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After two rounds of arduous review, including a regional review panel and final selection by the Service Center and Facilities Management and Services Programs Directors from across the country, the Office of Facilities Management recognized the extraordinary work done nationwide in 2023.
Region 6 was honored with three awards. We asked the winners to share their thoughts on recognition.
Josh Harman
Excellence in Building Management Award Winner
It was quite a surprise to win this award! There are so many talented and motivated individuals who do great work all the time.
My primary focus has been on contractor accountability and technology utilization. I try to engage the contractors at both local and corporate levels, identifying shortfalls and successes alike.
The intent is to have them take ownership of the facility and the contract, so GSA receives the contract deliverables.
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Andrew Enriquez
Excellence in Building Award Management Award runner-up
I am extremely grateful to be recognized for the hard work put into being a facilities manager. It's a job that requires support from my management team and my family because they are all entwined with all of the parts of my job, which is 24/7. The support I get from both is an unimaginable blessing.
As far as working in a Federal Courthouse, it's an amazing, unique opportunity and a challenge at the same time.
(Pictured above, from left to right: Andrew Enriquez, wife Genevive, and sons Jaxon, Justin, and Jacob)
The courts have been fantastic partners, and learning how to ensure that their needs are being met with all of the aspects of the courts' always busy schedules and sometimes impromptu trials are a far different animal than I was used to working with as a BMS. It's a challenge that I both love and appreciate because it helps enhance my abilities to help better serve my tenants.
In my photo, I wanted to use Carnahan Memorial Garden to help showcase just a small sample of how beautiful Jefferson City is.
We were definitely blessed with the move down here, and it's been as great an experience as anyone could ask for being in a completely new place!
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Mike Amador
Excellence in Operational Support Award Winner
I am very honored and humbled to receive this award. I must thank the FMD leadership team, particularly Chris Bolinger, Janelle Agnos, and Bill McClain.
Their approach to supporting Field Offices is the model for how the whole team works.
It leads to success, and this award is a reflection of that leadership.
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(pictured far right above: Mike Amador with, from left to right, son Nathan, spouse Rachel, and son Lucas)
On May 10, the St. Louis, Missouri Federal Executive Board announced its winners of the Excellence in Government awards.
The R6 PBS Diversity, Equity, Inclusion team won the EIG DEI team award.
 Pictured above, the DEI PBS Heartland Region 6 Team
Over the past year, the PBS DEI team took a giant step by incorporating a formal training plan into its new employee orientation, regional leadership meetings, and employee quarterly training sessions.
Sharon Schuler, who works in design and construction, has been on the DEI team since it began in 2020 and she’s learned techniques and communications strategies that have helped her engage in challenging dialogue.
“There are so many interpersonal skills you cultivate with this group that help build relationships in both your professional and personal lives,” says Schuler. “My favorite is activating a growth mindset which encourages us to embrace challenges, sustain effort, and try new strategies.
Katie Swan, a supervisory realty specialist pointed out that the key work of the team is “building a platform of connection, engagement and enriching learning opportunities.”
“Being a part of the DEI team has given me the opportunity to learn and connect with other associates that I wouldn't have normally worked with,” Swan said.
The team started a DEI Talk series to open a dialogue among all employees and a monthly newsletter that is open to all employees to contribute their suggestions and thoughts on DEI.
They also created an R6 DEI Google site, which has become a vital resource for all employees in Region 6 PBS.
Team leads Kiva Simmons-Lee and Javonne Robinson worked with leadership to design a DEI leader’s toolkit that helps supervisors and managers facilitate meaningful and authentic DEI conversations with their respective teams. Each division has a recruiting, hiring and retention toolkit and goals incorporating DEI.
“I am inspired and so proud of my teammates,” Schuler says. “Their compassion and understanding is refreshing and restorative. The events of the day can be at times chaotic and unpredictable. This team gives you moments of clarity, kindness and ways to connect to the community so you can grow from difficult experiences together.”
Celebrating 45 years of civil service
“Grease” was the #1 movie, though many were jiving to “Saturday Night Fever” and reveling in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.“
A gallon of gas cost 63 cents, and an 8-Track Player would set you back $169.
The year was 1978, the same year Richard Apple began working in government.
From US Courts to GSA
“It started as a job during college, where I was able to work at night and go to school during the day,” Apple recalled during a recent interview with The Wire. “My uncle was an air traffic controller and got me thinking about civil service as a career.”
The next thing he knew, he was a civil servant.
“I became interested in GSA while working for the US Courts,” Apple said. “The building manager was always available to help and spent many of his weekends with me in the courthouse, making sure I got my projects done.
“Through him, I learned about the different roles at GSA and how well they treated their workforce. After working alongside GSA for so many years, I decided if I ever changed jobs, I would work for GSA.”
When PCs were a feather in your bonnet
When he started working, people were still working on mainframes.
“PCs in 1978 were very, very new and very expensive,” he said. “It was a feather in your bonnet to have one. Everybody knew it was going to be cool, but we weren’t sure what you were going to do with it.”
"Guy who cain't say no"
In the past, Apple worked with the U.S. Courts and Probation Office to modernize their operations. He’s also served as an IT Manager and on COOP and pandemic teams for GSA. He has also worked in IT Security, identifying ways to make GSA a safer and more secure place to work.
“It’s more accurate to say I am a Jack-of-All-Trades,” Apple said. “To paraphrase a song from the play ‘Oklahoma,’ ‘I'm just a guy who cain't say no …’ "
“I love helping people and ensuring they have what they need to be successful while trying to be mindful of their situation and see things through their eyes.”
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Bagpipes, horses, and the universe
Bagpipes, fencing, archery, sailing, hiking, camping, astronomy, and eventing with horses.
All of the above, along with “life, the universe…everything!” keep Apple interested and busy outside his work at GSA.
While living in the Monterey Bay area in California, Apple was active in a bagpipe band.
“There’s a big Scottish contingent there,” he said. “Robert Louis Stevenson lived there … bagpipes will get you in doors you never dreamed of.”
He recalls playing in a country club that looked like a castle, with fireplaces so big you could walk into them.
Apple loves the zen nature of shooting archery, where you can “clear everything out of your head and become the arrow.”
He appreciates the mind/body coordination of fencing, sailing “is a rush,” and hiking the mountains of New Mexico is “amazing.” Three-day eventing with horses has also been a passion.
He and his wife are amateur astronomers with closets full of telescopes and stargazing gear.
A favorite September trip is to the Oklahoma panhandle for the Okie-Tex Star Party
“People come from all over the country and sometimes internationally,” he said. “The stars are so bright you cast a shadow.”
Office space to outer space
Despite his hobbies and interests outside of work, Apple has no plans to retire.
“I like what I do, I like who I’m doing it with, and I’m always learning new things,” he said. “I always have to learn stuff, or I get bored. My whole life, I’ve needed to be learning and creating.”
GSA helps to feed this need.
“There are always new opportunities and challenges to take you to the next level,” he said. “[GSA supports] every facet of our government from office space to, well … outer space.”
The astronomer in him surely appreciates that, too.
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R6 Project Manager Denton Nichols and Branch Chief Denise Ryerkerk attended the GSA Building Enclosure Working Group Workshop in Miami this month.
The workshop focused on envelope performance, low embodied carbon, and resiliency to climatic changes.
Pictured above: workshop attendees at the Wall of Wind in Miami, FL (Photo/Jason Danielson)
In addition to hours of classroom time, the group toured the Wall of Wind at Florida International University's Extreme Events Institute in Miami, FL.
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The WoW was built in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew using industrial mining ventilation fans to simulate hurricane-force winds to test damage mitigation strategies in the built environment.
The facility can test to failure full-sized structures, and current projects address enhancing the sustainability of infrastructure and business enterprise including residential buildings, low-rise commercial buildings, power lines, and traffic signals.
Pictured above: EEI Associate Director Erik Salna, standing on the turntable used to rotate test samples and the netting used to catch flying debris. (Photo/Jason Danielson)
WoW and efforts around creating a sound scientific basis for developing risk-based and performance-based design criteria are part of meeting the national objective of more sustainable communities.
Additional information: Florida International University: Wall of Wind
Florida International University: NHERI Experimental Facility
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Ann Hamilton is world renowned for her artwork, spanning Japan to Sweden, Paris to New York, and numerous countries and states. She was first commissioned in 2017 to create artwork for the U.S. Land Port of Entry at Alexandria Bay, New York, as a part of the General Services Administration’s Art in Architecture program. Her artwork for that project, titled crossings, was completed in 2021.
Hamilton’s experience working on that project at the port of entry during the COVID-19 Pandemic further shaped how she incorporated the work into the space, which at that time was closed. “Working on-site, being there every day, I came to have a greater appreciation for the daily operation of the border and how the artwork might impact the atmosphere and environment,” Hamilton said.
Pictured above: a section of the artwork ‘crossings’ at the Alexandria Bay Port of Entry by Ann Hamilton (Photo/Julie K. Herman)
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In the same year she completed crossings, Hamilton was commissioned to create another AiA artwork. This time, for the new U.S. federal courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa. Her focus would shift from border crossings to the courts.
This new project allowed her to look at what happens in a courthouse and the belief in our legal system. In addition, District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, U. S. District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa, who will work in the new courthouse, has been very supportive in working with Hamilton.
“Judge Ebinger has been tremendously supportive of the art and its integration and collaboration with the new building, and our conversations were an enormous contribution to my process,” Hamilton said. “Through her, I learned so much about the Federal court system and the history of the law. The tremendous dignity and respect Judge Ebinger demonstrated for processes and the people in her courtroom deeply moved me.”
Pictured above: renderings of the Art in Architecture project by Ann Hamilton for the new Des Moines Federal Courthouse
The artwork Hamilton is creating for the new Des Moines Federal Courthouse draws on a history of documents central to establishing our legal system. She came up with a list and worked with Ebinger on expanding it. Everything with the work is intentional, such as using limestone from northern Wisconsin, part of a larger shelf that goes into Des Moines.
“It isn’t printed text on white paper,” Hamilton said. “The letters are in relief as if they have grown from across the time of the limestone itself.” The stone’s surface is first prepared with a process of hand sandblasting. This irregular surface brings out the texture of the stone and when hand sandblasted again the letters that emerge from the masked areas appear to grow from its surface. The drop shadow makes them legible from across the two-story atrium space.
Hamilton is grateful for her experience working with GSA and how the context of each project brings her into a different world. “I would never have had the opportunity to work with the legal documents and witness what I have in the courthouse or at the border, the pressures, tensions, and culture of the border crossing patrol,” Hamilton said.
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Stepping away from the monitor and feeling safe to be yourself
For May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, The R6 PBS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Team discussed workplace mental health and well-being.
Led by DEI team leads Javonne Robinson and Kiva Simmons-Lee, the talk covered employee burnout, compassionate and inclusive leadership, the future of work, and the importance of an environment of freedom and safety for employees.
Robinson pointed to the Surgeon General Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-being released in October 2022, underscoring its premise that thriving at work contributes positively to the workplace and public health and has a cascading impact on organizational productivity and the U.S. economy.
Robinson and Simmons- Lee also talked about mental health as a DEI issue based on challenges some workers face based on diversity traits which often present unique challenges, noting that well-being doesn’t look the same for everyone.
Employee burnout was also addressed. One factor in this is the difficulty some employees have stepping away from work while working from home.
A video from Omar Dawood from DotCom Therapy discussed employee burnout further, suggesting that employees learn to keep boundaries around work with a clear beginning and end to the workday, routines, and regularly checking in with themselves and their colleagues. Time off was also identified as an essential part of preventing burnout.
Additional resources:
WorkLife4You - Free federal benefit to help manage life and daily responsibilities
Need help right away? Seek assistance 24/7 with free and confidential services:
Call the GSA Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) at 800-222-0364
Call the NAMI (national alliance of mental illness) helpline at 800-950-6264
Or text "HelpLine" to 62640
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