FCW Insider: Evans honored with MOC's Franke award

I'm down here in Norfolk, Va. at the 28th annual sponsored by the The big announcement so far is the awarding of the 2008 John J. Franke Award for public service that was given to an emotional Karen Evans, is presented each year in memory of John J. Franke, who was an assistant secretary for management in the Agriculture Department under President Reagan, and later the first director of the Federal Quality Institute. He started as a successful small businessman in Kansas, served as county commissioner in Johnson County, and later moved into regional government in Kansas City. Franke died in 1991 after a courageous battle with cancer. And, shockingly enough, GSA's Martha Dorris noted, there is no Wikipedia entry on John J. Franke nor the Franke Award."I am totally humbled," Evans said during the award presentation on the first night dinner at Management of Change being held in Norfolk, Va.Evans noted that she is accepting the award on behalf of the staff. "This is not [for] me. I'm accepting this on behalf of all of you," she said.Dorris, president of American Council for Technology, said Evans has been a career government employee who started as a GS-2 and working her way up the line.There were two previous Franke Award winners on hand for the award: , the deputy CIO at the Defense Department, who won the award in 2006, and John Gilligan, the former Air Force CIO who has just launched his own consulting company. The 2007 winner was .There has been much speculation about what Evans will do at the end of the current administration. She has said that she will retire. Evans lives in West Virginia and has commuted to Washington, D.C. for years.