Bunn to replace Lacey as NSPS head

The Defense Department has named Brad Bunn to succeed Mary Lacey as program executive officer at the National Security Personnel System, effective May 11.

Brad Bunn will become program executive officer at the Defense Department’s National Security Personnel System next month, replacing Mary Lacey, DOD said April 22. Bunn has served as deputy PEO for NSPS since June 2004. Lacey, a three-decade veteran of the department, has led the transformation of DOD’s civilian personnel system since May 2004. Lacey will depart May 11 for the Missile Defense Agency, where she will serve as deputy program director of AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense. In moving to MDA, Lacey will return to her roots in engineering, said Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England. Before becoming PEO at NSPS, Lacey was technical director at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. “Mary Lacey has led the most significant transformation of the civil service system in a generation,” England said. “I asked Mary Lacey to take on what was a very challenging and rigorous assignment. She has spent the last four years working in civilian human resources, away from her primary career track, and she has been outstanding.” In addition to his duties as deputy PEO at NSPS, Bunn is director of the Defense Civilian Personnel Management Service. A member of the Senior Executive Service since November 2003, he has extensive civilian human resources experience at DOD, including managing civilian personnel policy and programs, enterprise human resources information systems and departmentwide civilian personnel administration services. “Brad Bunn has been an integral leader for NSPS over the last four years,” England said. “He has been there since this program’s inception, and I’m confident that, under his continued leadership, this will be a seamless transition as we move forward with program implementation.” More than two years of court challenges from a coalition of DOD labor unions disrupted the rollout of NSPS, a performance-based personnel management system. The unions dropped their suit in January when Congress incorporated language in Defense Authorization legislation for fiscal 2009 that restored to NSPS collective bargaining and other workers’ rights that the unions sought. DOD said that by this spring more 180,000 civilian employees will have converted to NSPS.