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Reinforcing Success: The Hammer Award

From the start, Vice President Gore has spotlighted the people and teams that were showing the way to reinvention by giving them a "Hammer Award"
a $6 hammer wrapped in ribbon and mounted with an aluminum frame. It symbolizes the dramatic change from the days when government paid a bit more for hammers. The awards are highly prized, and teams are eager to publicize initiatives that they once would have kept under wraps due to fear of criticism. Nearly 500 Hammer Awards have gone to such teams as:

the Interior Department team that converted its rules and regulations into "Plain English";
the Transportation team that, along with their California teammates, figured out how to get the Santa Monica Freeway back into operation in record time after the Northridge earthquake; and
the team from the National Park Service that reduced the review time for construction of park visitor centers and other major projects by over 50 percent.

Several agencies followed the Vice President's lead of encouraging reinvention with special awards. For example, the Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs gives the "Scissors Award" to VA employees who have cut red tape.