On June 18, 2024, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) held its annual awards ceremony. During the program, award recipients were announced in the following categories: William B. Kelly Award, Excellence in Service Award, Erland Herfindahl Award, Superior Achievement Award, Team Award, Way to Go Award, Distinguished Career Service Award, Length of Service Award, Overseas Mission Support Awards and the Ambassador’s Award.
Recognizing staff achievements and showing appreciation to those who give it their all each day is critical to USTR’s success. During the ceremony, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai thanked USTR’s elite and thoughtful staff, remarking that, “each and every one of you makes USTR special. I know that our work is demanding, but you go above and beyond, on the frontlines, behind the scenes, to deliver for the American people. And you do so with brilliance, skill, wit, humor, patience, and devotion.”
Ambassador Tai also highlighted USTR’s hard work and dedication to making a real difference for workers, rural farmers, and small business owners across the country, including those that previously did not have a seat at the table. She also recognized the parallel work of USTR’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) Council and the steps taken to create a DEIA strategic plan for USTR as an institution.
USTR is pleased to announce the 2024 award recipients:
William B. Kelly Award: Recognizes an employee who demonstrates the highest standard of professional excellence in the trade field and demonstrates sustained contributions and leadership in advancing USTR’s goals, an exemplary degree of initiative and creativity, and great respect from peers and superiors.
Jennifer Stradtman, Policy Analyst in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Multilateral Affairs Office
Erland Herfindahl Award: Recognizes an employee who demonstrates the values exemplified by Erland and who contributes tangibly and consistently to the cohesion and vitality of the USTR community.
Conor Harrington, Policy Analyst for Geneva
Excellence in Service Award: Recognizes an employee who has made an extraordinary contribution in an administrative services and mission support position.
Taiwo Carmichael, Human Capital Specialist in the Office of Human Capital and Services
Superior Achievement Award: Recognizes employees for special efforts significantly above and beyond the requirements for their position.
Linda Chambers, Deanne de Lima, Cassie Ender, Rebecca Gudicello, Matthew Hindman, Joan Hurst, David Jankowski, David Lyons, Amanda Mayhew, Andrew Medley, Colette Morgan, Falisa Peoples-Tittle, Scott Pietan, Michael Remetta, Allison Smith, Ari Sulby, Alan Treat, and Tina Williams.
Distinguished Career Service Award: Recognizes recent USTR retiree(s) whose career reflect long and exceptional devotion to duty and exemplifies significant contributions to the economy, efficiency, uniquely important projects, recognized expertise in some phase of USTR’s technical, professional or administrative work or other improvement in USTR operations.
William Busis, former Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for the Office of General Counsel
Roy Malmrose, former Policy Analyst for WTO & Multilateral Affairs Office
Janice Shields, former Administrative Assistant the Southeast Asia and Pacific Affairs (SEAP) Office
Team/Group Award: In addition to honoring several USTR colleagues for their outstanding individual work, we also honor teams or groups that displayed either exemplary teamwork, resilience, problem-solving, continuous readiness, thoughtful leadership, remarkable collaboration, distinctive competencies, or commendable organizational skills that were of importance and value to USTR’s mission.
India WTO Dispute Resolutions Team: Emily Ashby, Joan Hurst, Amanda Lee, Brendan Lynch, Dan Matthews, Andrew Medley, and Erin Rogers.
WTO Dispute Settlement Reform Team: Ross Bidlingmaier, Nat Halvorson, and Melody Temidara.
United States – Mexico – Canada Agreement (USMCA) Labor Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) Team: Jennifer Boyd, Claudia Calderon, Katherine Cedillos, Donna Chung, Brenna Dougan, Mark Eskenazi, Alexander Gancayco, Amanda Hardy, Katy Mastman, Andrew Medley, Stefanie Parker, Austin Pedersen, Andrea Rojas, Sofia Ruiz, and Annelies Winborne.
Worker Centered Trade Policy Team Award Nomination: Claudia Calderon, Katherine Cedillos, Donna Chung, Brenna Dougan, Jennifer Oetken, Sofia Ruiz, Austin Pedersen, and Andrea Rojas.
United States – European Union Trade and Technology Council (TTC) Team: Ben Allen, Joey Ben-Maimon, Claudia Calderon, Jen Carton, Antonio Douglas, Karly Graf, Nat Halvorson, Krista Hilk, Susie Hodge, Rebecca Gudicello, Ellen House, Brian Janovitz, Jack Kamensky, Ann Main, Andrew Medley, William Miller, Sean O’Connor, Michael O’Donovan, Kate Psillos, Michael Rogers, Silvia Savich, Sarah Short, Allison Smith, Ari Sulby, Gulbin Yildirim, and Shelly Zhao.
Facilities Team:Brian Cochran and Leroy Jackson.
Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum (GASSA) Team: Daniel Arias, Jennifer Carton, Pat Childress, John Corrigan, Kate Gibson, Rufino Hurtado, Dan Matthews, Katy Sater, and Samantha Yoon.
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Team: Angelica Annino, Emily Ashby, Donna Chung, Keziah Clarke, Deanne De Lima, Carrie Esko, Sarah Fasano, Tom Fine, Emily Fischer, Magaly Garcia, Rebecca Gudicello, Chris Gundermann, Samir Iqbal, Jon Johnson, Anita Kyler, Leah Liston, Della Little, Alex Martin, Todd Nissen, Scott Pietan, Raquel Silva, Anthony Reyes, Nicholas Schuck, Kent Shigetomi, Sarah Short, Matthew Siordia, Allison Smith, Sophia Sokolowski, Harrison Vey, Scott Wilbur, Catherine White, Ben Wollam, and Michelle Yang.
Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Team: Laurie-Ann Agama, Benjamin Allen, Emily Ashby, Leigh Bacon, Beth Baltzan, Victor Ban, Joseph Ben-Maimon, Colby Branch, Andrea Boron, Celeste Chen, Maria Choi, Yatrik Desai, Carrie Esko, Tom Fine, Emily Fischer, Danielle Fumagalli, Catherine Gibson, Kate Hadley, Brittany Hendricks, Calvin Jackson, Matthew Jaffe, Jon Johnson, Amy Kreps, Karen Lezny, Leah Liston, Brendan Lynch, Dave Lyons, Gwenann Manseau, Katherine Mastman, Emanuela Montanari-Stephens, Colette Morgan, Sarah Morningred, Samuel Negatu, Jennifer Oetken, Megan Paster, Lisa Rigoli, Erin Rogers, David Salkeld, Courtney Smothers, Kendall Sneed, Robb Tanner, Bart Thanhauser, Victoria Waite, Scott Wilbur, Samantha Yoon, and Wallis Yu.
Annual Report/National Trade Estimate Report Team: Sonia Franceski, Karen Lezny, and Catherine White.
Office of Human Capital and Services: Angela Brown, Taiwo Carmichael, Cass Ender, Tiffany Enoch, Emily Monitz, and Deb Tidwell.
WTO’s Thirteenth Ministerial Conference (MC-13) Team: Rob Ahern, Alexandra Aki, Ross Bidlingmaier, Leah Cobelli, Roberta Daghir, Yatrik Desai, Jillian DeLuna, Jacob Ewerdt, Elizabeth Falkner, Conor Harrington, Calvin Jackson, Jonathan Johnson, Helene Liwinski, Gwenann Manseau, Michael O’Donovan, Christina Olson, Kate Psillos, Ari Sulby, Erin Nicholson, Zeba Reyazuddin, Katy Sater, Zoe Sophos, Sloane Strickler, Alan Treat, Margaret Wang, and Tim Wedding.
Way to Go Award: A peer-to-peer award that gives colleagues the chance to recognize each other for outstanding efforts and contributions resulting in significant benefits to USTR, and for going above and beyond the requirements of their own job to help other colleagues, demonstrating exemplary teamwork or customer service.
Benjamin Allen, Philip Butler, Katherine Cedillos, Donna Chung, Deanne de Lima, Antonio Douglas, Karly Graf, Brendan Lynch, Megan Grimball, Olya Lutchyn, Erin Rogers, Sofia Ruiz, David Salkeld, and Benjamin Wollam.
Length of Service: Recognizes successful completion of service for every five years up to 50 years.
5 Years of Service: Sarah Fasano, Magaly Garcia, Krista Hilk, Molly Hofsommer, Jesse Huang, Sam Kennedy Jr., Michael Remetta, Henry Smith, Melody Temidara, and Jing Jing Zhang.
10 Years of Service: Thomas Au, Carrie Esko, Danielle Fumagalli, Sara Schuman, and Allison Smith.
15 Years of Service: Robert Ahern, Claudia Calderon, Julie Callahan, Donna Chung, Breanna Dougan, Sloane Strickler, and Gwenann Manseau.
20 Years of Service: Linda Chambers, Tameka Cooper, Joan Hurst, Calvin Jackson, Cara Morrow, Erin Nicholson, Todd Nissen, and Lisa Rigoli.
25 Years of Service: Jason Buntin, Zonda Fuller, Christina Sevilla, and Robb Tanner.
30 Years of Service: María Pagán and Kent Shigetomi.
35 Years of Service: Jon Johnson
Overseas Mission Support Award: Granted at the sole discretion and judgement of the Ambassador, to individuals serving in one of USTR'S international posts who demonstrate a high degree of dedication, and exemplary performance, contributing to the overall efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and economy of USTR’s mission.
Julie Beraud – Department of State
Ambassador’s Award: Recognizes extraordinary efforts of an executive employee who demonstrated excellence, leadership, tenacity, or a set of specific actions that goes significantly beyond the requirements of their position and makes notable contributions in advancing U.S. trade interests.
Sarah Ellerman, Assistant United States Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific Office
###
