2019 News & Events

Debra Dailey-Fisher of CSD's Director's Office receives a NOAA Silver Sherman Award. This award was initiated during Dr. Kathy Sullivan's tenure as NOAA Administrator, to recognize individuals who excel in their work, achieve a milestone that contributes significantly or critically towards a particular program's goal, or demonstrate leadership toward process improvement of a significant magnitude. Dr. Sullivan was particularly invested in reaching down into the organization to recognize those who made extraordinary efforts to keep the mission moving forward.

Debe is recognized for her "outstanding sustained support of outreach and communication initiatives in the ESRL Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSD). Ms. Dailey-Fisher contributions have shaped CSD's scientific and professional culture to embrace diversity and inclusion through a wide variety of outreach activities. Her technical support of assessments of the ozone layer for the UN Environment Programme has improved communication of this important issue to the world."

Highlights of Debe Fisher's work

Debe has been our go-to person for many tasks for many years beginning with science communication to OAR and NOAA, award nomination writing, summer student and intern managing and mentoring, grade school and high school STEM liaison, diversity and inclusion representative and promoter, scientific meeting planner and coordinator, publications coordinator, graphics expert, master of all things color, document layout, professional printing, federal property inventory, GSA vehicle manager, and more... And her enthusiasm is infectious, drawing in others to help.

Debe's outstanding contribution to the completion of the 2018 Ozone Assessment, which is still ongoing, has been a recent highlight. It is not clear how we would have achieved such a professional product without her efforts (and her collaboration with Annie Reiser of the Executive Director's Office.)

Debe receives a Silver Sherman pin and certificate at a CSD lab gathering on 23 April 2019. The pin that accompanies this award "... is dubbed the 'Silver Sherman' because it features Sherman the Shark from Jim Toomey's popular daily comic Sherman's Lagoon. Mr. Toomey has long been a friend of NOAA. Besides sharing the exploits of the comic strip's namesake shark and his underwater friends, Mr. Toomey uses the cartoon to educate his readers about the environment."