Janet Hale

Janet Hale has the professional manager's ultimate challenge. The management issues associated with simultaneously combining 22 agencies into one coherent department are mind-boggling.

How does Hale deal with the myriad personnel, information-technology, procurement, and related issues? By focusing on the most important and far-reaching issues, she told an audience in mid-2003. She said her three priorities for the Homeland Security Department then were:

• Developing a human-resources policy and procedures to harmonize the many conflicting systems of the merged agencies.
• Achieving IT interoperability and information-sharing.
• Establishing a single procurement policy that would take advantage of the acquisition flexibilities available to DHS.

Hale joined DHS from the Health and Human Services Department, where she was assistant secretary for budget, technology, and finance. Before joining HHS in early 2002, Hale worked for the House of Representatives as the associate administrator for finance. She also has served as associate director for economics and government at the Office of Management and Budget; as assistant secretary of Transportation for budget and programs; and as acting assistant secretary of housing at the Housing and Urban Development Department. In the private sector, Hale was vice president of the U.S. Telephone Association and executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania.

Hale, 54, was born in Buffalo, N.Y. She graduated from Miami University of Ohio and earned a master's degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.