DoD Reporter's Notebook

Obama names two nominees to fill vacant DoD posts

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama named his picks to fill two Senate-confirmed DoD positions that have been vacant for quite a while.

Jared Serbu@jserbuWFED

March 9, 2015 3:57 am

2 min read

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama named his picks to fill two Senate-confirmed DoD positions that have been vacant for quite a while. If senators consent, Peter Levine would become the Pentagon’s deputy chief management officer, and John Conger would be the new principal deputy comptroller.

Levine is a longtime Capitol Hill staffer. Most recently, he served as the staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee under then-chairman Carl Levin, from 2013 until Levin retired in January. The Pentagon has been without a Senate- confirmed DCMO since November 2013, when Beth McGrath retired.

The office has been led since then by Dave Tillotson, who’s had a full plate recently co-leading an exhaustive review of the Pentagon’s IT spending and business processes alongside acting CIO Terry Halvorsen — a process we’re told should be wrapped up any day now.

Conger is already a familiar face within the Pentagon, but this would be his first Senate-confirmed position. He’s currently performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment, a new job DoD created when it merged its operational energy and installations offices. He’s also been the Pentagon’s point man on all-things-BRAC for the last couple years, a responsibility I suspect he’s not sorry to leave behind.

Conger would replace Mike McCord as the principal deputy comptroller. McCord was promoted to comptroller when the Senate confirmed him last June, replacing Robert Hale.

Notwithstanding the progress in filling the posts mentioned above, there’s still an important one left empty. DoD has not had a permanent official for installations since 2012, when Dorothy Robyn left the Pentagon to head up GSA’s Public Buildings Service. By all accounts, Conger has filled the role admirably in an acting capacity since then, but now that he’s leaving and the office has been reshuffled, this would seem like a good time to name someone to the permanent post.

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DoD Comptroller Robert Hale to leave position

GSA picks DoD installations chief Robyn to head Public Buildings Service

This post is part of Jared Serbu’s Inside the DoD Reporter’s Notebook feature. Read more from this edition of Jared’s Notebook.