PPBE Reform
Session Speaker Information
In this sectionModerator
Lara Sayer
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Budget and Appropriations Liaison, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller
Ms. Lara Sayer, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Budget and Appropriations Liaison, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. Ms. Sayer serves as the Department of the Air Force’s primary liaison to congressional members and staff serving on the House and Senate Appropriations and Budget Committees. She leads a staff of military, civilian and contracted professionals to coordinate a cohesive financial management strategy to align DAF priorities with congressional processes and timelines to support legislative action.
Ms. Sayer began her federal career as a DAF Palace Acquire intern. She has more than 25 years of acquisition and financial management experience and has held positions of increased responsibility in the areas of budget execution and formulation, resource management and program control supporting the Air Force, Navy and United States Special Operations Command. She has served as the Comptroller for Commander, Navy Installations Command and Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, as the Comptroller for the Office of Naval Research, and as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for USSOCOM. Her experience spans several appropriations and functional areas, including budget, earned value management, cost and acquisition. Prior to her current assignment, Ms. Sayer served as the Executive Director for the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution Reform where she was responsible for leading the commission’s research and analysis, and for developing recommendations for improving the Department of Defense’s resourcing process to speed the delivery of capability to the warfighter.
Panelist
Hon. Tom Harker
Former Secretary of the Navy (acting), UnderSecretary of Defense Comptroller (acting) and Assistant Secretary of the Navy (confirmed by Senate)
Tom Harker has 30 years of public and private sector experience in Defense and Homeland Security, most recently serving as the acting Secretary of the Navy in 2021, acting DOD CFO in 2020 and Department of the Navy CFO from 2018-2021. In these roles, he was responsible for the day-to-day business operations of the Department of the Navy (Navy and Marine Corps), managing the Pentagon’s budget, and overseeing efforts to reform the military’s financial processes and business systems.
Tom Harker graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 1990 and received an MBA from the University of Miami in 2000. A 20-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, his career was marked by operational success including multi-ton drug seizures on the high seas. Ashore, he was assigned positions of increasing responsibility in budget, acquisition, internal controls, audit readiness and financial reporting. His leadership of the Coast Guard audit readiness and internal control program contributed to the Department of Homeland Security moving from 10 successive disclaimers to a clean audit opinion.
Prior to leaving active duty, Harker served at Office of Management and Budget (OMB) where he led the Campaign to Cut Waste, updated OMB Circular A-136 and drafted government-wide financial policy. Subsequently, Harker served as an auditor and consultant at a large public accounting firm, auditing CFO Act agencies, assisting the Joint Staff with developing and implementing an audit readiness plan, and improving the Coast Guard’s accountability for property as a consultant. Upon his return to government, Harker led the Coast Guard financial reporting, policy, property management and audit readiness efforts. His efforts enabled the Department of Homeland Security to obtain consecutive clean audit opinions.
Harker was appointed to the Senior Executive Service at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as the Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Policy. While in this position, he served as the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Management at the VA, and as the Acting Deputy CFO for Accounting and Financial Management at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Panelist
George Kovatch
President & Senior Advisor, Federal Government Budget, Appropriations, Financial Management
Following a 30-year career Mr. Kovatch founded a veteran owned Strategic Consulting and Congressional Relations company, KSA Federal, that specializes in helping companies and agencies navigate the federal budget and appropriations processes.
George served as Deputy Comptroller (Budget & Appropriations Affairs)/Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, where he led a team of senior military officers and civilians responsible for delivering and securing congressional support for DoD’s $700B+ budget and advancing the Secretary of Defense’s readiness and lethality priorities while reducing technical debt with innovative business systems.
Other Senior Executive Service positions include:
Deputy Chief Management Officer/Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy (Management). Focusing on Acquisition, Financial & Process Reforms, during his tenure the Department of the Navy achieved $10B in savings over the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), readiness for tactical aircraft increased from 50% to 80%, ship construction rebounded, and the Department completed two full-scope CFO audits.
Assistant Director, Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC), Department of Homeland Security. He led their Washington, DC operations, headed FLETC’s International Training division and Congressional relations team where he achieved passage of FLETC’s first Congressional Authorization Law in their 45-year history.
George worked in the private sector for a Management and IT consulting company where he led business development efforts to successfully bring the company into two new markets: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Treasury Department.
George served on Capitol Hill on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Homeland Security. The Subcommittee has jurisdiction over DHS’ 22 agencies and $45B.
He served on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard for over 20 years as a surface operations specialist (Cutterman) in several ships in positions up through Commanding Officer. He was also a financial manager selected by the Commandant to establish a new office responsible for implementing the Service’s financial management strategic reform. This set the stage for the Coast Guard and DHS to achieve an unqualified audit opinion for the first time in history.
George is a graduate of Boston College’s Carroll School of Management and Columbia Business School’s Executive MBA program. He holds a Top-Secret Security clearance.
He is a Navy Sea Cadets Board of Director and volunteers for The Honor Foundation and HillVet.
Panelist
Philip Anton
Chief Scientist, Acquisition Innovation Research Center, Stevens Institute of Technology
Philip S. Antón is the Chief Scientist of the Acquisition Innovation Research Center (AIRC) at the Stevens Institute of Technology. As a Pentagon interface in the between the AIRC and the Department of Defense (DOD) acquisition ecosystem, he assesses the practical needs of the DOD, helps to envision and develop innovative acquisition research in the AIRC, and ensures the transition and application of AIRC results in DOD acquisition policies, guidance, practices, reports, and workforce development. Prior to this, Dr. Antón was a Senior Information Scientist at the RAND Corporation for 23 years, where he conducted research on acquisition and sustainment policy, cybersecurity, emerging technologies, technology foresight, process performance measurement and efficiency, aeronautics test infrastructure, and military modeling and simulation.
From 2011 to 2016, Dr. Antón served two Pentagon tours as the Deputy Director for Acquisition Policy Analysis, reporting directly to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Dr. Antón led his center in conducting strategic initiatives to measure and improve the performance of the Department of Defense’s policies, workforce, and institutions, crafting affordability policy, and bringing new analytic insights into the performance of acquisition and sustainment policies, processes, and tradecraft.
For these contributions Dr. Antón received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 2017. From 2004 to 2011, Dr. Antón was the Director of the Acquisition and Technology Policy Center in RAND’s National Security Research Division. From 1992 to 1998, Dr. Antón managed and conducted artificial intelligence research at the MITRE Corporation. Before graduate school, he worked at Hughes Aircraft and held intern positions at TRW, Rockwell, Aerojet ElectroSystems, and Scott Environmental Technology. Dr. Antón earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in information and computer science from the University of California at Irvine, specializing in computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence. He holds a B.S. in engineering from UCLA, specializing in computer engineering.