Diverting an asteroid, fixing a student loan system and Operation Trojan Shield among the successful initiatives
Since 2001, the annual Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, nicknamed the Sammies, has shined a spotlight, literally and figuratively, on the people who made things happen. This year’s list of winners tackled problems as large as disrupting an international crime network and diverting an asteroid in space to personal ones such as the discovery that students eligible for loan forgiveness were not being properly processed and should try again. All of these efforts listed below required experience, yes, but a whole lot of ingenuity and chutzpah as well.
Fletcher Schoen and Jennifer Harkins
Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, State Department
Harkins and Schoen both joined the State Department’s Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs in the fall of 2021. Harkins, a former Peace Corps volunteer, successfully helped to release seven wrongfully detained Americans, including five Citgo executives held for nearly five years. Two Americans, Eyvin Hernandez and Jerrel Kenemore, are still imprisoned in Venezuela. Schoen, an Army Special Operations veteran, was an integral part of the team that secured the release of Trevor Reed, a Marine veteran, during a prisoner exchange earlier in 2022. His work on the Reed case, coupled with sharing strategies with Harkins, helped to inform the plan that finally resulted in Brittney Griner’s release in December 2022. Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich are still imprisoned in Russia.
Brian Key and Scott Bellamy
Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART Mission, NASA
Ten years ago, discussions about the danger of near-Earth objects in space raised concerns. Bellamy and Key, based at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., set to work to devise a solution in 2016. The plan was to build a $330 million spacecraft, aim it at a moonlet called Dimorphos located 7 million miles away from Earth, and crash into it at 14,000 miles per hour. The impact, mathematicians theorized, would divert the asteroid. Not only did the mission succeed, but scientists were able to watch the impact live in a stunning show of strategy and ingenuity, paving the way for future innovations in space operations.
Deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, Defense Department
Surge the workforce; that was the first priority. Next, share intelligence with Ukraine and all the partners. Third, figure out what the United States should provide and then determine how to get the equipment there. “The typical routes of air supply were not possible, ” Cooper recalled about the search for Javelins to fight the tanks and Stinger missiles to defend against an air attack. What began as an ad hoc process of managing many moving parts has settled into a well-organized bureaucratic machine. Cooper prepares weekly meetings across dozens of offices within the Defense Department to assess next steps, and she also participates in monthly meetings that include all 50 defense ministers around the world, an effort she calls defense diplomacy. “We needed to organize ourselves in a way that sustained our unity,” she said.
Government Accountability Office
For 21 years, Emrey-Arras, director of the education, workforce and income security team, has examined numbers to find discrepancies. Because of her fastidious work, people who need student loans to help them achieve their goals benefit. Last year, GAO alerted the Education Department about tracking errors for the income-driven repayment loan forgiveness program. As a result, 3.6 million borrowers received a one-time payment account adjustment that provided at least three years of credit toward loan forgiveness; many saw their loans forgiven automatically. Previously, Emrey-Arras found that the Education Department was denying 99 percent of the students who applied for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program because of errors in the application process, a problem the department fixed by improving the management system. She has also recommended ways to save taxpayers over $43 billion by improving the student loan calculation system, and she has recommended that Congress take action to require colleges to provide more accurate costs to applicants.
Joshua Mellor, Nicholas Cheviron, and Stephanie Stevens
Operation Trojan Shield, Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation
On June 8, 2021, law enforcement officers revealed a global sting operation that has resulted in the following: 1,050 arrests and the seizure of 12 tons of cocaine, 1.5 tons of methamphetamine, 1.5 tons of amphetamines, 17 tons of precursor chemicals, 22 tons of hashish marijuana, 300 firearms and $58 million. Unbeknownst to the criminal networks, 27 million text messages had been gathered as evidence since 2018, messages that had been sent on encrypted devices using a platform called Anom. The catch? The FBI had created the platform. Mellor was central to the operation, working with the FBI to establish the platform and manage the legalities. Cheviron and Stevens spent time in Europe to help coordinate the operation.
Paul Nissenbaum, Gloria M. Shepherd, and Maria S. Lefevre
Transportation Department
Congress approved a $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 to improve the nation’s roads, railways, airports and ports. Nissenbaum, Shepherd and Lefevre are the people who galvanized people both inside the Transportation Department and outside to manage the projects efficiently. Nissenbaum, with decades of experience with railroads, manages the $66 billion investment in passenger rail, the largest amount since Amtrak started in 1971. Shepherd, with experience in the Federal Highway Administration, manages investments in bridges and the electric vehicle charging system. She is also working with the Energy Department to electrify the fleet of federal vehicles. Lefevre has been instrumental in reaching out to partners outside of the department, including state departments of transportation and tribal communities to ensure the programs would have the intended effect in communities.