IRMCO awards honor public service

CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- The Chief Information Officers Council recognized three people and one team with the  CIO Council Leadership awards at the Interagency Resources Management Conference here April 14.

Today, the General Services Administration chose three programs to honor with the USA Services Awards, given at a luncheon celebration.

Winners of the CIO Council Leadership awards were:

* Darlene Meskell, GSA's director of intergovernmental solutions. She started a quarterly forum where CIOs from five countries share ideas.

* John Moses, director of the eRulemaking program at the Environmental Protection Agency. The governmentwide program encourages public interaction as part of the federal rule-making progress. He led the effort to develop and deploy Regulations.gov and the Federal Docket Management System.

* Michael Sorrento, director of the Disaster Credit Management System's operation center at the Small Business Administration. Under his guidance, the Electronic Loan Application system has become a virtual process that allows efficient loan decisions for disaster victims.

* The Federal Desktop Core Configuration Team, an interagency effort to develop standards for federal computer systems.

The USA Services Awards went to:

* Third Place: The National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Services, for adding English and Spanish e-mail, and Web chat, to the cancer.gov informational Web site.

* Second Place: USAJobs, for a number of added services, particularly giving applicants the ability to store their military records in the system. That development means applicants can make the records part of their electronic job applications, and not have to forward them separately.

* First Place: The Participant Assistance Program in the Labor Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration. With no added employees, the program has been increasing its ability to recover money for citizens.

According the Labor Department, in fiscal 2007 the Participant Assistance Program accounted for about $96 million of the total $1.15 billion the administration recovered in benefits on behalf of citizens. The administration also got indictments against 115 people in connection with crimes involving pension or benefits.