Guest blog post from U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Bruce Andrews

Yesterday, I had the honor of presenting awards to outstanding employees at the Commerce Department’s 66^th annual Gold and Silver Honor Awards ceremony. 

The Gold and Silver Honor Awards are the highest honor that the agency can give to a Commerce Department employee. They showcase the extraordinary skills and talents of the best and brightest employees of the Department. These employees strive to make a profound difference through their work by not just setting goals, but exceeding goals, and they are models of the very best in excellence in public service.  

While I was reading through the list of honorees before the event, I was struck by how many of the award winners are teams. Success is a team sport. And the winners worked together to move Commerce’s mission forward. That is what makes the Department of Commerce one of the best places to work in the entire federal government, as awarded by the Partnership for Public Service last year. 

It was an esteemed privilege to honor these exceptional employees who demonstrated their skill, commitment, passion and professionalism throughout the country. Through tireless trials and commitment to the improvement of the safety, security, prosperity, and quality of life of our citizens and our nation, this new legion of trailblazers developed rapid forensic DNA typing techniques that enables state of the art human identity testing and DNA biometrics to leading the development of an innovative consensus framework to improve the cybersecurity of our nation's critical infrastructure. They also (in a sheer show of heroism) performed a lifesaving rescue of an adult and dog trapped in an apartment fire. 

Whether by individual, agency, office, laboratory or team effort, they came together in support of a single historic mission – to improve the conditions for American businesses to grow, prosper, and create new jobs.  

The Gold Medal Award recognizes distinguished performance characterized by extraordinary, notable or prestigious contributions that impacted the mission of the Department of Commerce. The Silver Medal Award and second highest honor recognizes exceptional performance characterized by noteworthy or superlative contributions that have a direct and lasting impact within the Department. 

Both awards are given in the categories of leadership, personal and professional excellence, scientific/engineering achievement, organizational development, customer service, administrative/technical support, and heroism.