In Memory of
Marion Britton

Marion Britton, assistant director to our New York regional office, was a passenger on United Airlines Flight #93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pa. on September 11, 2001.

She began her career in 1980 in New York City as a Field Operations Assistant during the 1980 Census. In 1981, Ms. Britton accepted a position as a Survey Clerk in the New York Regional Office. Desiring a supervisory position, she applied for and was selected in 1983 to participate in the Census Bureau sponsored Upward Mobility Program. In 1989, upon her successful completion of this program, she advanced to a Supervisory Survey Statistician position in the New York Regional Office. In recognition of her considerable abilities to manage technically and operationally complex field data collection operations, Ms. Britton was selected to work on the 1995 Census Test in Paterson, New Jersey, managing the critical coverage measurement operations. The 1995 Census Test was an essential part of the development of the overall design of Census 2000. Ms. Britton had also participated in the initial test of the Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing coverage measurement instrument and training and contributed input that proved to become beneficial on a nationwide basis.

After her considerable contributions to the successful completion of the 1995 Census Test, she was promoted in rapid succession to the position of Coordinator in the New York Regional Office in 1996, where she managed and directed several Supervisory Survey Statisticians assigned to Current Survey programs and then to Assistant Regional Census Manager in 1997. In this position, she was instrumental in leading the crucial preparations and early operations for Census 2000. In 1998, Ms. Britton was called upon to serve as the Assistant Regional Director and given full operational and managerial responsibility for the New York Regional Office during the period of time while Census 2000 was being conducted. This was also a period of major expansion of the Current Survey programs. Shortly after this, she was selected to serve in an expanded managerial role as the Deputy Regional Director which included providing direct guidance and leadership for the Census 2000 Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation. After the completion of Census 2000, Ms. Britton returned to her position as the Assistant Regional Director for the New York Regional Office.

During her career with the Census Bureau, Ms. Britton earned several major honors and awards for her outstanding managerial and technical skills and innovative contributions. She received the Census Award of Excellence in 1988, the Bronze Medal Award, the highest honorary award granted by the Census Bureau, in 1993, and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government's "Hammer Award" in 1999 for her work on the American Community Survey.