How many times have you visited the government’s online information portal, www.usa.gov, and thought: If only I could express my love for this site through video? Well now’s your chance. The General Services Administration, which manages the site, has launched a contest for the most entertaining and creative 30- to 90-second video demonstrating how your life has improved by using the information available on the site. The winner will receive $2,500 and the chance to become a YouTube sensation. There’s a lot on the site to choose from: everything from applying for student loans and finding a good childcare provider…
Browsing: General Services Administration
Employees at the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute will be moving into new digs in 2013. The General Services Administration announced Wednesday that it’s awarded a build-to-suit lease for 575,000 square feet of office space for the agency, whose employees now are scattered among five buildings. The JBG Companies of Washington will develop two facilities, connected by a central atrium, at the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center in Montgomery County, Md., for the agency. JBG is leasing land for the project from Johns Hopkins University. The facilities will be built to achieve the second-highest rating from the U.S. Green Building…
Martha Johnson is taking more action at the General Services Administration. A day after she rearranged the deck chairs to put more emphasis on green building programs, the newly confirmed GSA administrator filled three political posts. Johnson named permanent appointees to head three of GSA’s regional offices: Jason Klumb as regional administrator of the Heartland Region, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Klumb, who at age 24 was one of the youngest elected leaders in the Missouri House of Representatives, also is a major in the Army National Guard Judge Advocate General Corps. George Northcroft as regional administrator of…
Last week, I wrote how the General Services Administration was seeking applicants for a newly created position of chief greening officer. At the time, the vacancy announcement had been posted to private-sector job boards but not on the government’s official jobs site, USAJobs. The job listing has now been posted to USAJobs, and it offers some key details that were left out of the earlier post. For instance, the job will be a career position at the GS-15 level, which has a starting salary of nearly $124,000 in Washington. As a senior adviser to the head of GSA’s Public Buildings Service,…
The General Services Administration is building on the Obama administration’s efforts to improve the health of federal employees and to green cafeterias by offering healthier options through its dining facilities contracts. The State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. will be the first to benefit from what GSA calls “a new national template for food service requirements to provide healthier and more sustainable food options in federal dining facilities across the country.” The contract creates a healthier and more sustainable cafeteria by using “locally grown produce and market baskets, menu options that are prepared using healthy cooking techniques, and a nutrition…
The roof of the Smithsonian Museum Support Center in Suitland, Md., collapsed this morning, WUSA9 is reporting. The building is the Smithsonian’s main off-site storage warehouse for museum artifacts. It’s unknown what, if any, artifacts may have been damaged by the roof collapse, according to the report. Firefighters responded to the scene before 7 a.m. and shut off electricity and natural gas to the warehouse. Officials have been warning about the dangers of roofs collapsing from the weight of all the snow the area has received. According to Michael McGill, spokesman for the General Services Administration’s National Capital Region, damage…
The General Services Administration’s new chief was sworn in Sunday night by telephone, an agency spokeswoman told FedLine today. Now that’s what I call teleworking! Acting administrator Stephen Leeds administered the oath to Martha Johnson over the phone because of the snow that pummeled the D.C. area Friday and Saturday, the spokeswoman said. The storm forced the closure of D.C. federal offices yesterday and today, and in doing so also forced GSA to cancel Johnson’s swearing in ceremony and a town-hall meeting with employees planned for today. GSA rescheduled the ceremony and town hall for next Tuesday.
The General Services Administration is adding to the government’s alphabet soup of executive-level acronyms with the newly created position of Chief Greening Officer. GSA currently is seeking applicants for the position, which will report directly to the commissioner of the Public Buildings Service. The Chief Greening Officer will develop and execute greening strategies for all new construction and for GSA’s existing inventory of 1,500 buildings, according to a job posting. The new position “will define a nationwide strategy to ensure that PBS becomes ‘the most sustainable real estate organization in the country,'” the posting says. GSA apparently is seeking an…
The Senate has confirmed Martha Johnson to lead the General Services Administration, giving the agency its first permanent, Senate-approved leader in two years. The nomination passed in a 94 to 2 vote.
President Obama today sounded off on the hold that’s been placed on Martha Johnson’s nomination to head the General Services Administration, even as the Senate planned a procedural maneuver to force a vote on her confirmation. After addressing the Senate Democratic Policy Committee Issues Conference this morning, the president opened the floor to questions. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, voiced his frustration that many of Obama’s judicial nominees and political appointees were being blocked by Republicans. While conceding that Democrats have been guilty of the same thing in the past, Obama said Republicans are blocking nominees for reasons that have nothing to…