Spotlight On:
Trade Ombudsman Joseph Rees is advocate for trade community

Tradition, Service, Honor:
Gena Karabatsos goes above and beyond to help others during Vermont floods

OI Launches New Organizational Structure:
New structure allows for quick response to challenges

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Tradition, Service, Honor Commissioner�s Award Winner saves stock from flood, co-workers from exasperation

When floods inundated large sections of Vermont last year, millions of dollars worth of property was lost. Even the Customs officers in St. Albans, Vermont, weren't spared Nature's wrath. So when two feet of water inundated the port's basement store room, the normally natty Gena Karabatsos, winner of the Commissioner's 1999 Unsung Hero Award, sprang into action. According to her boss, Tim Moran, "...all of a sudden Gena was in work clothes and boots, rescuing what supplies and forms could be rescued and cleaning out the others, all the while carrying on an hourly dialogue with phone vendors to replace the flooded switch."

Trying to right the wrongs wrought by an angry Mother Nature was only one of the reasons for which Gena won the Commissioner's award. Says Gena, "I was so upset to see the kind of waste we were going to have to absorb. But I was really stressed out because I knew what lay ahead. For one thing, the flood destroyed our entire voice-mail system, and I had to get our staff of more than 30 people to take turns answering the phones after we'd all become dependent on voice mail to do it for us. I also had to get the new voice-mail system installed, which, for many of my colleagues, couldn't happen fast enough.

"Plus, we lost most of our copy paper, forms, envelopes, and equipment. They were all floating out the door! We've had six really bad storms since

then that partially flooded the supply room, but none as bad as that one." That particular storeroom happened to be Gena's own personal domain, which she had inherited after graciously giving up her nicer above-

ground digs to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which needed it for a staff expansion. "After the INS moved in, Customs gave me some space in an old fall-out shelter," says Gena. "It's dark and dreary, and sometimes a little spooky."

Gena Karabatsos came to US Customs in 1989, at a time when both Customs and the INS were undergoing ambitious hiring initiatives in Vermont. She passed the Civil Service exam and started as a receptionist in the St. Albans service port. In the intervening 10 years she advanced through a succession of administrative jobs - secretary, management program technician - to her current position of management program specialist. She is now one of two such specialists in the state; formerly she was the Customs Service's only management program technician in Vermont.

Her management duties emerged from the dissolution of the St. Albans district office. Although many changes took place as a result of the reorganization, the administrative responsibilities the district handled - property, budget, purchasing, contracts - are the sine qua non of any organization, and they soon fell to Gena, who by now had demonstrated her competence and reliability. Today, Gena handles all these functions, not just for St. Albans, but for the ports of Highgate Springs and Derby Line as well.