VICE PRESIDENT GORE AND SECRETARY CUOMO CONGRATULATE 14 HUD TEAMS FOR WINNING REINVENTION "HAMMER" AWARDS

WASHINGTON - Vice President Al Gore and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today congratulated 14 teams of HUD employees for winning Hammer Awards, which are given for innovative and money-saving efforts in support of the Vice President's "reinventing government" initiative.

Cuomo was joined by Morley Winograd, Senior Policy Advisor to the Vice President and Director of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, in distributing the Hammer awards to the HUD teams at a ceremony today at HUD headquarters.

Cuomo said the awards recognize innovative HUD employees for their important contributions to the HUD 2020 Management Reform efforts.

"Dedicated employees have put us well on the way to creating a new HUD - a HUD that is working better than ever to serve America's people and communities," Cuomo said. "By recognizing federal teams with the Hammer Awards, Vice President Gore is providing tremendous encouragement to the spirit of change."

HUD employees have implemented sweeping management reforms under the HUD 2020 initiative to improve the Department's performance.

The HUD recipients of Vice President Gore's Hammer Awards are:

• HUD Model Office Team - The Model Office Team helped HUD restructure the ways in which it provide services to communities. Among the innovations is the creation of the "Community Builder" positions - employees dedicated to understanding the challenges communities face, providing expert assistance for solving local problems, building local partnerships and facilitating the use of HUD resources in these efforts.

• HUD Next Door Kiosk Team - This Team created electronic kiosks, which will be placed in communities around the nation to allow citizens access to basic information, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Using the kiosk, residents can find out about the availability of affordable rental housing, how to file a housing discrimination complaint, homebuying information, how to get an FHA refund, and about HUD's partnership with their community.

• Office of Departmental Operations and Coordination Team - The Team successfully developed, coordinated and guided the entire HUD 2020 Management Reform Plan.

• Departmental Enforcement Center Implementation Team - The Team developed plans for the creation of the HUD Enforcement Center that will be responsible for taking aggressive enforcement action in the area of housing and public and Indian housing and is charged with cracking down on bad landlords and equity skimmers who are not in compliance with HUD program legal requirements.

• Section 8 Financial Management Center Team - The Section 8 Team was responsible for consolidating the work of 51 HUD offices, 10 Field Accounting Divisions, HUD's Office of Housing, and the Office of Public and Indian Housing. The Section 8 Financial Management Center will provide electronic payment of housing assistance and integrate the financial management of all rental assistance programs administrated by HUD.

• Multifamily Property Disposition Team - The Office of Housing consolidated its Multifamily Property Disposition Program from over 30 offices into two Centers.

• Community Connections Team - This Team developed the Community 2020 Geographic Information System (GIS) Program that offers affordable, easy-to-use software that benefits citizens as well housing and community development professionals.

• Ginnie Mae Path to Homeownership Team - This is a user-friendly, self-administrated, automated loan pre-qualification process where prospective borrowers can determine maximum government loan amounts or home purchase prices based on information they provide.

• Title VIII (FHEO) Processing Team - This Team redesigned FHEO's Title VIII housing discrimination complaint process, an effort that will result in improvements to the Department's overall discrimination review efforts.

• Ginnie Mae BPR/Paperless Processing Team - Ginnie Mae has eliminated all of the paper processes previously necessary to issue mortgage-backed securities.

• The FHA Connections Team - This is an interactive system on the Internet that gives lenders real-time access to several FHA systems for the purpose of originating loans. This system reduces the amount of time it takes to get insurance from 10 days to 2 ½ days.

• The Housing Counseling Internet Reporting Team - This team automated the collection of annual Housing Counseling Reports from HUD-approved Housing Counseling agencies.

• The Fort Worth REO Bidding Team - A Team that created a consolidated and paperless Real Estate Owned property process.

• The Manufactured Housing Technology Team - The Team reinvented the process of analyzing, managing and providing data associated with the Manufactured Housing Program.

LIST OF MEMBERS OF HUD TEAMS WINNING HAMMER AWARDS

HUD Model Office Team: Michele Bernier, Lewis Nixon, Douglas Shelby, Deborah Williams, Tony Hernandez, Karen Miller, Judith Beermann, Mary Ellen Bergeron, Craig Clemmensen, Teresa Emeigh, Bob Etchison, Lauris Irby, Karen Lynne Johnston, Dennis Peacock, Darlene Schonfeld, Monica Schuster, Bob Snipes, Nancy Stegman, Betty Thompson, Brenda Gonzalez, ATS, Gene Zapfel, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Rick Lobsitz, TASC.

HUD Next Door Kiosk Team: Art Agnos, John Burchett, Ron Dizon, Sam Gallagher, David Gottlieb, Candi Harrison, Karen Hinton, John Lee, Rebecca Morley, Phyllis Preston, George Wrightsman.

Office Of Departmental Operations And Coordination Team: Frank l. Davis, Ann Aldrich, Robert Allen, Saundra Green, Larry Hatcher, Edward Johnson, Ernest Parker, Chris Rossillo, Kim Sanders, Betty Thompson, Lisa Williams, Alberta Zinno.

Departmental Enforcement Center Implementation Team: Thomas Bucelwicz, Mirza del Rosario, Robert Duncan, Jessica Franklin, John Herold, Sue Ireland, Cas Kolaski, Edward Kraus, Martha Littlefield, Encarnacion Loukatos, Monica Schuster, Elizabeth Simms, Ted Stever, Tom Visage, Alberta Zinno.

Section 8 Financial Management Center Team: Phyllis Angell, Connie App, Paul Aprigliano, Pat Arnaudo, Jerry Benoit, Robert Boepple, Steve Brewer, Anthony Britto, Steve Burgess, Diane Cmiel, Mary Conway, Diann Crawford, Jackie Dean, William Gilliland, Barbara Hunter, Joyce Lee, Duncan Macrae, Frank Malone, Eugenia Ramos, Delbert Reynolds, Joe Riley, Chris Rossillo, Margaret Shaw, Chris Sorenson, William Tamburrino, Bernice Unland, David Vargas, Sue Walker, Marvin Weiss, William Tamburrino.

Community Connections Team: Victoria Anderson, Dick Burk, Donna Clarke, Dennis Crow, Lois Dean, Lorain Drolet, Pamela Glekas, John Haines, Gene Hix, David Kaminsky, Theodore Leavengood, Bernard Mcshane, Diana Moss, Delores Reeves, Renee Ryles, William Seedyke.

GNMA Path To Homeownership Team: George Anderson, Kevin Chavers, Michael Daly, Deborah Holmes, Nicholas Shelley.

Ginnie Mae Process Redesign/Paperless Processing Team; Kevin Chavers, Daniel Cira, Charles Clark, Michael Daly, Patricia Dougherty, Michael Garcia, Deborah Holmes, Betty Jo Jones, Clarence Kennedy, Charles McClelland, Maria McQueen, Karen Overmiller, Elton Peller, George Rose, James Thompson, Wilson Thompson, Thomas Weakland, John Whitehead.

Title VIII (FHEO) Processing Team: Faye Austin, Malcolm Barnett, Bob Bouchard, Marcella Brown, Marilyn Brown, Cheryl Burrichter, Ann Chud, Linda Connelly, Amziah Craig, Dorothy Crow-Willard, Ted Daniels, Edwin Delgado, Hope File, Jay Golden, Ira Goldstein, Chuck Hauptman, Lois Hoover, Bill Howell, Bernadette Jones, Judith Keeler, Barbara Knox, Floyd May, Carmelo Melendez, Al Mundy, Gloria Nordin, Cliff Oliver, Gordon Patterson, Kathleen Pennington, Greg Peterson, Sara Pratt, Andrew Quint, Dale Rhines, Wayman Rucker, Leon Russell, Stan Seidenfeld, Barbara Steck, Jim Tichenor, David Weaver, George Williams.

Multifamily Property Disposition Team: Frank Allen, Celia Beard, Dan Blake, Alvin Braggs, Ray Buday, Ross Burton, Norma Cannon, Dixie Cooley, Bill Daley, Bill Dorris, Hank Elliott, Charles Gardner, B. J. Goode-White, James Gulatte, Marc Harris, Beverly Harvey, Joseph Hoglen, Gail Hubert, Dolores Jefferson, Carolyn Johnson, Melvin Johnson, Gregory Karns, Dorothy Kelly, Margaret Laasko, Robert Laquey, Richard Long, Alicia Lunceford, Anita McDonald, Jeff McGregor, William Melvin, Arden Moomey, Tom Moore, Travis Parker, Sandra Pennay, Robert Reavis, Deborah Shelton, Nancy Smith, Jack Stark, David Turner, Mary Walsh, Victor Walters, Sandra Washington, Ernie Worsham, Johnnie Young.

FHA Connection Team: Jim Beall, Jacqueline Campbell, William Chang, John Coonts, Tammy Davis, Ellen Depew, Mark Holman, Emelda Johnson, Patty Johnson, Daniel Kahn, Michael Knowlan, Jeanmarie Kuntze, Dawn Lockhart, Doug Manning, Matthew McCants, Mike Milazzo, Terry Morin, Vance Morris, Hugh O'Brien, Ernest Peoples, Robert Peterson, Al Taoras, Sheryl Watson, Laird Wright.

Fort Worth REO Bidding Team; Paul Adams, Conley Andrews, Keith Bass, Barbara Bates, Dan Blake, Dick Bradley, Kay Byron, Eric Warner Endsley, Margaret Henderson, James Hicks, Mandy Hwang, Beverly Johnson, Tom Moore, Carol Peoples, Ann Marie Sudduth, Jerry Sykes, David Toner, Tom Wade, Louis Ybarra.

Housing Counseling Internet Reporting Team: Jim Beall, David Dwyer, Kaveh Ghozati, Stephanie Greene, Eva Herman, Daniel Kahn, Diane Lobasso, Doug Manning, Joan Morgan, William Ortiz, Michael Schauer, Steve Ziemba.

Manufactured Housing Technology Team: Shyam Choudhary, Marion Connell, Bhaskar Ganti, Ashok Goswami, Mike Mafi, Jeannie Magee, Stuart Margulies, Maureen Maze, Richard Mendlen, David Nimmer, Phil Schulte, David Williamson.