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Congressional Record, Volume 131, Number 74, June 6, 1985

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Congressional "Record United States of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 99^ CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION Vol. 131 WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 1985 No. 74 Senate DON WILLEN, LEGISLATIVE FELLOW Mr. HECHT. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to commend Don Willen, a "legislative fellow" from the Department of the Interior, for his fine work as a member of my staff for the last 5 months. Don's professional background is in natural resources, and his expertise in this field has proven invaluable to me during the development of the Nevada Wilderness Act and in doing research on other natural resource and related budget issues. His advice and recommendations were always thorough and complete. Certainly the most concrete accomplishment of Don's fellowship has been the Nevada Wilderness Act. As you know, Nevada was one of the last Western States to introduce wilderness legislation, and Don played a very significant role in drafting some of the technical provisions and the floor statement. He also assisted in doing some preliminary research work for amending the Geothermal Steam Act which I intend to introduce in the near future. Don's expertise was also valuable in the handling of constituent requests and issues. We all know how important constituent service is, but it takes a special kind of person to really get the job done well, making the necessary phone calls and doing extra research. Don did an outstanding job to assure that responses were accurate and timely. In all these duties, Don will be a hard man to replace. Lastly, I want to commend Don on recently completing 26 years of service as a Federal employee. All of us in Congress take a certain pride in knowing that we are performing a service for our country and Don is no exception. We are fortunate to have people like Don in the Federal Government. He is a true professional in every sense of the word, and I salute him for his 26 years of loyal, dedicated service. I also commend the Department of the Interior for making this program available to such outstanding employees like Don. Although Don has shared his valuable and unique expertise in natural resources with my office, he will also take away a new knowledge of the complexities, and very often the frustrations, of enacting legislation. I am sorry to see him leave, but I wish him success in his continuing Federal service to our country.