C. Ford Heard

Veterans Affairs
C. Ford Heard
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Materiel Management

C. Ford Heard is a second-generation VA employee. His father ran a medical center for the department, and now Heard has risen through the ranks to manage a multibillion-dollar procurement and contracting program-one of the largest in government. Heard, who was born in Arkansas and raised in the Northeast, has been with VA for almost three decades. For most of it, he's focused specifically on acquisition and logistics programs. Before his current position, he was director of acquisition resources services for VA's Office of Acquisition and Materiel Management, where he was responsible for developing and managing the procurement system and training its employees. Part of that includes ethics. "We have very strong annual requirements for ethics training for all contracting officers, all contracting personnel, in the VA system," Heard says.

He believes acquisition training and career development are critical to a successful federal procurement program. "We're proud of it within our organization, but we're also concerned to make sure that we do it right," Heard said in a June interview with Government Executive. Recruiting contract specialists, specifically in the 1102 job series, is a challenge because it's such a highly technical and specialized field, he said.

Retaining such employees can be difficult as well, particularly in Washington. "To be honest with you, this area is very Bedouin-like," Heard said. "People will pick up their tent, and they'll move it to various organizations just because they have the opportunity to do it."

But VA's clear mission is an attractive selling point and one that appealed to Heard. "I get a good sense of feeling whether I'm at a hospital, whether I'm at a regional office, whether I go to a national cemetery. It's something I can tap."