WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the nomination of John H. Gibson II to become the Defense Department’s chief management officer on Tuesday. It was a voice vote.
Gibson joins roughly 100 Trump administration nominees awaiting a confirmation vote on the Senate floor. There are five Defense Department civilian nominees in the queue, including Anthony Kurta, the pick for deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
Gibson’s elevation is part of broader Pentagon reforms, Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan has said.
Gibson is to be elevated from his role as deputy chief management officer into the position, which is relatively new to the Pentagon. The job entails pushing forward the best business practices for the Pentagon.
Gibson has been the deputy for a little more than two months. He previously served as deputy undersecretary of defense for management reform as well as assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management and comptroller.
Outside the Pentagon, Gibson served as CEO of XCOR Aerospace, a developer of rocket engine systems and components as well as space launch systems. He also held several senior leadership positions with aviation specialist Beechcraft.
Under a reorganization plan laid out in August, the chief management officer will have six ”reform leaders” who will oversee changes to logistics and supply chains, real property, community services, human resources, and health care.
A broader performance-management reform leader is to be responsible to work with the chief management officer and the deputy secretary to establish “a process for routinely managing the progress of the functional reforms and IT business system deployments against the plan using those goals and other measures.”
Aaron Mehta contributed to this report.
Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.
