Air Force acquisition chief's rise and fall a cautionary tale

In the mid-1990s, Darleen Druyun, the hard-nosed and powerful civilian chief of Air Force acquisition, took a rare vacation from her 18-hour workdays at the Pentagon. Her absence provided a chance for her political and military bosses -- who thought a career federal executive should not have power over billions of dollars in weapons contracts -- to try to cut her down to size. With no good reason to fire her, they instead moved to simply eliminate her job as the service's top contract negotiator.

When a loyal secretary contacted Druyun to warn her, Druyun cut short her vacation and returned to Washington. But she didn't go to her Air Force bosses to complain about the move; instead she paid a visit to her political allies in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Within a year, her nemeses in the Air Force, a three-star general and a political appointee, had left the service.

"They're gone, but I'm still here," Druyun would later tell a colleague. Druyun's maneuvering to quash the effort to oust her is emblematic of her relentless management style -- a style that kept her a step ahead of colleagues and contractors during nearly a decade overseeing Air Force acquisition, but, ultimately, earned her more respect than friends. During her 30-year federal career, Druyun charted a course that made her one of the most influential acquisition executives in government. In the February issue of Government Executive, George Cahlink describes her ascent in government -- and her subsequent rapid descent on the corporate ladder.

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