The Secretary’s Awards Ceremony 2016

Yesterday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh C. Johnson hosted the 2016 DHS Secretary’s Awards Ceremony to honor DHS employees from across the country for their extraordinary work and commitment to the Department’s mission.

Secretary Johnson delivered remarks during this, his final Secretary’s Awards ceremony in office. Here’s what he said:

“I want to give all of the awardees in the room one more great round of applause for your terrific work.

DHS Photo by Jetta Disco

Today is my last ceremony such as this one along with Ali the Deputy Secretary, so I cannot help but reflect on my time as Secretary - my 1,038 days as secretary - with Ali as my partner.

DHS Photo by Barry Bahler

When we walked in the door 34 months ago - 1,038 days ago - we looked around and we recognized that we had a lot of work to do. We had a lot of work to do on the Department and focused on, as Ali likes to put it, building the Department of Homeland Security that each of you deserve.

DHS photo by Jetta Disco

When we walked in, there were many vacancies at senior level positions in the Department. So first order of business was filling those vacancies with many of the men and women that you see in the first two rows. And within a short period of time, we filled those vacancies with remarkably committed, talented senior leaders of this Department who have led us over the last number of years in our extraordinary homeland security mission. I’d like everyone to give your leadership team a great round of applause. Political appointees and career, it has been my honor to work with such an extraordinary leadership team.

DHS Photo by Jetta Disco

Through our Unity of Effort initiative we have, I hope you will agree, built a better Department of Homeland Security that you deserve: through Joint Task Forces, the Joint Requirements Council, through a number of other reforms in the way that we conduct our business, and through our incredibly important mission. We are at the forefront of so many vitally important national security and homeland security missions, on the front page virtually every day. There are so many ways in which all of you are leading the effort to protect and safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values. We’ve done a lot of things over the last 34 months.

DHS Photo by Jetta Disco

Ali continually pointed out to me that in order to engage in reform, we’ve got to focus on the men and women of this Department. We have to focus on your work, your working conditions, and so much of our work has been on improving the pay scale, for example, for ERO, for improving the transparency of training and promotion opportunities, through the creation of our DHS-wide mission statement that binds all of you together in our collective homeland security mission, through the creation of the video that you saw at the outset of this program, and through the improvement in the morale in this Department. I am pleased that this year, we’ve raised morale across this entire Department three whole percentage points, which is regarded by OPM as statistically significant, that I hope is the beginning of our new trend upward in this Department.

DHS Photo by Jetta Disco

We brought back this awards ceremony to acknowledge the terrific and great work and the value of the men and women of this Department which I am sure all of the awardees will agree is a reflection of the work you see among thousands of your colleagues.

DHS Photo by Barry Bahler

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been the highlight of my professional life to lead all of you; it has been the highlight of my professional life to work with all of you. Quite frankly, much is said and written about my distinguished family, and when people talk about that, they talk about my father’s family, but not much is said about my mother’s family. My mother’s family were Washingtonians. They were all like you, federal servants who loved their country and were patriotic. And so when I look at you, I see my family. Thank you for the opportunity to work with you. Thank you.

DHS Photo by Jetta Disco

Congratulations to the awardees today. I look forward to continuing to serve you for the remaining time in this Administration. And I hope that all of you will continue to safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values. Thank you, congratulations, and God bless you.”

DHS Photo by Jetta Disco