W e heard about several key personnel changes within the Defense Department this week, some of which the Pentagon has publicly announced, and some of which it hasn’t. To mention a few:
- Michael Vickers, the undersecretary for intelligence since March 2011, will retire at the end of next month. He is the third person to serve in the post since Congress first created it in 2003 as part of post-9/11 intelligence coordination reforms. The White House has not yet named a replacement.
- The official nomination is still pending, but the White House said last week that President Barack Obama plans to nominate Juan Garcia to serve as the assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs. Garcia has been the Navy Department’s top manpower and reserve official since 2009, so the Pentagon print shop will have to change only one word in his title when he gets his new business cards.
- Stephen Welby is President Obama’s pick to be the new assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering. The post would seem to be fairly important given DoD’s recent emphasis on technology superiority, but it’s been vacant since November 2012. Since then, Al Shaffer, the principal deputy, has filled the role in an acting capacity. He and Welby have worked together in the office for years. Welby is currently the deputy assistant secretary for systems engineering; Shaffer’s focus, in addition to leading the office in an interim capacity, has been on the research side of the enterprise.
- Bill Marion, the chief technology officer at Air Force Space Command, will become the chief information officer for the Air Force’s personnel directorate (A1) at the Pentagon. The SES appointment is official as of Apr. 5, he told Federal News Radio.
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This post is part of Jared Serbu’s Inside the DoD Reporter’s Notebook feature. Read more from this edition of Jared’s Notebook.
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Jared Serbu
Jared Serbu is deputy editor of Federal News Network and reports on the Defense Department’s contracting, legislative, workforce and IT issues.
Follow @jserbuWFED
