Recognizing Lester Cash on His Retirement

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Lester Cash on his exemplary 37 years of service to the Federal Government, including 24 years at the Department of Health and Human Services.

After growing up in North Carolina, Lester Cash began his federal career as a statistician planning for the 1990 Census, which was followed by a decade as a senior examiner at the Office of Management and Budget. In 1997, Mr. Cash moved to HHS and spent eight years overseeing budgets for some of the Federal Government's most important agencies, including the NIH, CDC, and FDA. In 2005, he was appointed to the Senior Executive Service.

Since 2007, Mr. Cash has served as HHS's Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget, often managing the most difficult budgetary issues across a Department whose programs and services reach virtually every American at some point in their lives--from Head Start for early childhood education to Medicare for seniors.

Throughout his 24 years of service at HHS's Office of Budget, Mr. Cash frequently served as the Department's liaison to the Committees on Appropriations. During that time, he became an indispensable resource to the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. Mr. Cash's budgetary and programmatic expertise has helped the subcommittee to draft annual appropriations bills and emergency supplementals--for which I am deeply grateful.

Most recently, Mr. Cash provided important technical assistance on emergency supplemental appropriations to respond to the COVID pandemic. He has been instrumental in HHS's procurement of life-saving vaccines, therapeutics, and antivirals, as well as the distribution of emergency relief funding to healthcare providers affected by the pandemic.

In 2018, Mr. Cash earned the Presidential Rank Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the Federal career civil service, which recognizes members of the Senior Executive Service for ``sustained extraordinary accomplishment.'' It was aptly awarded and richly deserved.

In addition to his professional achievements, Mr. Cash has earned three master's degrees, including a master's degree in public policy from Duke University, a master's degree in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master's degree in theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I thank Mr. Cash for his tireless public service--which often included long days, evenings, and weekends--as he worked to ensure that critical health and human services programs had the necessary resources to serve millions of American families who relied on them. His talents and contributions will be sorely missed.

I congratulate him on a distinguished career and wish him the best in his upcoming retirement.

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