When Andrea Geller got a job working in the mailroom at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda at age 21, she was ecstatic. For 31 years, the federal agency was her happy place.

“I loved the mailroom, and I loved making friends and getting to talk to them every day,” Geller, 52, told Bethesda Today in a recent interview at her apartment in Rockville.

But in April, she was one of thousands of NIH employees laid off by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. While Geller had some warning and assistance from her supervisors, there was nothing they could do to keep her job secure.

Geller has intellectual and developmental disabilities and is part of a program for disabled adults that allows her to enjoy some independence in apartment living while receiving assistance from counselors and medical professionals. She also receives the support of her mother who manages her legal, financial and medical affairs.

Geller not only enjoyed her job – her efforts were rewarded by her employers. On a July afternoon in her apartment, she proudly displayed her framed certificates from NIH, photos of parties held for her work anniversaries and departure, and a prized possession – a 2021 recognition from Dr. Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Gibbons named Geller the NIH staff’s “MVP,” recognizing her dedication to connecting with and supporting other employees. He noted she always remembered the names of his two daughters and asked about them daily, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Even though there were a gazillion things running through my head … when I engaged Andrea and she asked me about my two daughters, everything else gets pushed aside,” Gibbons said in his remarks. “She gave me something to connect back to that was really important to me – not all the urgencies of the emails. At the end of the day, what’s most important is those relationships and connections we have.”

But now, Geller is struggling to find gainful employment that accommodates her disabilities, and her mother, Lois Geller, is covering most of her expenses. She is far from alone. Thousands of county residents have lost their federal jobs since Trump took office, though exact numbers are not available. From March to May, 8,500 Marylanders lost federal jobs, according to Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman.

County and state officials have addressed the massive impacts of these job cuts by drafting legislation or creating new programs to support displaced federal workers. But not all of these opportunities work for Geller, who doesn’t have a college degree, and her needs as a disabled person dictate which types of jobs are a good fit for her.

Lois Geller, 80, said that it was a source of pride to her daughter to be able to contribute her own salary toward her expenses and gain some independence in a society that can be challenging for people with disabilities like Andrea’s. Now, she’s concerned that her daughter will struggle to find similar opportunities.

“It was a very secure feeling until it wasn’t,” Lois Geller told Bethesda Today. “I felt uncomfortable the minute DOGE started, and the minute Trump got elected, I figured there was going to be a problem.”

While the number of disabled federal workers who lost their jobs is unknown, the Associated Press has reported there were more than 500,000 disabled workers working for the federal government across the country prior to the DOGE cuts.

Geller’s father worked at NIH for decades prior to his death. When he saw a job opening for a mailroom worker, he thought it could be a good fit for Andrea, Lois Geller said. While the position was not specifically aimed at disabled individuals or part of a specialized program, Lois said the agency was glad to employ Andrea because she was efficient at her tasks.

“She loves people, and I think it’s a real loss to both her and the agency,” Lois Geller said. “She got very, very skilled at her routine because she has such a good memory.”

For many disabled Americans, the federal workforce has been seen as a welcoming source of employment. At a March press conference by supporters of proposed County Council legislation to give laid-off federal workers preference in hiring for county government jobs, Juliette Rizzo, who is disabled, said she had been diagnosed as “unable to work” until she was hired in 1999 as the director of communications for the Office of Special Education at the U.S. Department of Education.

Like Geller, Rizzo loved her job and felt welcomed as a disabled employee – until she was laid off as part of a “reduction in force” under the Trump administration.

“I do not want to be on your taxpayer dollar here in Montgomery County,” Rizzo said. “I don’t want to be in the assisted living facilities or the nursing homes. I want to be in my own home. I want to live, work and play in the community of my choice, and that has been Montgomery County.”

Geller said she wants people to understand that disabled federal workers like her want to be able to continue to support themselves while serving their communities. She said if she was offered her job back at NIH, she would immediately take it.

“I want people to know about me that I’m very bright and I’m a very organized person,” Geller said. “I like to collaborate with people.”

Following the termination of Andrea’s employment, Lois Geller said helping her daughter navigate her new normal and all of the paperwork that came with it was complicated, and there wasn’t a direct line of support for people in Andrea’s position.

The experience made Lois Geller wonder about what could happen to other people like Andrea who don’t have families who are in a capacity to advocate for them.

“It was as confusing as could be,” Lois Geller said. “But I always thought, what happens if you don’t have the capacity to do this? I considered it a full time job, just to keep up with it.”

What’s next for Geller is uncertain. For now, she is staying busy and participating in programs for disabled adults to help develop additional career skills while applying for jobs, and constantly asks her mother to help her set up outings with her former NIH colleagues, whom she said she misses every day.

“I want to look for more jobs that would be like in an office, but I also would want to work with kids, read to kids at libraries or at a school for the deaf, or be a greeter,” Geller said.

She also enjoys participating in a theater program for adults with disabilities, which Lois Geller said has been “absolutely wonderful for Andrea” but is an expense she is concerned she will not be able to continue to sustain.

Lois Geller said that she is frustrated with what she sees as both a lack of respect from the federal government for its workers, and a society that is built without considering the dignity and inclusion of disabled community members like her daughter.

“It was unfair,” Lois Geller said of Andrea’s job termination. “There’s a lot of unfairness around, but some of the unfairness stems from something that’s always existed for people with disabilities. There has to be something to replace the lack of financial stability, the lack of a place in society, especially when she contributed. She paid for a lot of things, including taxes.”