The U.S. Department of State presented its Director General’s Cups for Civil Service and Foreign Service at its Foreign Affairs Day ceremony and held a wreath-laying at the memorial plaques, where the USAID memorial wall was displayed for the first time alongside the State Department plaques.

Kenneth Rogers received the Director General’s Civil Service Cup; presenters described him as a long-serving civil servant in the Office of the Chief Information Officer who helped the department through the Y2K transition, assisted the National Defense University in establishing the College of Information and Cyberspace and established early professional training for information resource management staff. Rogers said every diplomat should “learn to speak the language of digital” and credited his teams for scaling telework capacity: “We literally within three months went from 2,000 concurrent teleworkers to the capacity of 85,000 teleworkers worldwide,” he said.

Philip Linderman received the Director General’s Foreign Service Cup. The ceremony program noted Linderman’s overseas posts and stated he serves on the board of the Center for Immigration Studies and is a fellow of the Ben Franklin Fellowship. Linderman used his acceptance remarks to “accept this award in the name of all the unsung retired foreign service officers,” and criticized recent personnel policies. “These policies were fundamentally unfair. They were a slap in the face of meritocracy. And they went against the 1980 Foreign Service Act,” he said.

Tom Yazgerding, president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), noted that 321 names are etched on the State Department plaques and commended AFSA’s role as steward of the memorials. “This year, no new names have been added,” Yazgerding said, and he asked department leadership to place the USAID Wall “in an appropriate place of honor here at Main State.”

Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau and Yazgerding joined for a wreath-laying at the plaque. During his remarks Landau named three USAID colleagues who will be added to the USAID memorial wall: Michael Dempsey, identified as a USAID senior field program officer, age 33; Jacob Tukey, identified as a democracy and governance officer in the West Bank/Gaza mission, age 50 and a 24-year USAID employee; and Edward Winant, identified as a USAID foreign service engineering officer, age 54. Landau asked the audience to honor their service and said the department would ensure the USAID memorial wall is displayed with distinction.

Presenters and recipients repeatedly emphasized professional service and the contributions of behind-the-scenes staff and retirees. The ceremony closed with the national anthem and the retirement of colors.