NEWS FOR AND ABOUT EPA EMPLOYEES
INSIDE:
~	Retirement Change
~	Faculty Interns
~	Clean-up Charade
VOLUME 3 NUMBER 10 July 1986
The
'JEEA
Developing Managers in Region 1
EPA's leadership in de-
veloping human resource
programs agencywide passed
another milestone last month.
Aboard the ship Discovery in
Boston's Central Wharf, a
graduation ceremony marked
the region's two year commit-
ment to the Zenger-Miller
Supervision Training pro-
gram. Region 1, with the
financial backing of head-
quarters, sponsored the
management-skills develop-
ment program to benefit re-
gional supervisory em-
ployees.
Paul Keough, Deputy Ad-
ministrator for Region 1, wel-
comed the graduates by not-
ing the investment EPA has
made in resources and sup-
port to encourage agencywide
attention to the people who
are "our most valuable asset."
Keough said that initially the
idea of a two-year mandatory
attendance program, met
with some resistance. "Peo-
ple who have managed for 15
years couldn't understand
why they needed it," Keough
explained. Once training be-
gan, Keough found the feed-
back was overwhelmingly
positive. "The very people
who had the most concerns
in retrospect have said I'm
glad you did it," he said.
Keough described the need
for continuing development
of management skills as "crit-
ical" to EPA's ongoing suc-
cess.
The Zenger-Miller program
provides supervision training
with strong emphasis on
management and inter-
personal communications
skills. The program, a
private-sector offering, en-
courages managers to share
their personnel experiences
and work towards strengthen-
ing their supervisory tech-
niques.
Dr. Jack Zenger, president
of Zenger-Miller Inc., deliv-
ered the keynote address. Dr.
Zenger told the 42 graduates
that their investment in the
program comes at a time
when the views of an organ-
ization and what makes it
tick has changed. "Organiza-
tions have changed from the
traditional pyramid that put
executives at the top ... As
the world is evolving today,
we are putting knowledge
workers in the key posi-
tions," Zenger explained.
Zenger said that traditional
education systems leave a
gap. According to Zenger,
"They do not teach people
the necessary skills to excel
Kirke Harper congratulates graduate Paul Keough, Deputy
Regional Administrator, Region 1.
in the business world. The
ability to memorize a techni-
cal subject does not dictate
success . . . supervisors of
tomorrow need new vision
and skills to be successful."
Kirke Harper, Director of
EPA's Office of Human Re-
sources Management, repre-
sented headquarters at the
ceremony. Harper received
high marks from Regional
Administrator Mike Deland
for supporting ongoing hu-
man resources activities and
the resource commitment to
move them forward. This
view, Deland explained,
starts at the top with Ad-
ministrator Lee Thomas and
Deputy Administrator James
Barnes who have stressed
their concern for the people
who make EPA special. Said
Deland, "The backbone of
EPA is our people. I know of
no group, whether in the pub-
lic or private sector, that is
more commited or dedicated
than EPA employees. We in
government have difficulty
competing with the private
sector in areas such as salary
and working conditions.
Therefore, we have an obliga-
tion to further career oppor-
tunities for our employees. I
feel strongly that one of the
important ways we can fol-
low through on this commit-
ment is to provide training
programs. The Zenger-Miller
training program is one of the
big successes. It is a pioneer-
ing prototype of what EPA's
commitment to its people is
all about." ~
more on back.

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People
Howard Messner, Assistant Administrator for
Administration and Resources Management, was awarded the
Outstanding Public Service Award from the American
Society for Public Administration June 18. It is the Society's
highest service award.
At a June 26 ceremony. 23 headquarters
employees received Certificates of Completion from the
Zenger-Miller Supervision Seminar Series. Three staff
members from the Office of the Administrator served as the
facilitators: Dwight Doxey, Kathleen Conway, and William
Mansfield.
Retirees: Ruth Sumey, 23 years. Region 10 . . .
Mario Nuncio. 17 years, Region 7 . . . Thomas Entzminger. 22
years, Region 8 . . . Betty Ripple. 26 years, Administration and
Resources Management . . . Murray Strier, 16 years, Water . . .
Helen Seaton, 20 years, and Donald Winslow. 42 years. Las
Vegas . . . Robert Dudley, 40 years, Wallace Smith, 19 years,
and Herbert Pabren, 23 years, Cincinnati.
Special Act Awards presented to: Benjamin Kalkstein.
Enforcement and Compliance Monitoring . . . John Svkes. and
Veikko Lepisto. Administration and Resources Management . . .
Samuel Napolitano. Policy, Planning and Evaluation . . .
Stanley Lichtman. Air and Radiation . . Randy Bond
and Pamela Pentz, Research and Development . . . Tom
Power, Larry Landman, Rod Branham, Sandra Barnett, Bob
Moss, Dennis McCarthy, Joe Whitehead, Peter Hutchins, Rich
Wilcox, Rebecca Kanner, and Lisa Snapp, Ann Arbor.
Sustained Superior Performance Awards presented to:
Kathryn Maddox, Office of the Administrator . . . Juanita
Cherry, Joan Henry, and Rene Bowman. Office of the
Inspector General . . . William Thomas. Office of the General
Counsel . . . Janice Sanchez, Research and Development . . .
Clarionet Smith. Administration and Resources Management
. . . Jeff Alson, Elaine Burger, Eugene Tierney, Dave
Brzezinski, Penny Carey, Cheryl Hogan, Jim McCargar, Craig
Harvey, Amy Brochu. Terry Newell. Lee Jones, Jim
Hudzinski, Mike Gold. Rita Parsons, Vince Crowell, Ered
Holbert, Don Milliken, Mike Matthews, Margie Prescott,
Jennifer Criss, Jensen Cheng, Celia Shih, Ernestine Bulifant,
Tom Darlington, Mark Wolcott, Steve Dorer, Margaret
Holladay, John Shelton, Stan Syria, Carl Fuller, Steve
Halfyard, Walt Adams, Karen Reese, Connie Kauffman, Phil
Conde, Jim Shears, Lottie Parker, Amy Caldwell, John
Kargul, Roger Dornberger, Andy Pedersen, Kevin Raber,
Linda Hormes, Paul Reece, Lester Lents, Carl Scarbro. Doug
DeVries, Doug Lorenz, Lennir Kocher. Gordon Riley, Bill
Harbowy, Bob Dieter, Stephen Pfeiffer, Robert Jones, Dale
Turner, Dave Perkins, Hanneke Hall, Susan Mizinski, Sue
Cook, Eric Zellin, Thomas Snyder, Marc Schaffer, Mike
Sabourin, Chris Mikolajczyk, Mike McCuaig, Chris Keller.
John Hendon. Dan Heiser, Dan Harrison, Seung Ho Park,
Joan Wilfong, Gene Yuells, Addie Moore, Dick Wolff, Kitty
Walsh, Marion McQueen, Beth Laird, Gail Sobecki, and Pat
Brower, Ann Arbor.
Administrator Lee Thomas, at a recent headquarters
ceremony, presented awards for unusually outstanding
performance to nine members of EPA management. Unusually
Outstanding awards are made annually to those employees in
the Performance Management and Recognition System
(formerly called the merit pay system) whose job performance
results in major progress toward Agency objectives.
This year's winners are: Gary Amendola. Region 5 . . .
Kathleen Callahan, Region 2 . . . Thomas DeMoss. Water . . .
John Edwardson, Administration and Resources Management
. . . Chester France, Ann Arbor . . . Denise Keehner. Pesticides
and Toxic Substances . . . Walter Mugdan. Region 2 . .
Gilman Veith. Research and Development . . . Thomas
Voltaggio, Region 3.
Letters
... a means for Agency employees to communicate to other employees
whatever messages of criticism, praise, opinion, or explanation they so
desire. Brevity and constructive suggestions are encouraged: obscenity and
rudeness are disallowed. Letters will be published as space alloivs and may
be edited for clarity cind conciseness. No attempt is made by the editor to
confirm any data presented by correspondents and the opinions expressed
should not be taken to represent Agency positions, unless signed by the
head of the appropriate office. All letters mast be signed and accompanied
by submitter's office location and telephone number.
Dear Editor:
This is a description of my observations during the recent
charade at Region 5 offices. We were informed that there was
to be a "Clean-Up Week" prior to a visit by Mr. Barnes. Each
person in our branch is quite cramped for space and is
lacking for storage area, having far less than the recommended
work space. Nevertheless, we've tried to arrange our spaces to
best suit our needs to accomplish our duties, but then were
told to arrange things to suit someone else.
The clean-up directive was reinterpreted by each layer of
management down the chain such that orders at the bottom
were essentially to move considerable material out of our
areas and hide it somewhere until after the inspections by
each level of management, or throw it away. This resulted in a
lot of wasted person-hours moving things out and back and
also, probably, the loss of some relevant documents which
were hidden so well that they'll never be found when needed
or thrown out in the SAM boxes. More than one supervisor
was heard to say, "It's only until after the inspection. Then
you can move it back."
Instead of allowing the upper management to see us
cramped as we normally are and perhaps providing more
incentive for them to get us more space and furniture, the
lower management needed to make every effort to skew
reality for the upper management. It was rather comical to
watch the inspections take place as each lower level of
management trailed along behind the next higher level as they
inspected, hoping no demerits would be given.
I heard very few positive comments from fellow staffers
about this event. Perhaps it was just another attempt to
demoralize EPA workers so as to generate some personnel
reduction for the new fiscal year.
John T. Gaitskill
Region 5
Left to right: Gary Amendola. John Edwardson. Chester
France (back row), Kathleen Callahan. Thomas Demoss Iback
roivj, Administrator Thomas Iback roivj, Thomas Voltaggio.
Walter Mugdan (back row), and Denise Keehner.

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Around EPA
New Retirement Act
The Office of Administration donated $300.62 to Children's
F^spital These were excess funds from their "Best First" OA
^Biic.
^^he information number for the General Services
Administration (GSA) switchboard serving the Washington.
D.C. area is no longer 655-4000. The new number is 245-6000
and is available to callers from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p m. Monday
through Friday EPA personnel are encouraged to use the
Selected Washington Agency Directory which lists federal
agency numbers. The directory starts on page 261 of the EPA
Winter Headquarters Telephone Directory. ~
Conferences, Etc.	
The University of Wisconsin is offering a seminar titled
Underground Storage Tank Management August 11-13 in
Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, contact Professor
John T. Quigley, Department of Engineering. University of
Wisconsin. 432 North Lake Street. Madison. Wl 53706
Telephone: 608-262-5361.
EPA's Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory m Las
Vegas is co-sponsoring a workshop titled Progress in
Chemometrics August 25-27 at the University of Nevada. For
more information contact Joe Behar on FTS 545-2216.
EPA's Summer Faculty
For the second summer in
^kow, EPA has a successful
^Rulty Intern Program,
according to Beverly Leath-
erwood, National Coordinator
for the Program and EEO
Officer for Region 5.
Throughout the last year, Re-
gion 5 officials and staff
members from the Office of
Civil Rights provided on-
campus briefings to faculty
and representatives from his-
torically black colleges and
universities (HBCUs).
This year EPA selected 17
faculty members from 15
HBCUs and one pre-
dominantly Hispanic univer-
sity to serve as faculty interns
for the summer in five
EPA facilities The goal of the
program is to establish long-
term associations with pre-
dominantly minority in-
stitutions by offering intern-
ships to faculty members
and developing a rapport Be-
tween EPA and the in-
^tutions.
^¦'welve of the interns will
uu working in Region 5, two
will be in Headquarters, and
one each in Region 2, Region
3, and the EPA laboratory in
Cincinnati. The faculty mem-
bers, who are mostly scien-
tists, engineers, and adminis-
trative officers, represent the
following schools: Atlanta
University, Dillard Univer-
sity, Fisk University, Florida
A&M, Grambling University,
Hampton Institute, Kentucky
State University, Lincoln
University, Morgan State
University, New Mexico
Highlands University, Nor-
folk State University, Prairie
View A&M, St. Paul's Col-
lege, Shaw University, and
Southern University (Baton
Rouge and Shreveport).
Faculty members partici-
pating in the programs re-
ceive mid-level pay for their
tenure and get valuable expo-
sure to EPA programs and
regulations.
Last year, two professors
served as Faculty Interns
with EPA. Dr. Troy Story of
Morehouse College in Atlan-
ta, and Dr. Sylvester McPher-
son of Kentucky State Uni-
versity spent the summer in
Region 5 working on EPA
projects in the regional office
and laboratory facilities. ~
On June 6, President
Reagan signed into law the
Federal Employees Retire-
ment System Act of 1986
Commonly referred to as the
"Post-1983 retirement plan,"
this new system creates a
three-tier benefit plan which
includes Social Security, a
modified civil service pen-
sion. and a tax-deferred thrift
plan. Generally, federal work-
ers hired since January 1984
are automatically covered by
the new law. Employees per-
manently hired before that
date can choose either to re-
main under their current
retirement coverage or decide
during an open season next
year to be covered by the
new plan The new plan be-
comes effective January 1.
1987.
Double Deductions Cease
Passage of this new law
solves the double deduction
problem for post-1983 hires
which they have been sub-
jected to since May 1 of this
year. Until recently, these
employees were exempt from
having to make the full con-
tribution to both Social
Security and the civil service
retirement fund; but when
the temporary law expired
April 30. thousands of civil
servants (including all Presi-
dential appointees and about
half the members of Congress)
became "double covered"
and had their pension de-
ductions increased by nearly
6 percent The new law calls
for these employees to be
reimbursed for the extra
money deducted from their
paychecks.
New Plan Highlights
Under the new plan, em-
ployees will get three layers
of benefits: social security, a
basic pension, and a thrift
savings plan The pension
will require contributions
equal to 1.3 percent of pay in
1987. 0.94 percent in 1988-89,
and 0.8 after 1989. For each
year of service the pension
will be 1.0 percent of the
"high-3" salary for retirement
before age 62, and 1.1 per-
cent for retirement at age 62
or over, with at least 20 years
of service
Employees retiring at age
62 with 5 years of service, at
age 60 with 20 years of ser-
vice, or at age 57 with 30
years of service, will be eligi-
ble for full (unreduced) bene-
fits. Employees voluntarily
retiring at ages 55-57 with
only 10 years of service
would have their benefits re-
duced The penalty is 5 per-
cent for each year that retire-
ment is below 62.
Employees under the new
system will be able to con-
tribute up to 10 percent of
pay to a tax-sheltered thrift
plan. The government will
automatically contribute 1
percent of pay that the em-
ployee contributes and the
next 2 percent at 50 cents on
the dollar. The three invest-
ment choices are a govern-
ment securities fund, a fixed-
income fund, and a stock-
index fund. Employees who
remain under the current
Civil Service Retirement Sys-
tem may invest up to 5 per-
cent of pay in the govern-
ment securities fund only,
with no employer match The
thrift plan will be admin-
istered by a five-member
board. An open season to
join the thrift plan or reallo-
cate investments will be pro-
vided every six months.
Clarence Hardy, Director of
Personnel, believes that a
number of pre-1984 em-
ployees may decide to switch
over to the new plan once
they find out exactly how
they would fare under the
new system It all depends
on an employee's age, length
of service, and perhaps some
other factors such as a com-
parison of the disability and
survivor benefits of the new
plan. Employees will have
plenty of time to decide,
since the first open season in
which they can elect to join
is not scheduled until July
through December 1987. "By
then, we will have complete
information available for em-
ployees to help them make
this decision," said Hardy. ~

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The Zenger-Miller Experience
Two years of training,
battling traffic tie-ups,
through all kinds of weather,
while handling the day-to-
day demands of the job.
That's what the graduates of
the Zenger-Miller Supervi-
sion Training program faced
in completing the course
work. Was it worth it? Re-
gional Administrator Mike
J. Deland summed up his ex-
perience: "I can't think of
anything more important
than each of us as managers
and individuals trying to fur-
ther refine and hone our peo-
ple skills." Down the line,
his sentiments were echoed
by the supervisors who
represent EPA's broad array
of program concerns.
Quality Assurance Officer
Wayne Wirtanen said he
started his management
career as a line supervisor.
"When a technical person
moves to a position of line
responsibility, you suddenly
have personnel problems,
problems you've never faced
before. Zenger-Miller fills
that void." Wirtanen said he
believes that, had he had the
training earlier, on he would
have been a more successful
manager from the onset.
"Now, with 12 years of su-
pervisory experience, I find I
still can learn. This course
provides structure. It devel-
ops confidence in your abil-
ity as a manager to react
quickly with a solution that
Region 1
Administrator
Mike Deland
taIks about
I ' 1 { human
resources.
will be appropriate in a
business-like way while strik-
ing a balance in developing a
constructive relationship
with your employees. I have
a sense of the importance of
self-esteem. After any
employee-manager situation,
we both walk away with our
self-esteem intact."
Heather Ford, Superfund
Section Chief, is a civil engi-
neer who started the Zenger-
Miller program five months
after becoming a supervisor.
She said the experience
allowed her the opportunity
to try out her theories and
hear other people's ideas.
According to Ford, "It was a
sense of affirmation and con-
fidence in knowing my ideas
were on target. I had no
frame of reference and had
no way to learn to be a su-
pervisor. Zenger-Miller gave
me a way to sort it all out."
As a brand new supervisor
charged with hiring a staff,
Ford said she was looking at
"a totally foreign experi-
ence." In the end, she says,
"It was very valuable in tak-
ing a lot of the mystery out of
being a manager through
healthy, open exchanges. I
learned to think before talk-
ing and to approach a situa-
tion with concern for the in-
dividual and to treat him in
the manner 1 wished to be
treated."
Personnel Management
Specialist Georgianna Bish^H
said she spent ten years in^B
Region 1 serving individuals
who had technical experi-
ence but little or no back-
ground in management. With
experience in education, psy-
chology and counseling, she
finds professionally and per-
sonally that the Zenger-Miller
experience has had a major
impact. "I saw change in
terms of their ability to con-
structively support each
other. There was a recogni-
tion that other people have
the same problems they do
and that their war stories and
experiences can help to teach
someone else. Most im-
portantly, I saw a sense of
management as a profession
being recognized. That you
have to work at it and it can
be learned. You just don't
wake up one day with this
knowledge. People have
finally realized what we were
doing. It's wonderfully
gratifying." Bishop offered^
suits of an evaluation ques™
tionnaire completed by all
participants. She said she
thought one summed it up
best. "There is always some-
thing to learn and relearn. I
certainly don't know it all.
However, I can try to keep
what skills I have sharp by
using them. I've grown to feel
a sort of common bond with
my fellow managers and su-
pervisors that I can rely on in
the future." ~
Wayne Wirtanen comments
on Zenger-Miller experience.
Heather Ford.
Georgianna Bishop
The EPA Times is published
monthly to provide news and
information for and about EPA
employees. Readers are
encouraged to submit news ot
themselves and of fellow
employees, letters of opinion,
questions, comments, and
suggestions to: Marilyn Rogers.
Editor. The EPA Times. Office 
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