She joined the staff of the Office of Equal Opportunity Program in 1997 as Special Assistant to the Director. Ms. Downing previously served as Personnel Officer in the Departmental Offices of the Treasury. At the Office of Personnel Management, she served in the areas of staffing, classification, and employee and labor relations. She is a native Washingtonian and a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park. The Department created this position to ensure diversity becomes a reality throughout Treasury.
Diversity is inclusive, rather than exclusive.
It enhances the Department's capacity to capitalize on the creative energies of all employees by embracing a variety of views, solutions, and innovations to meet the challenges of the new millennium. Putting diversity theory into action, or optimizing the value of diversity, is a change process like any other. It will not happen overnight and it will take the hard work and commitment of the Department's leaders to become a reality. The Department, by focusing on diversity and treating it as an investment rather than an expense, pledges its commitment through unequivocal involvement from its senior leadership down to the grass roots. It is a bottom line, business imperative.