Award is the highest honor California bestows on its public servants
SACRAMENTO, CA – The State of California today honored 14 state employees with the Governor’s State Employee Medal of Valor Award (Medal of Valor Award) for acts of heroism during a ceremony at the California Highway Patrol Academy in West Sacramento. The Medal of Valor Award is the highest honor the state can give its employees.
Medals were presented to the 14 recipients from four state departments on behalf of Governor Gavin Newsom by Chief of Staff Ann O’Leary. Other state officials participating in the ceremony included Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara; Brian Annis, Secretary of the Transportation Agency; Warren Stanley, Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol (CHP); Thom Porter, Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire); Laurie Berman, Director of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans); Eraina Ortega, Director of the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR); and George Mueller, Deputy Commissioner of Enforcement at the Department of Insurance.
In a letter commemorating Public Service Recognition Week, which begins on Sunday, Governor Newsom praised the dedication and courageousness of California’s public servants and Medal of Valor winners.
“Our state firefighters, officers and many other state workers who demonstrate incredible bravery and selflessness in responding to devastating wildfires and other emergencies are just some of the heroes serving in a state workforce of 220,000, tasked with everything from maintaining our roads to providing social services to the needy in our communities,” Newsom wrote. “California could not be the land of opportunity and success it is today without its legion of committed public servants who carry out government’s long list of important – though sometimes thankless – responsibilities.”
“Every day, millions of Californians benefit from the hard work performed by the state’s public servants,” said Eraina Ortega, Director of CalHR. “Not only do state workers do important jobs, but sometimes they risk their own lives in very dangerous situations to save others and protect their fellow citizens. The Medal of Valor honors these heroic acts of bravery that represent the very best of public service.”
The award comes in two distinctions, the Special Service Award (Silver) for an act of heroism by a state employee extending above and beyond the normal call of duty or service performed at personal risk to his or her safety to save human life or state property, and the Special Act Award (Gold) for an extraordinary act of heroism by a state employee extending far above and beyond the normal call of duty or service, performed at great risk to his or her own life in an effort to save human life.
The 2019 Medal of Valor recipients include CHP officers who continuously flew their helicopters in heavy smoke and 70-mph winds to rescue residents from a rapidly spreading fire in the Atlas Peak area of Sonoma County; a fire apparatus engineer with Cal Fire who helped bring two men out of the line of fire at the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival shootings; and a tree maintenance supervisor with Caltrans who rescued a mother and her three children trapped in their vehicle on Highway 20 in Mendocino County when the Ranch Fire broke out.
Recipients of today’s awards, the level of their award, and their employing department are as follows:
- Phil Agdeppa, Gold, CHP
- Benjamin Anderson, Silver, Caltrans
- Thomas Britt, Silver, Caltrans
- Gilbert Caldera, Gold, CHP
- Broderick Carmichael, Silver, Caltrans
- Pete Gavitte, Gold, CHP
- Whitney Lowe, Gold, CHP
- Paul Melendrez, Silver, Cal Fire
- Chad Milward, Gold, CHP
- Michael Gilbert Quinliven, Gold and Silver, Caltrans
- Jose Serrano, Silver, CHP
- Lonnie Swartout, Silver, Caltrans
- Christopher Wetzel, Gold, Cal Fire
The Medal of Valor Award is sponsored by CalHR. Award nominations are made by the employee’s department, reviewed by the statewide Merit Award Board, and selected by CalHR’s director. The program began in 1959, and since then, 640 state employees have received Medals of Valor.
For more information about the Medal of Valor Award, visit www.medalofvalor.ca.gov. Details of recipients’ awards, and what they did to earn them, are posted on the website.
CalHR is responsible for all issues related to employee salaries and benefits, job classifications, civil rights, training, exams, recruitment and retention. For most employees, many of these matters are determined through the collective bargaining process managed by the department.
CalHR was established on July 1, 2012, by Governor Jerry Brown’s Reorganization Plan Number 1 of 2011, which combined the Department of Personnel Administration with certain programs of the State Personnel Board to create the new department. For more information about CalHR, visit www.calhr.ca.gov.