Beth McGrath, the Defense Department’s deputy chief management officer, is leaving at the end of the month.

McGrath confirmed she announced her retirement in a staff meeting Monday and aims for her last day to be Nov. 30.

“I have had the privilege to serve this Department in a range of roles, and to conclude my 25-year Federal career as the Department of Defense Deputy Chief Management Officer has truly been an honor,” McGrath wrote in an email to staff. “I appreciate the work you do each day in moving the department’s Business Operations forward and I have no doubt that this team will continue to make meaningful progress in the future.”

Federal Computer Week first reported McGrath’s plans to retire.

“Ms. McGrath has been extraordinarily effective in transforming the approach to business operations away from short-term, risk averse, status quo behaviors to a more strategic, enterprise-focused environment,” a DoD spokeswoman said in a statement to Federal News Radio. “She has brought a dedicated focus to improving the business operations and her business-minded approach has reaped great dividends for the Defense Department in the areas of strategic planning, performance management, process improvement, and business information technology acquisition and investment management.”

McGrath has been the deputy CMO and performance improvement officer since July 2010 when the Senate confirmed her.

During her tenure, McGrath led efforts to reduce spending on IT for business systems by creating standards and promoting the use of smaller systems to achieve capabilities more quickly.

She also oversaw the electronic health record effort with the Veterans Affairs Department. DoD and VA decided earlier this year to move away from a shared electronic health record and are now focusing on ensuring interoperability and data standardization across both separate systems.

Most recently, McGrath issued the DoD strategic management plan to give the Pentagon a roadmap to meet specific goals, including earning a qualified audit opinion by 2017.

Before becoming the DCMO, McGrath also served as the deputy director for systems integration at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) where she created a financial migration strategy that included a comprehensive architecture and identification of departmentwide systems valued at more than $1 billion. Prior to joining DFAS, McGrath held several program management roles throughout DoD.

Kevin Scheid, the assistant deputy CMO, will fill in on an interim basis until a new nominee is selected, the DoD spokeswoman said.

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