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For release: 11/17/02
Release #: 02-298
Tereasa H. Washington, director of the Customer and Employee Relations Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is one of just six NASA employees nationwide who received the 2002 Presidential Rank Distinguished Executive Award — the highest honor attainable for a civil servant. Washington, a Tuscumbia, Ala., native, manages a wide range of programs at the Center, including human resources, internal relations and communications, media relations, government and community relations, employee and organizational development, educational programs and technology transfer — the development of space technology for commercial use.
Photo: Washington (NASA/MSFC)
Tereasa H. Washington, director of the Customer and Employee Relations Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is one of just six NASA employees nationwide who received the 2002 Presidential Rank Distinguished Executive Award — the highest honor attainable for a civil servant.
Washington, a Tuscumbia, Ala., native, manages a wide range of programs at the Center, including human resources, internal relations and communications, media relations, government and community relations, employee and organizational development, educational programs and technology transfer — the development of space technology for commercial use.
“My heartfelt gratitude for this honor is matched by my deep appreciation of each member of the Customer and Employee Relations Directorate and the rest of NASA and the Marshall Center team for helping make it possible,” Washington said. “Together, we are improving the way we do our jobs, furthering NASA’s mission and communicating our successful endeavors to the American people. There is no greater reward.”
Washington, who received a Presidential Rank Meritorious Executive Award in 1999, received the Distinguished Executive honor this month in Washington, D.C.
"The honor conferred on Tereasa Washington is a source of pride and inspiration to me and the entire Marshall team,” said Art Stephenson, director of the Marshall Center. “Her selection demonstrates that hard work, dedication and achievement by those in public service do not go unrecognized, and that is tremendously gratifying to me,” he added.
The Presidential Rank Awards honor executives who have provided exceptional service to the American people, exhibiting strong leadership skills, strength, integrity and a commitment to outstanding public service. The awards are given annually to a select number of government executives in the Senior Executive Service — a group of leaders who serve as a vital link between presidential appointees and the rest of the federal workforce. Just one percent of the more than 6,100 career members of the Senior Executive Service may receive the Distinguished Executive award.
The daughter of Arthur W. and Earline Horton of Tuscumbia, Washington was among the first African-American students to attend Deshler High School when Tuscumbia schools were desegregated in the mid-1960s. Washington — who was part of a popular family singing group, the Hortons, that performed throughout the southeast and appeared on local television and radio — says public familiarity with the group helped ease her integration into the formerly all-white school. She credits her work ethic to the motivation and encouragement she and her siblings received from their parents — devotees of public service, education and community.
“I learned early about the value not just of doing things right, but of doing the right things,” Washington said. “Emphasizing relationships and fostering community — whether among small-town neighbors, or co-workers in an organization the size of NASA — stand at the heart of that goal. By embracing our commonality, each of us becomes more than we are.”
Washington received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Alabama A&M University in Huntsville in 1978. In 1982, she earned a doctorate of jurisprudence from Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville, Tenn., and immediately joined the Marshall Center’s Office of Chief Counsel as a legal research assistant. In 1983, she was appointed general attorney-advisor, handling legal matters for the Center’s administration and technical operations. In 1988, she became associate chief counsel for issues related to personnel and labor relations. In 1992, she was appointed associate deputy chief counsel for the Center.
In 1995, Washington was named director of the Marshall Center’s Human Resources and Administrative Support Office. She led the office’s evolution, in January 1998, into the Customer and Employee Relations Directorate, which today, under her direction, includes more than 250 civil service and contract employees.
Washington is the recipient of numerous NASA and industry awards, including a 1999 Senior Managers in Government award from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.; a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 1992; the Astronaut Corps’ “Silver Snoopy” Award, for service to the Space Shuttle program, in 1990; and a Marshall Center Director’s Commendation in 1988.
She has served in a number of civic capacities, including sitting on the board of directors for the Valley Corridor Summit, an organization devoted to fostering the technological leadership of the Tennessee Valley region. She also has served on the board of directors of the Huntsville chapter of the Girl Scouts of North America, and on the Huntsville Hospital Foundation’s development council.
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