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Adrienne Thomas

Adrienne Thomas
Adrienne Thomas

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History alumnus serves as senior civil servant at the National Archives.

Adrienne Thomas has taken a somewhat unconventional route through the archives of the United States.

It's a journey that has taken her from Iowa State's Department of History to the No. 2 person in charge of the nation's official repository of the Federal records that describe the nation's history without the benefit of "working in the stacks" except on training assignments during her first year at the National Archives.

"I really liked history," Thomas says, "but there was always a doubt where history would take me career-wise."

One thing Thomas knew she didn't want to do after completing both her bachelor's and master's degrees in history at Iowa State was going on to get a doctorate and seek out a college teaching post.

But it wasn't until an Iowa State professor showed her a brochure on the Presidential Libraries archival training program at the National Archives in Washington, DC that she even considered working there.

"He told me 'if you're not going to teach in college then maybe you should think about this,'" Thomas recalls.

Thirty-eight years later, Thomas is still on the job at the archives. But unlike most archivists who entered the Presidential Library training program, Thomas never spent time at one of the presidential libraries.

Instead, after she finished the agency's required year-long training in Washington, she decided she did not want to be assigned to one of the Presidential Libraries.

"It didn't take long for me to realize that I would rather stay in Washington," she said.

Soon she was hired to be an assistant to the Deputy Archivist. She liked working on archival policy and other administrative activities and realized she preferred it to working with the records in reference or processing.

Instead Thomas found herself working on management issues for the National Archives including the 1974 Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act implementation within the agency.

And when the National Archives broke away from the General Services Administration (GSA) and became an independent agency in 1985, Thomas headed a unit that was instrumental in establishing the processes necessary to operate as an independent agency.

"It was a tense and difficult time," she said, "but it was also interesting and exciting." There were lots of challenges because the Archives had very few administrative employees. Administrative activities such as budget, human resources, and procurement had been carried out by GSA employees.

"It was an all new set-up trying to recruit new employees and develop operational procedures for the newly independent agency."

Shortly after the National Archives became an independent agency of the federal government, planning started on creating a new building to store archival records. The agency's primary building on the National Mall had long since run out of space to store records.

According to Thomas, the Nixon presidential papers and the Archives' cartographic records were stored in a warehouse in Alexandria, Va. Other archival records were stored in a records center in Suitland, Md., and various administrative offices were located in four different locations in the District of Columbia.

Thomas spent the next six years devoted to the planning and construction of a new archival facility in College Park, Md. And then another three years to move records to the 1.8-million-square-foot building called "Archives II."

"I didn't know anything about designing and constructing a building but I learned and it was a lot of fun," she said.

She also oversaw the renovation of the National Archives Building and the construction of a new regional archives facility in Atlanta.

Prior to becoming the Deputy Archivist of the United States, Thomas also served as the assistant archivist for administration and chief financial officer. In this role she was in charge of human resources, procurement, space and security management and financial management.

Those are duties that Thomas has continued to hold since being named to her new position earlier in 2008. The Deputy Archivist is a career civil servant while the Archivist of the United States is a political appointee.

The Archivist, Allen Weinstein, has charged Thomas with overseeing the Archives day-to-day operations. In addition to the headquarters offices in the District of Columbia and College Park, Md., Thomas' oversight extends to 13 presidential libraries, the Federal records center system and Regional Archives spread across the country, and the National Personnel Records Center (civil and military) in St. Louis.

"I'm still settling into this new job but I would like to see us continue to educate people on the value records have for individuals and the nation," she said.