Transition Archives

They're busy rearranging the executive deck chairs at the Military Health System while the nomination of Dr. Jonathan Woodson to be the next assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs molders away in the Senate due to a hold by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

MHS put out a press release on Tuesday that in the absence of Woodson, Dr. Clifford L. Stanley, the Defense Department's undersecretary for personnel and readiness, named Dr. George Peach Taylor Jr., who served as Air Force surgeon general from 2002-2006, as the head guy at MHS, with the rather awkward title of "performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs."

Taylor, I'm told, has been hanging around MHS as an SESer for the past couple of months, and before that was managing director of Federal Government Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers and then did a stint as health care IT veep at Northrop Grumman, which until recently had the biggest chunk of the MHS IT portfolio. Taylor replaces Dr. Charles Rice, who will return to his position as president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

There's a lot more action, insiders told me.

Another MHS newcomer, George Chambers, has been named special assistant to the secretary of health affairs and head of EHR Way Ahead Planning Office (EWAPO), which among other things is supposed to come up with a new commercial electronic health record to replace the loathed AHLTA record system.

Chambers, and his key job, mystifies a lot of folks who track MHS, including those on the Hill. Chambers' LinkedIn bio says he serves in both the MHS job and as vice president of CPS International, which bills itself as the "preeminent provider of Information Systems Solutions and Consulting Services for the Health care community." The CPS website does not say where the company hangs its hat.

Hmmm . . . does this mean an outside "adviser" will now drive development of the next generation military electronic health record? Or, does Chambers have his SES pips, as some folks speculate?

Whatever his status, Chambers has a vast portfolio within MHS. This October, I'm told, he will run the Defense Health Information Management System -- a job currently held by Army Col. Claude Hines -- portal development, critical fixes, distributed development and everything else but raising and lowering the flag at MHS headquarters.

There's other key personnel changes afoot at MHS that I can't write about at the moment, but purpose of the exercise, I'm told, is to burrow in before a new boss is confirmed.

The Senate Armed Services Committee was supposed to hold a hearing on Tuesday on the nomination of Teresa "Teri" Takai, the chief information officer from California, as the assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration - a.k.a. the Defense CIO. But the committee inexplicably delayed it.

In a cryptic note posted on its website, the panel said the notice for the hearing tomorrow "is amended to show the removal of Teresa M. Takai to be assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration from the panel of nominees," who are slated to testify.

I asked the committee for an explanation, but have not heard back. A Pentagon spokeswoman told me that Takai's nomination has not been pulled.

Whatever the reason, the postponed confirmation hearing definitely means that ASD/NII will continue to remain leaderless at a time its very existence is threatened. The Defense Business Board called for its elimination in a report released last month.

The good news is the committee will hear from Dr. Jonathan Woodson, an Army Reserve one star nominated in April to become the Defense top doc, replacing Dr. S. Ward Casscells, who resigned as assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs in April 2009.

President Obama announced on Wednesday he plans to nominate Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Jonathan Woodson as assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, filling the military's top doc slot. The post has been empty for a year, ever since Dr. S. Ward Casscells resigned in April 2008. I had heard Woodson was the top choice back in January.

Woodson is a vascular surgeon and an associate dean at Boston University. He was appointed in March 2009 as assistant surgeon general for mobilization, readiness and reserve affairs, deputy commanding general for the Army Reserve Medical Command. He did a tour in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990-1991.

On Monday I suggested that Dr. Stephen Ondra, an Army Gulf War vet who is a professor of neurological surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, had the inside track for appointment as under secretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration.

Not so, said my new best friend, Katie Roberts, Veterans Affairs Department press secretary. Ondra, she said, does serve as a senior adviser to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, but has not even applied for the top VA health job.

I told Roberts this was partly a rumor and gossip column. Roberts, who served as deputy communications director for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's presidential campaign, said she found the Washington rumor mill "quite interesting."

I will try to make up for this error by buying her a great enchilada lunch at Charlies Spic & Span Bakery and Café here in The Original Las Vegas the next time she travels to New Mexico.

Here in Whatsland we try to keep track of all the personnel changes at the office of the assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration (a.k.a. the chief information officer shop). I note that yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appointed Prabha Kumar, as the chief innovation and technology officer for ASD/NII.

Kumar, who gets Senior Executive Service stripes with the new job, previously served as chief of integration engineering for the Defense Information Systems Agency.

Gates also appointed David DeVries principal director to the deputy of ASD/NII, Dave Wennergren. DeVries, who also gained an SES rank, previously served as an active duty Army colonel with that service's Network Enterprise and Technology Command.

But when oh when will a new ASD/NII and CIO be named to replace John Grimes -- and who will it be?

I'm picking up hints that Dr. Marv Langston, appointed the Navy's first chief information officer in 1997 and John Gilligan, who served as Air Force CIO from 2000-2005, are candidates for the Defense Department CIO slot, vacant since John Grimes left the job last month.

Langston, considered the father of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, said he's interested in the job but only if the Obama administration wants a change agent.

What kind of change does he have in mind? Langston, who runs his own consulting firm, pointed to his blog, which, among other things, says Defense needs to develop an enterprisewide information technology infrastructure instead of the systems it has in place today, which are sliced and diced by the services and combatant commands. Langston also told me that he thought Gilligan had "the inside track" to replace Grimes.

Gilligan, also a self-employed consultant after a three-year stint at SRA International, told me he was surprised that he was under consideration for the CIO job and added, "Marv has my vote."

How about co-CIOs for Defense?

. . . and the Obama administration hasn't yet named a replacement for him as assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration - in other words, the chief information officer.

My well-placed sources say they have no idea of a likely candidate, with the exception of retired Rear Adm. Robert "Willie" Williamson, who, I'm told, would really like the job. Williamson has the military and industrial credentials for the job, commanding two aircraft carrier battle groups and, after retirement, having held jobs at Raytheon and Microsoft. But I hear other folks also are under consideration by the administration.

Grimes left Defense at the end of April, and shortly thereafter Cheryl Roby took over the post in an acting role until a new candidate is selected, nominated and confirmed. Roby previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration, or the deputy CIO.

I'm also told Grimes will spend a month or two relaxing, but those who know him say he'll never retire.

Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, has used the Military Health Systems Web site both as a bully pulpit and a two-way communications tool with corpsmen, medics, doctors and nurses worldwide since he took the job April 2007.

Now, Casscells is using the site to establish the criteria to select his replacement> He's polling members of the military health community for candidates, and using a dialogue in the site's Healthy Debates section, which asks readers to define the qualifications and expertise that Defense's next Top Doc should have.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Casscells to stay on through the transition, and some posters believe he should stay on the job for another four years. As one commenter said:

Dr. Casscells opened the shutters, let light shine in to areas of the Military Health System that probably have never seen daylight. His unique ability to engage all parties to an issue, to never find any issue too insignificant while at the same time firmly grasping and addressing the key issues facing military health care cannot be found in anyone else. To be able to say that transparency, openness, and a willingness to engage diverse audiences is now the order of the day in the MHS only begins to express what Dr. Casscells has accomplished.

The poster then cast his vote for Casscells.

I agree. Casscells is the kind of guy who can push the kind of change promised by the Obama administration because he is one of the few top Defense leaders I have met in the past two decades who has not succumbed to the bureaucracy.

President Obama has nominated W. Scott Gould, currently vice president for public sector strategy at IBM Global Business Services, as the next deputy secretary of Veterans Affairs.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said that Gould, a naval reservist called to active duty in support of operations in Afghanistan, "possesses a unique and wide-ranging set of skills in information technologies, acquisition, budget, human resources and leading the modernization of large, complex organizations."

Unlike his predecessor, James Peake, it sure looks like Shinseki really understands that IT is key to the VA fulfilling the department's mission to care for vets.

Obama also nominated Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Veterans Affairs Department, to be the assistant secretary of public and intergovernmental affairs at VA. Duckworth, an Army National Guard helicopter pilot who lost both legs while flying a combat mission in Iraq in 2004, will direct VA's public affairs, internal communications and intergovernmental relations. She also will oversee programs for homeless Veterans, consumer affairs and special rehabilitative events.

Like Obama, Duckworth has Hawaii and Illinois connections: She has a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii and served in the Illinois National Guard.

I'm picking up strong signals that the Obama team is looking at retired Radm. Robert "Willie" Williamson to succeed John Grimes as assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration, the Pentagon's top gadget, gizmo, network and data guy.

Williamson was one of a gaggle of flag officers who endorsed Obama at a highly publicized event in Chicago in March 2008, which was designed to boost Obama's credentials as commander-in-chief. At that event, Williamson said Obama "has all the great qualities and attributes required to carry out the most difficult duties of the presidency."