up bigger and bigger and bigger, and that's how I find myself working with satellite data.” 

Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, of the National Institutes of Health, is also a new recipient of the Flemming award. He studies addiction and how to treat it, although he initially was focused on liver disease. 

“For alcohol liver disease, people in general [and] clinicians in general were really trying to focus on the liver damage, but trying to address the underlying problem — so the addiction — was kind of the elephant in the room,” he said. “That led me, as a clinician, also as a scientist, to really shift my interest from the liver to the brain.” 

Specifically, though, he looks at ways the brain interacts with the rest of the body, particularly the “gut-to-brain” axis. 

"If we think that in our daily life, we often say 'go with your gut' or like 'my gut feelings' [or] if I get upset with my partner, or whoever, sometimes I have this pain in the stomach. You don't feel the pain in the brain, but you feel this discomfort in your gut, in your stomach. These are really tangible examples of how, in this case, the gut talks with the brain,” he said. “And we are trying to really piggyback on this knowledge and approach scientifically this question to develop new treatments for people with addiction.” 

Leggio said the diversity of accomplishments by his class of Flemming award recipients shows the range of opportunities available for individuals who work for the federal government to benefit the lives of citizens. 

“I think it speaks volumes, and it’s really, I hope, like a photograph of our country — where you have people who really try to do the best for the society at large,” he said.