This year marks the 50th year that the federal sector in the Baltimore area has celebrated the Execellence in Federal Career Awards Program. The EIFCA actually existed before the Baltimore Federal Executive Board was officially named in 1968 and established in 1969. Therefore, this event will have the distinction of celebrating its 50th anniversary for 3 years in a row beginning this year. This year we celebrate the event, next year we celebrate the birth of the Baltimore FEB and our partnership with our state and local agencies and in 2019 we will celebrate 50 years of actual service. This year we expect to honor at least 300 winners with your participation and increased participation from federal agencies. This event honors the best of the best federal employees and now the best of the best state and local employees who partner with the Baltimore FEB as part of our interagency mission and our community involved mission that chartered all FEBs by President John F. Kennedy. Last year we honored 293 winners, and this year we have radically altered our schedule so that we can better function in a 24 hour digital world and the reality of budget costs, food costs and extreme weather conditions which has adversely impacted the planning and the execution of the event during the winter months.As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Excellence in Federal Career Awards program, it is also important that we also note that this year we are also celebrating the 2nd Anniversary of the SES Awards which is the first competitive SES Awards program in the FEB National Network. Finally, we will also celebrate our 2nd annual public service awards that we created last year to acknowledge and pay homage to federal employees who directly aid the Baltimore FEB . We are presently working to develop a similar awards program for state and local government workers as well as government contractors. A limited version of this will begin at the 2017 awards program, and full blown version will appear in 2018 program where we acknowledge all government workers who partner with the federal sector and their contractual counterparts.