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“TRIBUTE TO BART ELLEFRITZ” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the Senate section on pages S2449-S2450 on April 26, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO BART ELLEFRITZ
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am not sure of the man's name, but I want to thank a public policy professor at Western Illinois University.
About a decade ago, this astute professor was talking with one of his best graduate students about his future.
The professor knew that the young man was hoping to put his talent and training to good use working as a city planner or city manager in a small Illinois town--maybe a town like the one in which the young man had grown up.
The professor suggested another possibility. He asked his student:
``Have you ever considered going to Washington and working on Capitol Hill? I think you might like it, and you'd be good at it.''
Fortunately for me and for countless others in my State of Illinois, that young man Bart Ellefritz, loves new challenges and adventures, so he decided to trust his professor's advice.
He moved to Washington and landed a job as an intern in Senator Harry Reid's personal office. That is when my office first became aware of him.
Before long, I hired Bart to work as a staff assistant on my Judiciary Committee staff.
Bart mastered that job in no time flat and was ready for his next challenge, so he moved home to Illinois to work in my Springfield office doing casework.
For those who may be unfamiliar with that term, ``casework'' is a word we use to describe efforts by our staff members who work to help people with specific problems--to try to cut through red tape and make government work better for people.
Bart Ellefritz is a master of casework because he is smart and he believes that government can be a force for good. Most of all, he cares about people.
In 2009, Bart got an offer that was too good to turn down. It was the beginning of President Obama's first term. Former Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood was the new U.S. Secretary of Transportation, and he asked Bart to come work for him, so he left--with my blessing.
About 5 years ago, I succeeded in hiring Bart back to be the director of my Springfield office, which serves all of downstate Illinois.
Let me tell you, being my downstate director is no 9-to-5 job for Bart Ellefritz. Somedays, it is a 5-to-9 job--from 5 in the morning until 9 at night.
Bart is my representative--my eyes and ears--for a large part of my State. He drives hundreds of miles every week in his Mitsubishi Outlander Sport--made in Normal, IL--to meet with people on my behalf, listen to their ideas and concerns, and try to help them solve their problems.
I can't begin to count the number of people whom Bart has helped, but let me tell you about one of them.
Judy--I won't use her last name--works as a housekeeper at a motel where I often stay, and we have become friends.
Several years ago, Judy confided to me that she was 62 years old and had never in her whole life had health insurance--not for a single day. She had worked her whole life in manual labor, working as a cook, a waitress, a housekeeper, and she had never known the security of having health insurance.
I asked Bart to see if there was some way to help Judy. Bart spend hours and hours talking on the phone with Judy, driving to see Judy in person, talking with folks at Medicare and Medicaid.
A final hurdle came when Judy needed an email account to sign up for health care. Judy had never used email before, so Bart helped her set up her account.
Finally, at the age of 62, because of Bart's persistence and the Affordable Care Act, Judy was able to afford health insurance. She was able to sleep more easily knowing that she was no longer just one bad illness or accident away from total financial ruin.
I am sorry to report that Bart Ellefritz is leaving my office again next month. He is off on another great challenge. He will be working for CTA, the Chicago Transit Authority, one of the largest transit systems in the world, in one of the greatest cities in the world.
I want to thank Bart publicly for the countless ways in which he has helped me and, more importantly, helped the people of Illinois.
I also want to thank Bart's wife, Ashley, and their son, Charley, who is just 21 months old, for sharing Bart with the people of Illinois.
Bart and Ashley are what some folks in Washington refer to as a mixed marriage.
Ashley Messick was working as assistant secretary of the Senate Republican caucus, helping Senator McConnell run the Senate floor, when she and Bart met.
Bart was sharing a house in Washington with some other young professionals--one of whom happened to be a close friend of Ashley's. They met at the house, and hit it off immediately.
I also want to thank Bart's parents, Keith and Terri Ellefritz, for raising two wonderful sons. Their other son, Bart's brother Ben, is a minister.
Keith and Terri raised their two boys in west central Illinois, in a town called Carthage, population 2,605.
Bart played on his high school football team, the Carthage Blueboys, in 1998, the year they won the State football championship.
Keith and Terri Ellefritz raised their boys to have big hearts and small-town values.
Somewhere along the way, Bart also developed a passion for traveling, meeting new people, and seeing the world through their eyes.
He has visited all seven Wonders of the World.
He took 3 months off after he left the Department of Transportation to hike through sub-Saharan Africa. He ended that trip in Tanzania, where Ashley met up with him and together, they climbed more than 19,000 feet to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Bart once took his mom skydiving in Australia.
This past October he spent 2 weeks hiking in Ethiopia.
When Charley was born 21 months ago, his parents got him a passport, along with his birth certificate. At 7 months old, Charley got his passport stamped for the first time--for a trip to Colombia, South America.
Bart Ellefritz pours his whole heart into whatever he does, whether he is riding a camel in the desert, spending time with Ashley and Charley, or listening to people of my State and helping to solve problems. And he is almost always smiling.
In closing, I want to thank Bart again for the great skill, caring, and tenacity he has always brought to his job as a member of my staff, and I want to wish him the best of luck as he begins his next professional adventure with CTA in Chicago.
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