Employee
of Month
Crafts Winning Strategies
Dr.
Mary Matta clearly relishes her
work at NOAA. “I love this agency,” she says. “It’s progressive and
well-respected with high-quality objectives and serious, wonderful associations.”
For skillfully generating and leveraging these associations for the
benefit of the environment and economy, Mary isbeing honored as NOAA’s
Employee of the Month.
As an environmental scientist at the National Ocean Service’s Office
of Response and Restoration, Mary works tirelessly to advocate removal
of hazardous waste. In coastal Georgia, she is helping to clean up a
beautiful salt marsh that has been oozing mercury and other toxic substances
and contaminating fish and other animals. In her home state of Washington,
she can take pride in a recreated stream that, five years ago, was contaminated
by scrap metal. After being carefully held for several years, the original
trout have been returned – and baby salmon are thriving.
In Delaware, dredging is now a more holistic process – questions about
benefits, environmental and economic impact, public support, and whether
dredging is required at all are asked upfront. In Delaware, as elsewhere,
Mary has rallied internal and external working partnerships designed
to advance coastal restoration. She is recognized for achieving consensus,
crafting winning strategies, building technically solid proposals, and
her unwavering focus on NOAA’s mission.
Mary’s team initiatives cut across NOAA. To revitalize coastal communities,
she has been diligent in expanding brownfields redevelopment. She has
worked to implement NOAA’s role under the Estuary Restoration Act; helped
develop a national restoration strategy in partnership with Restore
America’s Estuaries; proposed strategies to improve NOAA’s contributions
to safe navigation and environmentally sustainable port development;
and been an inspiration and leader among her colleagues.
Added to Mary’s outstanding track record is the excellence with which
she has served as a spokesperson for multiple NOAA efforts. "I am very
proud to work here," she says. “The positive community and industry
collaborative efforts are especially rewarding.”
