Another possible OFPP chief surfaces

Here’s another candidate to consider as a possible OFPP administrator: Cathy Garman.

Garman has had a long, long, long history in federal contracting and still understands what’s happening in government acquisition today. President Barack Obama is eying contracting reforms in the Defense Department, and Garman knows the department’s acquisition processes and, no doubt, its faults.

She’s currently a staffer on the House Armed Services Committee and has been there since 2007—her second stint with the committee.

She moved to the committee after being senior vice president of the Contract Services Association of America since 1998. She was a 2002 Federal 100 award winner while at CSA for her work on a broad initiative against requiring public-private competitions for federal work. Here’s a long bio of Garman.

From 1990 to 1995, Garman was a staff member on the House Armed Services Committee and was instrumental in drafting the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994—the first major comprehensive reform of the government’s acquisition system in more than a decade.

In March Obama said acquisition problems are governmentwide, but he focused on the defense contracting.

“Last year, the Government Accountability Office, GAO, looked into 95 major defense projects and found cost overruns that totaled $295 billion. Let me repeat: That’s $295 billion in wasteful spending. And this wasteful spending has many sources. It comes from investments and unproven technologies. It comes from a lack of oversight. It comes from influence peddling and indefensible no-bid contracts that have cost American taxpayers billions of dollars,” Obama said during a March 4 press conference in which he announced his procurement reforms memo. In May, Obama signed into law the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act as a way to put tighter holds on how the Defense Department buys major weapons systems.

Garman is one of the names floating around the acquisition community as a possible nominee, along with David Gragan, the District of Columbia's chief procurement officer. He didn’t respond yesterday to an e-mail or voicemail about the job. David Yarkin, a deputy secretary for procurement of the Pennsylvania Department of General Services from 2003 to 2005, is another name I've heard that the Office of Management and Budget officials interviewed, but he quickly said he was not a candidate for the job.

Interestingly, based on conversations, people well-connected to the federal acquisition community have been stumped about who the White House will name as nominee for the OFPP administrator job. Most nominees’ names for other government jobs are leaked out before the official announcement. This is a different case.

Questions:

Do you think Garman has the leadership skills needed?

Also, should this OFPP job be considered so important as to be kept such a secret?

Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Sep 02, 2009 at 1:30 PM