ARS Employees Honored by USDA

Employees of the Agricultural Research Service will receive 11 individual or team awards from U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman today in Washington at USDA’s 51st annual Honor Awards ceremony. Glickman is scheduled to present plaques to the awardees at a 1 p.m. ceremony at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, 1300 Constitution Ave., N.W.

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL EXCELLENCE

• For 40 years of lettuce breeding success including ‘Salinas’, the world's most widely planted iceberg lettuce, to Edward J. Ryder, plant geneticist, Crop Improvement and Protection Research Unit, Salinas, Calif.
• For research and leadership in controlling livestock parasites including cryptosporidium that can infect people, to Ronald Fayer, zoologist, Immunology and Disease Resistance Lab, Beltsville (Md.) Agricultural Research Center.
• For research and leadership to control pink bollworm and other cotton pests, to Thomas J. Henneberry, director, Western Cotton Research Laboratory, Phoenix, Ariz.
• For work with a commercial steam-vacuuming method to prevent bacterial contamination of beef carcasses, to a USDA team including Warren J. Dorsa, microbiologist, U.S. Roman L. Hruska Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, Neb.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

• For research to improve water quality by reducing nonpoint source pollution, to an ARS-university team, the Management Systems Evaluation Areas Principal Investigators, led by agronomist Jerry L. Hatfield, director, U.S. National Soil Tilth Laboratory, Ames, Iowa.
• For new, mulch based growth methods--requiring less fertilizer--for tomatoes and other vegetables, to Aref A. Abdul-Baki, plant physiologist, Vegetable Laboratory, BARC, Beltsville, Md.
• For developing “green remediation,” which uses plants to remove heavy metals from contaminated soil, to Rufus L. Chaney, agronomist, Environmental Chemistry Laboratory, BARC, Beltsvillle, Md.

PUBLIC SERVICE

• For a multimedia outreach project, Science in Your Shopping Cart, to a team led by Robert W. Norton, director, ARS Information Staff, Greenbelt, Md.

REINVENTING GOVERNMENT

• For making USDA’s credit-card purchasing system more cost-effective, to a 15-person USDA group including Linda G. Wilson, procurement analyst, Procurement and Property Division, Greenbelt, Md., and Michelle J. Snowden, secretary, Civil Rights Staff, Washington, D.C.
• For improving agency financial and administrative oversight such as ARS’ program to guard against government fraud, waste and abuse, to Linda Santora Mooney, management analyst, Administrative and Financial Management, Greenbelt, Md.

SUPPORT PERSONNEL

• For improving employee travel accounting and scheduling, to ARS’ 15-person National Secretarial Advisory Council, co-chaired by Angela V. Marchetti, secretary, Administrative and Financial Management, Greenbelt, Md. , and Marcia Jenkins, secretary, Midwest Area Office, Peoria, Ill.