Margaret O' Keeffe Glavin

Margaret Agnes O’Keeffe Glavin was born November 29, 1946 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Andrew Ellis O’Keeffe and Genevieve Rita O’Brien O’Keeffe. She lived in Richmond, Virginia as a child and then moved to Summit, New Jersey in high school, where she attended the Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child. Margaret received her B.A. in English from Trinity Washington University in 1968. At the encouragement of her father, who was a chemist for the Environmental Protection Agency, Margaret joined the Food and Nutrition Service at the US Department of Agriculture in 1968, starting a long career in food safety and public service. After 15 years with the Food and Nutrition Service, Margaret moved to the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), where she ultimately served as Associate Administrator and then Acting Administrator in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, Margaret spent a year focusing on food-safety issues as a visiting scholar at Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C. think tank, before returning to government service at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), serving first as the Assistant Commissioner for Counterterrorism Policy and then, in 2005, as the Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs. Margaret retired in 2008, after 40 years in the civil service, during which she received two Presidential Rank Awards, in 1991 and 1999. During her retirement, Margaret volunteered at the Christ Child Opportunity Shop and served on the board of directors of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of The Christ Child Society. Margaret loved beauty in all things and created it in her watercolors and her needlework, making quilts for each of her children and grandchildren, embroidered Christmas stockings for her extended family and many other pieces that she shared with friends and family.

Margaret is survived by her husband, John Glavin, her son, Thaddeus Glavin and his wife Sarah Hooper Glavin, and her daughter, Cecilia Gordon and her husband Douglas Gordon, and her grandchildren, Cooper Glavin, Holden Glavin, Genevieve Glavin, James Gordon and Samuel Gordon, as well as her extended family in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Australia. Margaret’s fierce determination and dignity survived the assault of early-onset Alzheimer’s and her grace and humor and generosity will be remembered by all who knew her.