ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you, James. Good morning everyone.
As I was reflecting on this morning’s memorial—and about the shattering and emotional few weeks we’ve just had—I thought about the role this Agency plays in the world. It is often said of certain people that they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. But this Agency actually does—when people are in need and beset by anguish, when dreadful events befall us, it is all of you who at USAID answer the call. You show up. You ease that pain. You give people hope.
Today, it is the USAID family—and Tresja’s family—whose pain we attend to. We are all still so shaken by Tresja’s loss. But I am grateful we have this chance to come together to honor the life of our remarkable fallen colleague. To grieve together but also to celebrate together, all that Tresja gave to the world.
I’ve had a chance to meet with many of you who knew Tresja best, including Nick and his daughter Sophia. To Nick and Sophia; to those of you who knew Tresja, who worked with her, and those by her side in her final days and hours, we are gathering today, in part, to let you know that we are here to support you, not just today but every day.
Tresja embodied exactly what makes this Agency the special place that it is: selflessness, courage, resilience. She began her service with USAID in 2005 and was a longtime force behind our disaster and humanitarian responses throughout her 16 years of service, hopping across continents to respond to the latest calamity—Haiti, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Venezuela. It didn’t matter where—what mattered was that people were in need.
In each of these places, Tresja adopted new families. She was a mentor and a confidante who looked after her teammates—especially the new arrivals. One colleague shared that when they deployed to their first disaster response, she only overlapped with Tresja for a few hours. But Tresja spent her final night of deployment getting her up to speed on the region, giving her a situation report on the disaster, and even giving her tips on how to handle the nosy matron at the guest house. “She could have done anything else on her final night on TDY, but she chose to get a relative newbie up to speed,” Tresja’s colleague said. That was Tresja.
When people think of humanitarian relief, they often think of the photographs of our DART and Search and Rescue teams delivering relief to communities surrounded by rubble after an earthquake or a hurricane. But that work begins behind the scenes with operational gurus like Tresja.
Coordinating personnel movements and schedules; mobilizing U.S. Government funding to secure continuity of operations; liaising hand-in-glove with our military and civilian partners; and doing the advance planning necessary to allow our personnel to demobilize at the right time—Tresja’s work was behind the scenes, but could not have been more fundamental.
Tresja tirelessly documented best practices and guidance for the next disaster response, the next demobilization. She wrote guidance, developed trainings, took new staff members under her wing on their first day out in the field. She steered leadership transitions and helped create the architecture that our humanitarian teams rely on daily and will continue to rely on.
Colleagues were struck by Tresja’s grace under pressure in complex, unusual, and especially challenging circumstances. She projected a sense of calm that gave her teams the reassurance they needed to remain focused on the task at hand.
Another colleague of Tresja remembers how approachable she was. “How she’d take the time to explain how things worked and share her insight into how things ‘really worked.’ She was never rushed in doing so, which was refreshing in an organization that was very much in a rush.”
But beyond her contributions, what people seem to remember most about Tresja is her kindness. Her quick wit, her wry sense of humor. Her ability to shoot you a look that would cause you to burst into laughter at the most inappropriate time.
Tresja’s kindness, and her commitment to a mission-driven life extended around the globe all the way back to her home in Indiana, where you could find her and Nick collecting food and packing boxes for the local food pantry.
They shared this mission-driven life. Nick not only understood what drove Tresja to take on difficult, dangerous challenges, but he embraces that spirit himself as an educator and theologian whose work promotes religious freedom, inter-faith dialogue, and reconciliation. He was an anchor of support to Tresja when she was abroad—through countless glitchy video calls and Thanksgiving dinners spent apart.
And they instilled those same values in Sophia, who told Nick that one day, she wanted to become a humanitarian worker just like her mom. I told Nick, the USAID family is ready to welcome her, whenever she might be ready. The curiosity and just plain decency she brings to this world and that she would bring to humanitarianism are a wonder.
It is so crucial that we hold Tresja’s family, not just in our thoughts, but in our lives. That we hug them tight, not just today, but all days. The best way to honor Tresja’s legacy is to honor Tresja’s values—the values that made her such a powerful presence at home and in the field.
My heart is with you Nick, Sophia, and Tresja’s family, who carry on her commitment to service and humanitarianism in their own lives.
My heart is with Tresja’s colleagues. You who are still providing lifesaving assistance in Haiti. You who cared for her in her final hours, and who stood vigil with her until she returned home to her family. You who signed her condolence book and shared your memories of her. You who are here with us now, simply to share this space. All of you who have stepped up to support the Denysenko family in their time of need.
The world feels a lot heavier today without Tresja by our side. But Tresja’s legacy—as a humanitarian, a colleague, a friend, a life partner, and a mom—will live on, inspiring us all to be better versions of ourselves.
Thank you.