Welcome everyone. I am excited to join you in recognizing the recipients of the 73^rd Annual Department of Commerce Honor Awards. Thank you to the secretarial officers and everyone who submitted nominations for making today possible.

Today, we honor the Gold and Silver Medal recipients – these are employees who have gone above and beyond in support of America’s workers, families, and businesses.

You’ve developed innovative tools and data to help American companies grow and create new jobs.

You’ve advanced our nation’s scientific and engineering leadership.

You’ve protected our most important and sensitive technologies.

And you’ve applied your talents and expertise across a broad range of programs to help America be the best place in the world to live, work, and do business.

The Gold and Silver Honor Awards are the highest level of recognition that the Commerce Department presents to employees for distinguished performance.

The medals you will receive are representations of your exceptional work in support of our goal to improve America’s economic competitiveness so that our workers and our companies can succeed in the global economy.

We’re also honoring the recipient of the Ron Brown Excellence Award in Innovation. Former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown saw public service as an opportunity to make extraordinary contributions to the future of our country.

This award honors his commitment to innovation and creativity as critical tools in making our department a leader in service to the American people.

So on behalf of the entire Commerce Department team, I’m thrilled to announce that the recipient of the Ron Brown Excellence Award in Innovation is Dr. Ellen Voorhees of NIST. 

Dr. Voorhees produced the blueprint for information retrieval evaluations’ methods.  It helped to built trust in information returned by search engines on COVID-19 and other pandemics—and will be lasting resource for biomedical research.

This work has directly contributed to the acceleration of lifesaving research in the fight against COVID-19. Well done, Dr. Voorhees! And congratulations to all of you.

Thank you for the dedication and commitment you bring to the Commerce Department’s work every singe day. I look forward to continuing to work with you to support America’s workers and families and businesses.

Congratulations and thank you.