Managing the "About EPA" Website

The About EPA web area is a shared responsibility with managing editors across all EPA offices. The About EPA Editor in Chief (EIC) is responsible for the overall management of the site, and is responsible for any specific content not otherwise assigned.

On this page:

How the About EPA web area is managed
Managing Editors and Web Area Roles in the About EPA Web Area
What cannot be published in the About EPA web area
Required and Optional About EPA Content

How the About EPA Web Area is Managed

Regions, AAships and labs must develop and manage their own content in About EPA.

Regions and AAships should identify a managing editor for their organization's content within the About EPA site. This managing editor is responsible for keeping their organization's content up-to-date.
No more than two people in each organization will have a role like "editor" or "webmaster" in the About EPA web area. These individuals will update and otherwise publish that organization's content on behalf of the managing editor. If the managing editor is NOT named as one of these two people, the managing editor will not be able to make changes or publish content in the WebCMS. See the "Roles in About EPA Website" table below for each organization's managing editors and the names of people with web area roles.
- No more than one person per lab will have a web area role like "webmaster" that can access the AboutEPA web area to update and otherwise publish its content on behalf of the managing editor.
Content should be reviewed in a timely fashion so that webpages in the AboutEPA web area do not get "unpublished".
- Content must be reviewed and republished according to the WebCMS review schedule (as often as every three months for certain types of content).
- People who have a web area role in the About EPA web area may receive "review and republish" emails from the system for MANY pages in the About EPA site, including pages that they are not primarily responsible for. They are expected to sort through these emails and ensure that the pages for which they are responsible stay up-to-date, and do not get unpublished.
- When web area roles changes, it is possible that neither the managing editor, nor the designated people with web area roles would be notified before an About EPA webpage expires and is unpublished. It is possible that the system does not yet "know" to begin sending "review and republish" emails to the appropriate individual. The WebCMS will only start sending "review and republish" emails about a particular page once a page is edited and published by the owner. Each Region or AAship must ensure that that none of its content gets unpublished.

Specific types of content that Regions and AAships are responsible for is shown below in the table "Policies for Specific Content in the About EPA website".

Individual offices within AO are supported by the Office of Digital Communications. They must alert ODC, via an email to OPA_PublicWeb_Team@epa.gov, when content on pages describing their organizations must be updated. The About EPA EIC will ensure that content describing their organizations does not get unpublished.

Managing Editors and Web Area Roles in the About EPA Web Area


EPA Organization	Managing Editor	Person(s) with Web Area Roles
Overall	Cindy Walke	Cindy Walke (cwalke), Angela Shogren (ashogren)
AO	Cindy Walke	Cindy Walke (cwalke)
OAR	Kati Stevens	Laura Beck (lbeck01), Tony Nesky (anesky), NAREL: Tony Nesky (anesky) NCFRO: Tony Nesky (anesky) NVFEL: Trish Suarez (psuarez)
OCFO	Nate McMichael	Nate McMichael (nmcmicha), Brian Hefele (bhefele), Antonio Sheeler (asheeler)
OCSPP	Kate Graf	Feroz Daraseng (fdarasen); Tom Lalley (tlalley), Amanda Sutton (asutton)
OECA	Munsel Norris	Munsel Norris (mnorri03), Jibri Mayo (jmayo)
OEJECR	Christina Motilall	Christina Motilall (cmotilal)
OGC	Shaundra Arrington	Shaundra Arrington (sarringt), Antonio Haskins (ahaskins)
OITA	Elias Abunassar	Elias Abunassar (eabunass), Sergio Schwimmer (sschwimm)
OIG		Jason Elkins (jelkins)
OLEM	Matthew Colip	Joel Kamalakis - contractor (jkamalak), Allyn Hill (ahill03), Matt Colip (mcolip)
OMS	Tisha Mcfarland	Olayori Oluwo (ooluwo); Armana Sherman (asherm01); Joel Kamalakis - contractor (jkamalak)
OP	Chris Reed	Chris Reed (creed04), Eva Cappuccilli (ecappucc)
ORD	Jackie Vasko Christina Almazan	Overall: Jackie Vasko (jvasko); Christina Almazan (calmazan) Backups: Lisa Cameron (lcameron), Michelle York (myork), Carrie Holz (cholz), Charlena Bowling (cbowling), Alexander (Sammy) Hanf (ahanf), Jack Rehmann (jrehmann). Maggie Sauerhage (msauerha)
OW	Gabrielle Minton (GMINTON)	Jason Kaldani (jkaldani), Sarah Bradbury (sbradbur)
Region 1	James Anderson	Jun Ng (jng)
Region 2	Mary Miller (mmille18)	Carlos Vega (cvega), Theresa Morisseau (tmorisse)
Region 3	Christine Gonnelli	Joseph DeMuro (jdemuro), Nick Alvarado (nalvarad)
Region 4	Sherry Maddox	Sherry Maddox (smaddox), Toby Wall (twall02)
Region 5	Jen Ostermeier	Deborah Lamberty (dlambert)
Region 6	Bruce Fitch	Bruce Fitch (bfitch), Cynthia Fanning (cfanning)
Region 7	Martin Kessler	Michael Propst (mpropst), Mark Hanson (mhanso02)
Region 8	Yani Yancey	Yani Yancey (yyancey), Yvette Pina (ypina)
Region 9	Bonnie Barkett	Chris Sebastian (csebasti), David Schwenk (dschwe01)
Region 10	Charles Bert	Charles Bert (cbert), Suzanne Skadowski (sskadows), Beth Clemons (bclemons)

What Cannot be Published in the About EPA Web Area

Please contact the About EPA EIC if you have a question about what content is permitted and what is not. Content that is not specifically prohibited, and also not listed as mandatory or optional in the table below, must be approved by the About EPA EIC before publication.

Types of Content Specifically Prohibited

Only Regional offices can have “Visiting our organization” pages. Note that the About EPA site already includes:
- Visiting EPA Headquarters
- About EPA's Campus in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina

About EPA should not include content about topics other than EPA organizations, and should not include content about local or state issues. This type of content should go in a state website or in a topical website.

Organizational charts in PDF format with no text equivalent are not permitted because they cannot be made 508-compliant.

Careers/jobs content. That goes on the Careers site. Learn about how that site is managed.

Images are not permitted, with the following exceptions (which must be 508 compliant):
- Banners on the About EPA homepage and main Regional pages
- Map of offices around the nation
- Map of RTP campus
- Map of EPA headquarters area
- Photos of senior leaders on their biography pages

Biographies are only permitted in very specific circumstances. See the policy "Personal Information about EPA Staff on the Web" to see who may have a biography or curriculum vitae on the About EPA website.
- ORD has received an exception to this prohibition. ORD will be posting professional profiles that will follow the requirements outlined below:
  - Professional profiles are limited to federal government staff who (a) have Master's or PhD degrees or the equivalent in scientific fields, and (b) currently serve as scientists or as managers of scientists. Decisions about which biographies will be posted shall be made at the lab director/division director level or above.
  - ORD will ensure that professional profiles/biographies are maintained to reflect any changes in the employee's status (retirement, promotion etc.); that the biographies are kept up-to-date; and that the biographies do not get inadvertently unpublished.
  - Photos and personal information are not permitted.
  - Biographies will use a standard format.
    - The title of each biography will appear as "Jenny Jones, [Title, such as "Physical Scientist"] in EPA's National Rainbow Lab"
    - Each bio will contain only this information about the scientist:
      1. contact information, including the name of the lab and/or division; an email address; and links to the EPA Mailing Address page for the lab or division, and/or to the About EPA page about the lab or division.
      2. description of area of expertise: 1-2 paragraphs explaining the focus of the scientist's research
      3. links to select publications about current research with Exit EPA disclaimers as appropriate educational history
      4. link to a page in the Science Inventory that displays the scientist's publications, with link text "View more research publications by [name of scientist]"
      5. professional experience, which may link to non-EPA publications in professional journals, with disclaimers as appropriate.
Contact Us pages for organizations lower than AAship or ORA-level are not permitted
A-Z Indexes are strongly discouraged. For both Regions and AAships, you can include links to all your web areas in the main body of your home page, under a "Key Issues" heading, "Programs and projects managed by..." heading, or elsewhere on the page. If you feel you must have an A-Z Index, please contact the About EPA EIC to discuss.

Repeated publication of prohibited content will result in your access being removed by the Editor-in-Chief.

Required and Optional About EPA Content

Policies for Specific Content in the About EPA Website
Type of Content	Specific Pages, or Parts of Pages, that AAships and Regions are Responsible for	Is this page mandatory or optional?	Policies
About an Organization	"About the Office of XXXX" (meaning AAships) and "About Region XXX" and “About this Lab” pages	Mandatory	Must use current format. For offices, that means using these headings: What We Do Organization Programs and Projects Managed by the Office (or you can list them by office) For Regions, that means using headings common to all Regional “homepages.”
Accomplishments	Accomplishments reports	Optional	Post only if: a related topical web area does not exist. For example if OLEM wanted to publish its OLEM Tribal Accomplishments report in About EPA, it could do so only if: there is no "Solid Waste and Enforcement Response" web area there is no tribal portal AND the report relates to ALL activities of COMPLETE AAship or Region. A report on R6 Enforcement, or on OLEM EJ activities, would not qualify.
Contact Us	Your AAship-level or Regional Contact Us page (which must be a Webform) and any "Experts List", “Media Contacts” or similar pages	Optional	The organizational “homepage” will be the chief page linking to the “Contact Us” page. You do not have to put your organization’s main Contact Us page in About EPA. But consider where else might you put it? Visitors could rely on the Contact Us pages on the state web sites. You do not have to create Experts List pages, but if you choose to do so, you can put them in About EPA. Contact Us pages for organizations lower than AAship or ORA-level are prohibited. Contact Us pages must meet the web standard for Contact Us pages. Titles for Regional pages should follow one of these formats: "Contact EPA's Region X Office in Appleville, Bananastate" “or “Contact EPA’s Region X Office” or “Contact EPA New England” Titles for AAship pages should follow this format: "Contact the Office of Ooples and Banunus (COB)" Examples: Contact EPA Region 5 Region 5 Contacts List Region 2 Media Contacts Contact the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM)
Events	Pages about upcoming conferences or trainings, public meetings, etc.	Optional	About EPA is the web area of last resort for events, so only include events if: a related topical web area does not exist, either in the Drupal Web CMS or in a TSSMS account (if it does, event page should go there) it doesn't make sense to do this in a state area, with other state areas linking to it if necessary (i.e. R6 has a conference at its Dallas office and puts the event on its TX web area, with Okla. web area linking to that event page). The fact that a state area does not yet exist is not an acceptable reason to put the event in About EPA; create the state area. KEEP IN MIND: For Regional events, the state areas may be the best place for events since Regions will control these areas and can get their events published quickly in the state areas. But consider: where will your audiences look first for the event? In the related topical web area? or in the state web area?
Leadership	AA and RA biography pages	Mandatory	Format includes: Title in format "About the [Acting] Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Rainbow Unicorns" with name of person in <h2> below it Green Related Information box on the right includes: phone number, email (optional; do not use personal emails but instead use group in-boxes) link to senior manager schedule (if schedules exist), and link to the corresponding “About the XXX Office” page Photo on the left with caption. Photo must be 100px wide x 150px high, or use thumbnail size (which is roughly the same as 100x150), except in the case of the Administrator. Caption should be first and last name only, no titles. Metadata type should be "Overviews and fact sheets" See the information about biographies and putting personal information on the web above.
Mailing addresses	Your content on the Mailing Addresses page	Mandatory	It’s your job to keep your content current on this page. You should edit and republish the page when there is a change in the information for your organization. The About EPA EIC will republish the page periodically to keep the page from expiring.
Org charts	Organization chart pages showing office (AAship) and its suboffices, or showing Region and its divisions	Mandatory	Org charts are not permitted to be displayed in PDF format. Org charts should use the HTML format shown on EPA Org Chart page. Org charts may not show organizations at level below divisions.
Org charts	Your content on the EPA Org Chart page	Mandatory	It’s your job to keep your content current on this page. You should edit and republish the page when there is a change in the information for your organization. The About EPA EIC will republish the page periodically to keep the page from expiring.
Visiting Regional Offices	Your content on the Visiting a Regional Office page (this means you should make sure the link in the map stays updated)	Mandatory	It’s your job to keep your content current on this page. You should edit and republish the page when there is a change in the information for your organization. The About EPA EIC will republish the page periodically to keep the page from expiring.
Visiting Regional Offices	“Visiting Region X” pages	Optional	Regions do not have to have a “Visiting Region X” page, but if they choose to, it should go in About EPA. The Regional “home page” will be the chief page linking to the “Visiting” page. Location of the link on the “home page” to the "Visiting" page should be a location common to all Regional “home pages”. Titles for “Visiting” pages where there is only one location should follow this format: "Visiting EPA's Region X Office in Appleville." See Visiting EPA's Region 6 Office in Dallas. Titles for pages that present information about multiple locations (see R3 example) should follow this format: "Visiting EPA Region X’s Offices". See Visiting EPA Region 3’s Offices. Information about visiting public resource/ information/ records centers could also live on these pages, including on separate tabs.