The Senate confirmed Richard V. Spencer as the newest secretary of the Navy on Tuesday as well as seven other civilian Defense Department nominees.
Spencer succeeds acting Secretary Sean Stackley and Obama’s Secretary Ray Mabus.
The Senate approved of Spencer in a voice vote, just like the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) did last month (Defense Daily, July 13).
Spencer is a financial industry executive who served in the Marine Corps from the late 1970s until 1981 and served on the Defense Business Board from 2009 to 2015 where he finished as vice chairman. He was appointed to the Chief of Naval Operations’ Executive Panel on Feb. 24, 2016 and transitioned to his last role as an Executive Advisor on Dec. 9, 2016 (Defense Daily, June 5).
At his confirmation hearing, Spencer stressed how harmful the Budget Control Act is for the military, promised to increase accountability and transparency, and demurred on opinions about the future Navy size (Defense Daily, July 12).
The other nominees confirmed include Ellen Lord as undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; Elaine McCusker as a principal deputy undersecretary of Defense, Comptroller; Robert Daigle as director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation; Ryan McCarthy as undersecretary of the Army; Robert Hood as assistant secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs; Lucian Niemeyer as assistant secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations and Environment; and Matthew Donovan as undersecretary of the Air Force.
Lord was formerly the president and CEO of Textron’s [TXT] Textron Systems business segment. Lord is set to transition to undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment when the Office of the Secretary of Defense completes the reorganization and splitting of AT&L by Feb. 1, 2018.
Lord said in her confirmation hearing she would push the department to make “far more use” of commercial technology and pledged to speed up the fielding of new technology overall (Defense Daily, July 18).
SASC Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) welcomed the confirmation while he is being treated for a glioblastoma brain cancer tumor at the Mayo Clinic at home in Arizona.
“I was pleased to see the Senate confirm eight important Department of Defense civilian nominations. The Senate has been paralyzed by politics and partisanship, and it is unfortunate that it took so long to approve these qualified nominees for critical positions,” he said in a statement.
“In particular, I’m glad that the Department will now have two key leaders in place: Richard Spencer as Secretary of the Navy and Ellen Lord as Undersecretary of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. I am also proud that two distinguished former staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Matt Donovan and Lucian Niemeyer, will now continue their public service at the Pentagon.”