‘This was my dream job’: Cedar Rapids VA worker, USDA researcher among federal workers fired

DES MOINES — A Cedar Rapids VA worker who aided fellow veterans seeking care, and a former student employee of the year who conducted agricultural research for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Ames are among the more than 200,000 federal workers without a job amid President Donald Trump's and billionaire Elon Musk’s ongoing efforts to slash the government workforce.

Many of those fired have been recent hires or long-serving government employees who changed jobs or agencies and were classified as probationary employees who have limited rights to appeal dismissals.

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Terri Wollenberg, a U.S. Army and Navy veteran with 32 years of continuous military service, worked as a program support assistant with the Veterans Health Administration at the Cedar Rapids Vet Center, which provides mental and behavioral health services.

Wollenberg performed a variety of clerical tasks in support of the VA's mission to care for veterans. She was among more than 1,000 probationary employees with less than two years of service with the Department of Veterans Affairs who were dismissed from their roles last week.

The department, in a statement, said the cuts were part of the "governmentwide Trump administration effort to make agencies more efficient, effective and responsive to the American People." The VA said the move will save more than $98 million that will be redirected “back toward health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries.”

“This was a tough decision, but ultimately it’s the right call to better support the Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors the department exists to serve,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins. “To be perfectly clear: these moves will not negatively impact VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries. In the coming weeks and months, VA will be announcing plans to put these resources to work helping Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors.”

The VA did not respond to questions submitted Wednesday by The Gazette seeking details of employee dismissals in Iowa.

“I was met at the door by my director, she let me know that I was done. I had no idea,” Wollenberg said. “It hit me out of the blue. I didn’t even know I was on a list that could possibly be considered.”

While a recent hire, Wollenberg said she came to the job with 32 years of knowledge as a veteran, including 15 to 20 years of experience navigating the VA as a client.

“These are individuals who support the programs who make sure that veterans receive the services they get,” she told reporters during a press call arranged by the Iowa Democratic Party.

“We have an insider knowledge. Not only are we part of the system, but we can advise other veterans how they work forward and through the system,” Wollenberg said.

She and other probationary employees who were fired said they received a form email sent to agencies by the Office of Personnel Management to use to terminate workers, citing “performance.” That, despite having received positive performance reviews.

“I was told the government doesn’t see continued employment performance in the best benefit of the U.S. people, essentially,” Wollenberg said.

She said she has joined a class-action lawsuit challenging the mass firings.

“We’re not here to get rich. We’re here to work for the citizens of the United States. We’re here to work for our veterans,” Wollenberg said, noting she and other fired employees were on the lowest end of the pay scale for federal civilian employees.

“We’re here to work for our farming community so we can make lives better for all of us,” she continued. “This was shocking. And its was shocking the way this was done. It’s illegal. It’s immoral and it’s unethical. And I know I feel it. I know my community feels it. … When you’re cut off at the knees, this is tough.”

Fired USDA worker was 2022 ‘student employee of the year’

Logan Conner worked more than two and a half years for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Ames. He graduated from Iowa State in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and began working on campus as an agricultural science research technician.

He was still in his probationary period after recently starting his full-time job at the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames when he received an email on Valentine’s Day informing him of his removal from his position.

“It’s been a tough couple of days,” Conner said. “ … This was my dream job to work in public service and help do environmental research.”

He said he was excited to begin work assisting his supervisor on an upcoming research project on ways to mitigate nutrient runoff from farm fields that is a major cause of water quality problems in the state, without affecting crop yields.

“Making sure crops aren’t only producing good yields, but also doing so in a safe and effective way,” Conner said.

A USDA email said the agency found “based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.”

However, as a student employee, Conner said he had never received a poor performance review, and was named student employee of the year in 2022 by the USDA-ARS-National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment (NLAE). And he had not worked in his new full-time role long enough to receive a new performance appraisal.

Conner said he’s appealing his firing, but is not confident “that will result in anything.”

The mass firings have affected employees working in areas including animal and plant health inspection, farmland conservation and agricultural research, according to reporting by NPR.

The USDA did not respond to questions Wednesday submitted by The Gazette seeking details of employee dismissals in Iowa.

In a statement, a USDA spokesperson said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins “fully supports the President’s directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies, and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people.”

The statement said Rollins “is committed to preserving essential safety positions and will ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted,” and ensuring U.S. tax dollars “serve the people, not the bureaucracy.”

Conner said the mass layoffs will result in cutting research projects like his helpful to Iowa farmers and rural communities.

“There’s research that isn’t going to be able to be done because they don’t have the manpower to do so now,” he said. “This was very important, long-term research for public health and our farmers across the state and it’s just been a really frustrating process for everyone involved.”

Conner added those fired were low- to mid-level federal employees who were passionate about their work “to make things better.”

“For those specific sections of the government to be the ones gutted doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It is baffling. It is completely backward from what you would want and how you should go about that logically.”

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said Wollenberg’s and Conner’s stories demonstrate the arbitrary and haphazard mass firings haven’t done anything to make government more efficient.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com