This message was originally posted on LinkedIn in late February of 2025.
To my friends and colleagues at EPA/ORD, EPA broadly, and the federal family: there is not a more mission-oriented, public-service minded, and competent workforce than federal workers. The professional federal civil service that emerged after the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883 provides the foundation of a stable society and, as a result of U.S. science policy since World War II, has enabled the U.S. to be the science, technology, and economic engine of the world while also protecting human health and the environment. Federal workers should be appreciated and respected.
I am proud to have served with federal workers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and to have worked with federal workers across the federal family during all of my career stages. My father’s federal job at NOAA put food on our family’s table. Assistantships funded by the U.S. Department of Energy enabled me to go to graduate school. Grants from agencies including DOE, EPA, NOAA, USDOT, FRA, USDA, DOI/NPS, NSF, and NIH have supported my research and my own graduate students, who along with so many others have contributed to U.S. leadership in science and engineering. Not a single person in the U.S. fails to benefit from what federal workers do.
For the broader public – Did you know something that all federal workers know?: all federal civil servants take the oath of office. I learned this for the first time when I was a GS-3 summer hire at an Army lab at Fort Belvoir. “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”
It was a high honor to serve as Assistant Administrator of research and development at U.S. EPA in recent years. To my colleagues and friends there – if there is anything I can do to help, just let me know. I realize it may not be much, but – to borrow words from one of my colleagues – perhaps I can review a resume, be a reference, or be a sounding board (Feel free to message me and we can connect).
For those of you who are wondering whether to stay in federal service, if you have that option, I hope you will. The need for what you do has not changed even a tiny bit, even if the current circumstances are temporarily interrupting the work. We will need a strong competent, experienced workforce to focus on the serious business of serving the public… supporting the Constitution and the rule of law, doing science with integrity, and doing all of the other work that will need to be done in the years to come.