Ed Hugler

Labor
Ed Hugler
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management Operations,
Senior Procurement Executive

In his 28 years at the Labor Department, Ed Hugler has "seen a lot of things and also a lot of procurement dollars." Hugler, who is the department's deputy assistant secretary for administration and management and its senior procurement executive, has actually spent much of his career working on mine safety and health issues. A lawyer who graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law, Hugler served in Labor's Office of the Solicitor as deputy associate solicitor and counsel for standards and legal advice focusing on mine safety and health, during his first years at the department.

In his current job, Hugler says he spends about "10 percent to 15 percent of his time" working on procurement-related issues, and focuses more on Labor's long-range procurement policy than on its daily operations. That's probably about as much time as he has to devote to that particular issue, considering the rest of his portfolio includes managing the department's policies and processes related to information technology, human resources, employee safety and health, civil rights, and general business services.

Patrick Pizzella holds the chief acquisition officer title at Labor, leaving Hugler free to focus on IT projects. He was a project leader of GovBenefits.gov, a Web site aimed at linking citizens to information about federal benefits. Most recently, he has been working on fully launching Labor's eProcurement system. One of Labor's key e-government initiatives, it is designed to streamline the department's procurement process by switching from a paper-based to an automated tracking system.

Hugler says the recruitment and retention of good procurement staff is a challenge. "It is a technical subject matter and not for everybody," he says, adding that more education and training are needed for staff to "achieve that level of confidence."