2012 Sloan Public Service Awards Fund for the City of New York 2012 Sloan Public Service Awards

FUND FOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK 2012 SLOAN PUBLIC SERVICE AWARDS FUND FOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK 2012 SLOAN PUBLIC SERVICE AWARDS WINNERS SARAH CARROLL JEFRICK R. DEAN, SR. DONNA LENO GORDON JAMES McCONNELL RUTH E. STARK, Ph.D. PHIL WEINBERG For 39 years the Fund for the City of New York’s Public Service Awards Program has honored outstanding civil servants whose work performance and commitment to the public transcend not merely the ordinary but the extraordinary—day after day and year after year. In honoring these winners, we also acknowledge the contributions of the many thousands of dedicated public servants who, with integrity and devotion, perform the work that keeps this complex city running. This ye ar’s winners, and the 252 winners from p revious years, were selected from among more than 250,000 eligible workers in the mayoral agencies, the Transit and Housing Authorities, the Health and Hospitals Corporation, The City University of New York, district attorneys’ offices and the public libraries. Winners come from all levels and ranks of New York City’s government. Sloan Public Service Award Winne rs demonstrate some or all of the following: ext ra ordinary service delivered with ingenuity, energy and compassion; responsiveness to public needs by cutting through red tape or developing more effective methods of service delivery; outstanding and reliable performance both under the pressures of daily routine and in times of crisis; willingness to take risks, if that is what is needed, to improve services or correct abuses or inequities; the ability to adapt to change and provide a con - tinued high standard of service to the public and upholding the public interest amidst competing interests, pressures and demands. The Fund for the City of New York is grateful to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for its support of this program for the past 27 years. 2012 SLOAN PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD WINNERS “She is like alchemy—an extra force that coaxes a better solution out of the process.” SARAH CARROLL Director of Preservation, Landmarks Preservation Commission Sarah Carroll is responsible for overseeing the nearly 10,000 ap - which preservationists are pitted against developers in often plications submitted annually to the City’s Landmarks Preser - heated opposition, she is uniquely gifted in being able to find vation Commission. Some are to grant a New York City middle ground solutions.” Carroll says, “It is very important for building landmark status; others to modify, upgrade or alter an the regulatory experience to be positive.” existing landmark; others to approve landmark-related projects. Carroll is praised by colleagues and applicants alike for her keen Landmark Preservation Commissioners rely on Carroll’s advice. ability to help architects, developers, contractors and property She has gained the Commissioners’ respect and confidence owners navigate the complicated rules and regulations that gov - through her strategic thinking, her scholarly knowledge of ern New York City landmarks. preservation and landmarks law and her ability to convey the in - tent of the client. Says Commission Chairman Robert Tierney, Although applications to the Commission are often contentious, “In my many years in government, I have never worked with a Carroll’s unusual and admirable calm, sensitivity and impartial - more talented, committed and effective public servant than ity have made her a singularly effective negotiator, helping bro - Sarah Carroll.” ker compromises to which all sides can agree. Says one New York City architect, “Sarah’s one of the most respected mem - bers of the preservation community. In an environment in “I try to reach out to every - body. Everybody is a gift.” JEFRICK R. DEAN, SR. Bus Operator, NYC Transit Authority In his 22 years as a bus operator, Jefrick Dean has driven every mulated more than a dozen in their careers. Dean has received bus route out of the East New York Depot in Brooklyn. On his 132, consistently praised by riders as being, in their words, “ex - current route, Dean drives from the depot to downtown Brook - tremely special… most extraordinary… compassionate… ex - lyn and back to the depot eight times a day. He works from emplifies untiring patience … a most shining personality.” Dean 6:30 am to 10:30 am, has a two-hour break, and then works is the very definition of a civil servant. again from 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm. Dean welcomes each passen - ger who gets on by saying, “Take your time. Welcome aboard,” Dean became an ordained minister six years ago and is one of 76 and he has gone so far as to learn to say this in Spanish, Arabic, volunteer chaplains serving under Rabbi Harry Berkowitz, the Hebrew, Haitian Creole and Swahili. He also strives every day chaplain for the NYC Transit Authority. Rabbi Berkowitz notes, to make sure that everyone exits his bus in a better mood than “All of my volunteers are wonderful, but Dean is truly one of the when they entered, and most do. outstanding ones.” In 2008, after bus driver Edwin Thomas was murdered by an angry passenger, Dean was “the rock that every - Bus riders occasionally write or call the NYC Transit Author - body relied on to get through the grieving.” ity to praise a bus operator they view as exemplary. Given the City’s bus fleet of 6,000 vehicles that transport an average of 2.7 million riders each week, these “unsolicited commenda - tions” are surprisingly rare. Very few bus operators have accu - “Some years I thought palliative care would fall flat on its face, but I never gave up. Pioneering takes a lifetime.” DONNA LENO GORDON Director, Behavioral Health Nursing and Palliative Care, Coney Island Hospital, HHC In her over two decades of service at Coney Island Hospital, medicine. “Palliative care begins with dedicated clinicians, but Donna Leno Gordon has been a pioneer in the field of pallia - it’s often seen as the work of one or two caring staff mem - tive care, the branch of medicine concerned with helping pa - bers,” she says. “I wanted to design an operationally sustainable tients manage pain and discomfort and with easing the program that gives clinicians replicable models so that no mat - overwhelming emotional, psychological and spiritual distress of ter where they are, they can ensure that patients at the end of patients and families facing chronic or terminal illness. Under their lives have a voice.” Gordon’s leadership, Coney Island Hospital has become a local and regional leader in palliative care, launching its own dedi - Gordon is also an innovator in providing more humane, dig - cated 19-bed unit, a relative rarity among hospitals. nified care for the mentally ill. Her initiatives have reduced use of restraints and seclusion. “Donna has the reach, the scope The palliative care programs at Coney Island Hospital have and the heart of a champion,” says Ross Wilson, HHC’s Chief served more than 7,000 patients and their families and it re - Medical Officer. ceives 100 referrals each month. Gordon’s program is so suc - cessful that since 2006 she has helped implement palliative care programs at 11 other HHC hospitals. Her colleagues praise her compassion, her calm, and her unwavering commitment to making palliative care a formalized part of institutionalized “What Jim has accomplished at OEM sets the standard for GIS in both the public and private sectors, and, you will never meet a nicer person.” JAMES McCONNELL Assistant Commissioner for Strategic Data, Office of Emergency Management Whether it is a hurricane, a fire, a flood, a black out or a terrorist McConnell is frequently described by colleagues as “an ex - threat, the City turns to James McConnell and his team to pro - traordinary, consummate professional” because of the scope of duce the GIS data maps that are essential to the City’s emer - his knowledge about all the elements required to use GIS gency response. Since the late 1980s when GIS emerged as an well—“data, software, hardware, people, politics and GIS sci - important technology that captures, manages, analyzes and pres - ence.” He anticipates what economic, demographic, social, ents geographically referenced data, McConnell has been one of health, education, physical infrastructure data might be needed the GIS trailblazers for the City and is now one of the foremost and gets it by forging rare partnerships with hundreds of pub - GIS experts in the country. lic and private agencies. Recently, McConnell created the de - finitive map of the City’s 400-plus subway stations, from the Since September 12, 2001, McConnell has headed GIS at the staircases to escape hatches, by obtaining the blue prints and Office of Emergency Management, when he was drafted from converting them to GIS format. It was immediately useful in City Planning to coordinate the City’s GIS capacity in the af - containing a track fire at a subway station in Brooklyn. Says termath of 9/11. Working with 100 GIS experts from many OEM Commissioner Joseph Bruno, “Quantifying and mapping government agencies and private companies, McConnell and New York City is McConnell’s passion. It would be hard to his colleagues made thousands of maps in the first few weeks overstate the benefits that accrue to ordinary New Yorkers be - that were critical in rescue and recovery efforts. cause of his quiet and constant leadership.” “When we need a leader, we look to Ruth.” RUTH E. STARK, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Acting Dean of Science , The City College of New York, CUNY Having defied convention to become a chemist at a time when leads a large research team of physicists, engineers, chemists and few women entered the field, Ruth Stark is an eminent scientist biochemists, including postdoctorals, graduate students, under - and an inspiring role model for hundreds of young men and graduates and even high school students.

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