Message from the Chairman
New Executive Staff
The Commissioners have filled long-awaited hires for two staff positions that report directly to the Commissioners, namely the Staff Director, which is a statutory position, and the Chief Financial Officer, a position which was determined to report directly to the Commissioners in July, 2007.
We are very pleased with these new hires, and both will be on board before the end of the month. They both have exceptional backgrounds and leadership skills, and we know that they will be very well received by the staff.
The new Staff Director, Robert A. Hickey, has been serving as Chief of Staff of the National Intelligence University (NIU), Office of the Director National Intelligence (ODNI). While at the ODNI, Mr. Hickey also held the position of Chief Information Officer, and also was in charge of the development, coordination and implementation of the NIU human capital management plan, budget development (over $250 million) and execution. Mr. Hickey was unanimously selected by the Commissioners from a group of over 200 applicants for the position. He received his B.S. degree in American History from the United States Air Force Academy and his M.A. degree in International Affairs from Oklahoma University.
The new Chief Financial Officer, Mary Sprague, has been serving as Budget Director of the Public Building Service (PBS) of the General Services Administration, which provides oversight of over $9 billion in budget assets. Ms. Sprague previously served as Chief Financial Officer of the National Capital Region of PBS, which is PBS’s largest region, with over 1400 employees and a real estate inventory of approximately 95 million rentable square feet. Ms. Sprague has also served as a Chief Election Judge for the Montgomery County, Maryland, Board of Elections, and has served in that post since 2000. She received her B.A. degree from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and her M.A. in Public Administration from the University of Colorado.
Elimination of Enforcement Backlog
Because the Commission was comprised of only two Commissioners from January 1 to June 10 of last year, it could not take any formal action on enforcement or other Commission matters, and, accordingly, a significant backlog of enforcement matters was awaiting the Commissioners when they were reconstituted on June 10. Following the consideration of three remaining matters on March 18, the Commission will have formally acted on all those backlogged matters, and, in addition, will be nearly current on all the rest submitted to the Commission for consideration since that time. The balance of those circulated by the Office of General Counsel for Commissioner determination should be completed by the end of April, and at that time the Commission should be fully current on all enforcement matters presented to it for formal action. This process is due to the heightened pace commenced last year under the leadership of then Chairman Don McGahn, and which has continued this year, with the concurrence and extra effort of all the Commissioners and the staff of the Office of General Counsel, led by Tommie Duncan, and Audit Division, led by Joe Stoltz.
Website Improvement Initiative
While the Commission has always been interested in learning of ways to improve its website, the Commission will initiate a more formal process to receive public input, opinions and analyses of website experts on how we can make the Commission’s website the best disclosure mechanism possible. To do that, the Commission will be asking for suggestions, recommendations and observations from all users. We hope to initiate the process by a public notice in the Federal Register within the next few weeks. Please begin to give some thought on any suggestions you might have on how the Commission might make the website more user-friendly, more comprehensive, more intuitive, more educational, and overall, more useful to you and the public generally.