Defense names senior strategic sourcing executive

Pentagon officials named an assistant deputy undersecretary for strategic sourcing and acquisition processes Thursday in a move that further rounds out the executive leadership of the recently created Business Transformation Agency.

Longtime senior Defense acquisition official Mark Krzysko on Monday will fill the position, making him the primary adviser on matters relating to acquisition sourcing processes and initiatives at the department.

Krzysko will report directly to Paul Brinkley, director of the Business Transformation Agency and Defense deputy undersecretary for business transformation.

Strategic sourcing is a money-saving acquisition technique that leverages the government's buying power.

Krzysko will help promote strategic sourcing across the department, said Raj Sharma, president and CEO of the Washington-based Censeo Consulting Group.

"[His appointment] demonstrates the importance that strategic sourcing has taken on in the government," said Sharma, who has worked with Krzysko on strategic sourcing issues.

"Just a year ago, we were trying to get the leadership to understand, but now you have a key person in the leadership," Sharma said. "It's a good sign for Defense and the entire government."

Sharma said this, along with the Office of Management and Budget's May 2005 requirement for agencies to start analyzing buying habits to make better purchasing agreements, will speed up the process of implementing departmentwide strategic sourcing.

"They'll focus more resources on not only implementing the process, but on upgrading the skills of the acquisition workforce," Sharma said. "One of the key reasons holding things back is the lack of a centralized authority to oversee strategic sourcing at the department level."

Prior to his appointment at the Business Transformation Agency, Krzysko was the director of the supply chain systems transformation directorate and had previously served as deputy director of Defense procurement and acquisition policy for electronic business -- a position he assumed in March 2002.

In that role he streamlined the acquisition process using information technology and oversaw the acquisition process and the portfolio management of eBusiness systems and applications at the department.

He represented the Pentagon for OMB's e-government initiatives and served on a panel that found that the trend toward consolidated agency business operations would be successful in the long-term.

Krzysko also served as the division director of electronic commerce solutions for the Naval Air Systems Command from June 2000 to March 2002 and had other senior level positions at the command beginning in 1991. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a finance degree and later received a master's in financial management from the College Park, Md., institution.

The Business Transformation Agency is an effort by the Pentagon to move dozens of its most extensive business modernization programs under a single roof, centralizing the management of several departmentwide programs including its e-mail system, the Defense Travel System, the Defense Acquisition Management Information Retrieval program and the Acquisition Spend Analysis Service.

Brinkley and Thomas Modly, Defense deputy undersecretary for financial management, are leading the new agency until a permanent director is found.

In late October 2005 -- weeks after he announced the creation of the agency -- Brinkley picked Army Major Gen. Carlos "Butch" Pair to serve as its business systems acquisition executive. Pair is responsible for the executive oversight of all enterprise-level acquisition programs.

Business transformation efforts at the Defense Department are budgeted for $4.2 billion in fiscal 2006, of which $777.7 million is slated to go to departmentwide projects. Budget numbers for fiscal 2007 are projected to drop slightly, to $4.19 billion overall, with departmentwide efforts receiving $739.5 million.