About 80 employees at Boulder’s NOAA office were abruptly fired via email last week, with no warning or severance. They were given less than an hour to pack their belongings before being escorted out — some in tears.
These probationary federal workers were among tens of thousands fired by the Trump administration in recent weeks. Across Boulder, employees at multiple federal agencies and research labs have lost their jobs, while many more are bracing for termination.
“Every single day, we’re packing up some of our personal belongings and starting to bring them home,” said a current NOAA worker, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
Boulder County is home to a dozen federally funded research labs, roughly 1,700 federal employees and an estimated 12,000 people whose work is tied to federal funding. Anger over the impact of these firings is growing more visible. On March 3, more than 1,000 people gathered to protest — the second such demonstration in Boulder. Last week, an American flag was seen hanging upside down from the Second Flatiron, a historic distress signal.
David Skaggs, the former congressman for whom Boulder’s NOAA building is named, organized the latest protest and urged attendees to engage in “good trouble,” quoting civil rights leader John Lewis, who advocated for nonviolent civil disobedience.
“[I have] no illusion that a protest is going to change the way Donald Trump behaves,” Skaggs told Boulder Reporting Lab. “But one thing leads to another, and you’ve got to believe in the legitimacy of public protest in a country that depends upon democracy.”
The firings’ effect on Boulder’s federal workforce
The full impact on Boulder employees remains unclear, but local job losses have hit several agencies. A Boulder Reporting Lab survey found federal employees in Boulder were fired from the Energy, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Agriculture (USDA) and Forest Service departments. About 10% of NOAA’s Boulder staff was fired, along with employees at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
For many, the sudden firings have upended their lives.
One woman, the sole breadwinner for herself and her twin 2-year-old daughters, lost her “dream job” on Feb. 14, calling the firings “a total beheading.” She requested anonymity, fearing retaliation.
“I have a family to support,” she said. “It’s gut-wrenching for us.” Her daughter’s medical complications make moving for a new job difficult. “All her doctors are here,” she added.
Neesha Schnepf, a fired USGS employee, said that after living in Boulder for a decade and never wanting to leave, she is now searching for work abroad. Her partner, who works at NIST, expects his job will be eliminated soon.
“Between the firings, so many funding agencies being frozen [and] the looming shutdown, if we want to be able to do our work with peace of mind and a sense of safety, it just feels like we’re getting pushed out of this country,” Schnepf said.
Meanwhile, those still employed are struggling with uncertainty and fear.
“Federal workers, we’re being villainized and demonized,” said Paul Hemmick, who was fired last week after years spent working for NOAA as a hurricane hunter, flying into extreme weather to collect data. “These are some of the hardest working people I’ve ever worked with in my 20 years. It’s disgusting to me.”
“We’re doing our best to just do our jobs and ignore all of the insanity and negative attacks,” said a current NOAA employee who requested anonymity. “We just want to do our job, which is harder now that our colleagues are getting fired.”
“People go home at night and cry,” said Susan McClain, a retired manager at NOAA. “People are in the office crying.”
Federal workers decry lack of humanity
Many employees said they were appalled by the manner in which they were dismissed. Fired workers received no notice or severance, and in the first round of cuts, all were told they were terminated due to poor performance — despite histories of positive reviews. One Boulder worker said she had a “superior qualifications” pay designation, indicating her expertise was well above average for her field.
Schnepf said her boss was near tears when informing her of her termination. “If it was up to any of us, we would not be firing you,” she recalled her saying.
The Office of Special Counsel found that six federal probationary employees were fired without enough performance-based evidence and ordered a 45-day delay to investigate. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger is now pushing for similar delays for others fired the same way.
At the same time, a federal judge and a government watchdog also ruled some of Trump’s firings illegal, leading the Office of Personnel Management to clarify that agencies have the final say. Some, like the National Science Foundation, are bringing staff back, while others are sticking with the firings.
For longtime federal employees, the contrast to past workforce reductions is stark. Dan Kowal, who recently retired from NOAA after years spent auditing and improving efficiency, compared these firings to those under the Clinton administration, which eliminated over 350,000 federal positions — but did so gradually, with Congressional oversight and severance packages.
“You had a whole year knowing that your position was going to be cut and getting a good severance out of the deal, giving you time to kind of replan your life. It was humane,” Kowal said. “This is just taking a machete and waiting for the screams to go: ‘Oh, maybe we did need that.’”
At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, acting director Russ Vought has publicly stated he wants to “traumatize” the federal workforce. One Boulder CFPB employee recruited a friend to the agency a few years ago. She was fired without notice while six months pregnant and preparing for parental leave.
“That’s some of the harder stuff,” he said.
The loss for the public
Beyond the personal and economic toll, Boulder’s federal workers are concerned about the long-term consequences of these cuts on the country.
“Outside of losing my position, I’m fearful,” said Callie, a NOAA employee who did climate-related work before being fired. She declined to give her last name. “This information is extremely valuable for understanding extreme weather events. Are we going to have the data, information and services that we normally would have, or are those going to be completely wiped out?”
Residents have also voiced concerns about a local economic downturn, increased competition for jobs and the “brain drain” of young talent leaving the federal workforce.
“The reason that the civil service is nonpolitical is so that critical work can’t just be dismantled for political reasons,” said one local federal worker who was fired from the Department of Transportation. “The federal employees that are still working support the rest of the critical work. And they’re being harassed and told that they’re lazy on a daily basis.”
“I think this protest today helps morale, because all they’re hearing is ‘federal government workers are overpaid, federal government workers are draining society,’ and boy, there’s nothing further from the truth,” McClain, the retired manager at NOAA, said at the March 3 protest.
“As a federal employee, you don’t get the lovely corporate benefits and you work for less money, but it’s because the mission is important.”
Do you have information to share about federal firings in Boulder?
The trump administration is a masterwork of sickening irony in politics, apparent even in today’s BRL’s headlines. Musk’s chainsawing his way through Boulder’s federal labs on one hand, and at the same time decrying getting evicted from his plush new Boulder headquarters under construction for failing to pay rent. Like trump, he’s a deadbeat bully who loves to display power by cheating others. How has our country deteriorated to the point that people with zero integrity have free reign in government to damage and destroy at breakneck pace? Something needs to change here.
Roxanne, where is Elon’s place, the address? And why didn’t he pay the rent?
All i know is what is stated in BRL article. Sounds like Steelyards on Bluff
It was Twitter’s Boulder office. After Elon took over Twitter, he did sort of the same thing as what he’s been doing lately – sent buyout emails to staff first (same “fork in the road” email subject line that federal workers got), then followed the emails up with large-scale layoffs or firings. They stopped paying rent at the office, got evicted, and here’s how the Denver Post’s story on the eviction ended: “Twitter’s press email auto-replied to a request for comment with a poop emoji.” Stay classy!