Keynote Address by

David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Secretary for Health and Surgeon General
Office of Public Health and Science

First Annual Combined Federal Campaign Awards Ceremony
Parklawn Conference Center
Rockville, MD

Friday, March 10, 2000
10:00 a.m.

[This text is the basis for the Assistant Secretary for Health and Surgeon General's oral remarks. It should be used with the understanding that some material may be added or omitted during presentation.]

Introductory Remarks

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Ms. [Susan] Kidd, for that very kind introduction, and I want to thank her for her commitment to community outreach and children's issues.

To the Agency heads assembled here today, our awardees, and, indeed, all of you distinguished guests, good morning.

It's my pleasure in being here for the First Annual Parklawn Combined Federal Campaign Awards Ceremony.

Commendations

It was Emerson who said: "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

The Combined Federal Campaign is truly a one-of-a-kind opportunity for Federal employees to contribute to the programs we so much believe in. It's an opportunity for us to help others, which, in turn, means we are helping ourselves.

I want to congratulate all of the CFC volunteers who worked tirelessly and who made this the most successful campaign in the history of the National Capital Area.

I also want to thank the senior staff who are here with us today for supporting the efforts of their employees and for setting good examples themselves.

Our Accomplishments

HHS employees not only met their ambitious $3 million goal, they exceeded the goal and with a $3.3 million achievement became the largest employee campaign in the entire government. We enthusiastically supported our leader, Secretary Donna Shalala, and for that we should be doubly proud.

The success of this campaign is the result of what can happen when HHS agencies pull together to meet a goal.

In the audience today are award winners from many agencies and from many of our buildings throughout the metropolitan area, including our hosts here at Parklawn, and those from Rockville, Gaithersburg, Laurel/Beltsville, and even a contingent of keyworkers from the FDA building downtown.

Let me share with you just some of the facts about the outstanding volunteers participating in this ceremony. These are some extraordinary people.

• They are untiring. These keyworkers, team captains, coordinators, and campaign managers, who planned and conducted the CFC, starting back in September.
  
  
• They are diverse in their agency representation. They represent six operating divisions of the Department, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Food and Drug Administration, Health Resources and Services Administration, Indian Health Service, Program Support Center, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
  
  
• They go after what they want. The CFC keyworkers asked a total of 8,650 of their colleagues to contribute to help people in need.
  
  
• They are persistent. More than 60 percent of the people they asked said "yes." Many of the keyworkers had even better results than that.
  
  
• They get results! Not only did they get results—they got big results. There were more Eagle (1 percent) and Double Eagle (2 percent) contributors this time than ever before.

We're All Winners

Let me leave you with this story that was quoted in Reader's Digest.

At 47 years of age, Jim Valvano, the former North Carolina State basketball coach, was suffering from terminal spinal cancer. As he reflected over his life, he told a reporter a story about himself as a 23-year-old coach of a small college team.

"Why is winning so important to you?" the players asked Valvano.

"Because the final score defines you," he said. "You lose, ergo, you're a loser. You win, ergo, you're a winner."

"No," the players insisted. "Participation is what matters. Trying your best, regardless of whether you win or lose—that's what defines you."

It took the coach 24 more years of living to find out how right the players were. It was not until he found himself bolting up from the mattress three or four times a night with his T-shirt soaked with sweat and his teeth rattling from the fever chill of chemotherapy and the terror of seeing himself die repeatedly in his dreams, that led him to say: "Those kids were right. It's effort, not result. It's trying. God, what a great human being I could have been if I'd had this awareness back then."

I know this is a ceremony to congratulate the winners, but this is not a zero-sum game. While I don't want to take anything away from the winners, I can't help thinking how what you've done has made all of us winners.

Whether it's the person who gave, the person who encouraged someone to give, or whether it's the person who was on the receiving end—today is a day fit for winners. There are no losers.

And those of you being honored today, those of you who make it happen, are double winners.

Godspeed.