DEQ’s own Aaron Borisenko has been nominated for a 2022 Public Service Recognition Week Award for his work as part of the interagency Wildfire Science Team. The team is up for the Interagency Excellence Team Award category, which honors cross-agency collaboration, stakeholder engagement and innovative approaches to intractable problems.
The awards are presented by the Oregon Federal Executive Board and the Public Employees Roundtable. The award ceremony was Thursday, May 5, at the Portland Art Museum. According to the nomination, Aaron’s accomplishments “exemplify the spirit of public service, and you are a credit to the vocation of federal service.”
The Post-Fire Research and Monitoring Science Team (Wildfire Science Team) was established following the Labor Day fires of 2020. It has provided a place to collaborate, coordinate and facilitate scientific research and monitoring efforts between federal, state, tribal, academic and municipal groups involved in data collection for the purpose of understanding the impacts of wildfires on people and the environment.
Aaron has been the water quality monitoring manager at the DEQ Lab for the last 15 years. He works to share the lab’s science broadly to help make informed decisions that positively affect environmental quality. In his spare time, he enjoys exploring Oregon with his wife and son, skiing and kiteboarding.

President John F. Kennedy established Federal Executive Boards to achieve better interagency coordination and communication. The Public Employees Roundtable is a coalition of good government associations working to promote public service recognition and careers.
— Harry Esteve, communications manager