Every Monday on GovExec.com, the People column (formerly known as "Comings and Goings") announces the arrivals and departures of top federal managers and executives. To submit an announcement, e-mail it to ksaldarini@govexec.com or fax it to 202-739-8511.
The Small Business Administration has been making big moves at local offices around the country.
Tom Tolan takes over as director of the agency's Philadelphia office. Tolan has been a public servant for more than 16 years, all with SBA. Lee Cornelison has been selected as the district director in the agency's Charlotte, N.C. office. Before joining SBA, Cornelison was a senior vice president for Peabody Coal Sales Company in W. Va. Judith Roussel, currently at SBA's Office of Government Contracting as associate administrator, is the agency's new district director for Illinois. Roussel served for 10 years with the New York-based Interracial Council for Business Opportunity, and also served as an international trade consultant with the Commerce Department. Eugene Cornelius is the agency's new district director for Michigan. Before coming to SBA, Cornelius was director of business services for the Los Angeles Community College District. Lavan Alexander, a government executive with over 29 years' combined federal government and military service, has been selected as director of the agency's district office in Ft. Worth, Texas. Before this appointment, Alexander served as deputy district director and acting district director at the office.
Thomas S. Wells has been named to the Senior Executive Service and is the new director of the Air Force Electronic Systems Center's Contracting Directorate. The Electronic Systems Center is responsible for the acquisition and development of command and control systems for the Air Force, the Defense Department and other agencies. Wells, who started out started as a GS-5 contract negotiator at Hill Air Force Base in 1981, has been acting head of the organization since March.
Kudos to Capt. Stephen Hoffman and Dr. M.C. Lin, this year's winners of the Robert Dexter Conrad Award, the Navy's top honor for scientific achievement. Hoffman is director of the Malaria Program at the Naval Medical Research Center in Bethesda, Md. and led the effort to sequence the first malaria chromosome. His work will be applied to vaccine and drug development. Lin, formerly a researcher at the Naval Research Lab, and now a professor of chemistry at Emory University, has done work affecting major Naval weapons systems. Lin's research has been applied in the ballistic missile defense program.