Gordon England

efore he became Homeland Security's deputy secretary at the end of January, the prospect of being the No. 2 executive at a government department with 170,000 employees didn't seem to faze Gordon England. During his Senate confirmation hearing, he pointed out that as secretary of the Navy, he had managed a workforce of 900,000 active and reserve troops and civilian employees.

In his previous role as executive vice president of General Dynamics Corp. from 1997 to 2001, the 65-year-old England had managed more than 50,000 employees. General Dynamics is a defense contractor headquartered in Falls Church, Va., but with substantial facilities in Texas, where England worked for much of his career.

An electrical engineer before he was a manager, England began working for General Dynamics in 1966 and worked there (or with its acquired companies) until becoming Navy secretary in 2001. The exception was a two-year period in the mid-1990s when he owned a consulting firm that specialized in mergers and acquisitions. That experience, too, will be useful at the new department, England told the senators.

As Navy secretary, England confronted a tight budget and the need to modernize the service and its equipment while ramping up after the Sept. 11 attacks. He traveled 75,000 miles and visited many Navy installations worldwide. "To me, it's the factory," he told a Texas interviewer. "In Fort Worth, I used to go out on the factory floor."

Although his 19 months with the Navy was too short to leave an indelible mark, England brought business discipline with him from Texas. With the help of a supplemental appropriation, he wiped out $3 billion of the Navy's backlog of unpaid bills and then cut spending so the overruns would not recur.

Even though he traded his No. 1 post with the Navy for the No. 2 slot at Homeland Security, the move is regarded in Washington as a step up, a reward for a job well done.