My Best Friend Saint Donna and Me

My Best Friend Donna Marie Carroll Carmical passed away at 7:40am on Tuesday July 18th, 2023. Our friendship spanned over 40 years. Our friendship started at EPA as co-workers in the Agency’s Budget Office where we became more and more entangled in each other’s lives. After a few years, Donna moved to Germany. She always wrote letters to keep me abreast of what was going on in her life and because she knew me, she didn’t expect a return letter. She expressed herself by writing and me by math, logic, and analytics. This combination of talent is what eventually made us inseparable friends.

When Donna returned from Germany, she was rehired in the Budget Office and moved into the position I vacated. Although I left written instructions, the Budget Office could not find anyone who could continue very important automations for critical OMB reports (i.e. construction grants, reimbursables) so I was required to do them while also performing the duties required by my new office. When Donna took over, I worked with her on the update process, and she was such a quick learner that those duties were returned to the Budget Office.

For many years, we continued separate paths, but we continued to meet for daily walks to relax our minds, discuss family issues, discuss work issues, laugh, and just enjoy each other’s company. Donna played lots of pranks such as pushing me in the bushes, cracking jokes or just doing silly fun things to take our minds off the serious things in life. That was Donna!

We volunteered at local schools together. Donna started a committee to fundraise for local families, military families and solders deployed to war zones and other charities. She wanted to make sure local families had food, clothes and toys during Thanksgiving and Christmas. She was passionate about ensuring that deployed solders had some of the necessities they enjoyed from back home. She wanted to make sure the kids hospitalized had a toy. She had an amazing big heart. During the holiday season, her committee ensured that large donation boxes were placed at every entrance at EPA, and she did the same at the Forest Service.

As our careers advanced in different program offices within EPA, we eventually got back together in the Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation’s (OPPE’s) Budget Office. I was offered a position that Donna was the ideal candidate for, so I recommended Donna and management reached out and offered it to her. When a position became available that Donna thought I was perfect for, she did the same. Although we needed money to support our families, neither of us took on unsuitable jobs when it came to protecting this country’s resources. Donna provided management oversight and I was responsible for generating the reports and information systems she needed to effectively do her job – it was the Perfect Combination.. Being an accountant, Donna always generated her own control number so when I started creating the databases she needed - first in dBase, then in Lotus Notes, her trust in my capabilities to assist her grew substantially. I didn’t have to talk to people, and she would fight for our Office’s needs with the EPA’s Budget Office, the EPA Administrator, OMB, and Congress.

Every change of Administration brought more challenges for EPA, especially when there was change in political party or major reorganization. When there was a change in Administration and newcomers wanted to reorganize OPPE under the Administrator’s Office, Donna left and went to the Office of Air’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ). I was offered two positions, one of which the Administrator’s Office blocked and the other was the position Donna vacated. Since they didn’t want me to leave, they gave me a temporary promotion and placed me in Donna’s old position. After meeting with the Budget Office and political appointees one time, I called Donna and told her I would accept a lower paying position to work with her. We fully understood each other’s needs and compassions and she knew I would not work for people who weren’t compassionate about our Agency and who didn’t understand the needs of the organization.

We both realized that each office change presented many new challenges, but with her fighting for the Agency and me giving her the ammunition to fight we became unbeatable. She gave me all the tools I needed, and I gave her the data and databases to not only fight for what was right, but to share those updated reports daily. I had my network of programmers, and she had a network of managers who she convinced to listen to her methodologies and suggested changes to make the Agency better.

Donna eventually accepted a position at the US Forest Service’s Headquarters Budget Office. The office was in disarray and utilizing old-outdated methods for reporting. Donna immediately asked me if I would come with her, but because I had created several databases which an entire office depended on to manage their funds, I couldn’t leave until I found someone who could take over the databases. I worked diligently with a contractor for two years to train contractors and staff to update and use those Databases. Eventually, I was offered another position in OECA’s Budget Office of OECA, so I moved there instead of joining Donna at the Forest Service. After I organized the Budget Execution within OECA by creating databases needed for the entire organization of about 12,000 staff Nation-wide, a new manager was hired who had no respect for me or my work. I called Donna to see if she still had any vacancies.

Donna immediately hired me on a detail. Once my supervisor realized the magnitude and impacts of my leaving, she sent me an extremely nasty letter demanding that I return to EPA or suffer disciplinary action. I shared the email with Donna, and I never heard from that person again. At that point, I knew that our careers were forever intertwined.

I again had to start over and needed access to financial systems that no one else had. Donna again went to bat for me, fighting with Finance, Information Management, Financial Systems, and others to get me what I needed to get her what she needed. If I needed to take expensive one-two week courses, go to a programming conference, visit a regional office to learn their process, be included on a certain trip to learn process, or anything else I needed – she approved it. Eventually, we spent less and less time talking about our own families and their needs and more about the Agency and its needs.

The US Forest Service had a major reorganization that consolidated all regional finance offices into a finance center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Because my job belonged in DC, Donna met with me for lunch and asked if I wanted to go because my job wasn’t a part of the reorganization, and she wasn’t quite sure how I would succeed under someone else. At this point, I had become a total introvert whose primary focus was to provide the Agency’s program offices with databases they needed to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. Because I was caring for my mom who was very ill, I could not leave the area, so I declined. After my mom passed, I told Donna I was ready to go. That office was very good to me and allowed me to transfer to work under Donna.

Donna eventually became the Director of the Finance Center and went on to become the CFO of the US Forest Service. When she assumed the role as CFO, she was transferred from NM to DC. She wanted me back in DC and had started the process, but family obligations didn’t allow me to accept the transfer, so I was allowed to work for the Washington Office remotely. I told Donna to give me a Heads Up when she planned to retire because I would retire too. No one understood me better than Donna.

Donna was not only my friend, but my sister too. I didn’t like to write so big sister always edited my writing. When she left EPA, she gave me her sister Rosemary who’s also my best friend. She always took care of me as a mother, a sister, a friend and confident. Whenever I get in a huff with my husband, he threatens to call Donna if I don’t change my tone. When I was seeking a contractor position, she recommended me to an office looking for my skills.

After we moved to Albuquerque, she sent her husband to help us settle in and adjust. He was our real estate agent; he helped my kids adjust and helped my husband with projects. He was just fun to be with.

Donna continued her compassion for people by creating social groups responsible for Agencywide and office-wide picnics, social gatherings, and awards ceremonies. She also continued to help deployed soldiers and their families, as well as local charities. She created a non-profit to help find cures for childhood cancer. She is a saint.

And just like a family, we had fights and disagreements, but we learned how to agree to disagree. When knew how to give each other space until we could talk and listen to each other’s reasoning. This is a quality that’s so hard to achieve for many friends and family.

When I started meeting her family, they wondered why I talked so freely with them. It was because I already knew them as Donna had already told me about each one of them. They were my family too.

We were similar in so many ways but mainly it was her compassion to help her family and those who were less fortunate that drew us closer together as well as her compassion for the agencies we both worked for to serve our country.

Love you Saint Donna, we will meet again, may you rest in peace.