Spotlight on Wendy Schumacher’s Federal Career

With government funding in the news a lot lately, we’re taking the opportunity to learn some new stories about the work of federal employees. It’s especially exciting to be able to profile some of the work of government employees that often goes unnoticed. For example, do you ever wonder who makes government websites easier to use? We might take government websites for granted, but we all depend on these sites to grant us access to information we need and deserve as taxpayers. In fact, reasonable public access to government information is guaranteed by law. But who carries out these functions?

This year, our Federal Employee initiative has expanded our collections and added to the stories we can tell about Jewish government workers. In fact, after we featured our first special temporary exhibit case to highlight federal employees, we asked our readers and visitors to call and email us with offers of new collections related to Jews in the federal government. And it worked! We heard from many of you, with drawers or boxes filled with ephemera including awards, certificates, photographs, and more.

One of our new collections is from Wendy Schumacher. Wendy worked for the federal government in many capacities, beginning with a stint as a paralegal at the Department of Justice in 1988. Over the course of a several-decade career, she worked for the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of the Interior.

Color photograph of Wendy Schumacher standing at the train station she took to work for the Peace Corps in Casablanca, Morocco, 2001. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum Collection. Gift of Wendy Schumacher — Color photograph of Wendy Schumacher at the train station she took to work for the Peace Corps in Casablanca, Morocco, 2001. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum Collection. Gift of Wendy Schumacher

Certificate. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Musuem Collection. Gift of Wendy Schumacher.

Gold medal, 2013. To Wendy Schumacher from the Environmental Protection Agency for "exceptional contributions promoting government transparency and openness while achieving dramatic levels of efficiency through the innovative use of technology" as part of the FOIA online Project Team. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Musuem Collection. Gift of Wendy Schumacher.

Earth Day pin, 1990. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Musuem Collection. Gift of Wendy Schumacher.

Serving in the Peace Corps in 1999-2001, Schumacher worked in a library science program in Morocco. Schumacher’s work involved the early internet age in that country and she helped develop internet-based systems for the first time at several sites. For example, she helped develop a library catalogue for a university and developed web-based projects for a USAID-funded elementary school in Rabat. She also worked at the Jewish Museum of Casablanca on their web presence. The Peace Corps was created through an executive order by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, and the JFK Library holds an oral history that Schumacher recorded in 2019 describing her work overseas and her life-changing experience as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Schumacher continued her federal career back in the States. Her accomplishments included working on complex projects such as the “Great Lakes Water Quality Guidance” report, a project for which she received official commendation from the EPA in the mid 1990s. She also helped implement a new search engine for the EPA’s website.

As a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) officer for NOAA, Schumacher helped process, review, and redact the hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper that the American public requests each year. (In FY2023, agencies reached a new record of almost 1.2 million records requested). The FOIA process allows Americans access to federal records, but each page must be checked (and potentially redacted) by trained officers in the interest of national security. At NOAA, Schumacher helped create new online pathways for researchers to easily locate materials that had already been released, streamlining the process.

Wendy Schumacher’s career highlights the varied ways in which federal workers bring benefit to the wider public. Many of these tasks are behind the scenes, making this spotlight series special, as we are able to highlight some stories we might otherwise never have learned.

The Museum’s initiative to collect items telling the stories of local Jewish federal workers is supported by Sue Ducat in memory of Stanley Cohen z”l.

If you have artifacts or images related to Jewish federal workers in the DC region, please contact us at archives[at]capitaljewishmuseum.org.