Bush chooses DHS finance chief

Department of Homeland Security

President Bush intends to appoint Andrew Maner, a senior Customs and Border Protection official, as chief financial officer of the Homeland Security Department, White House officials announced this week.

Maner will succeed Bruce Marshall Carnes, who is left his post last fall. The nomination comes at a critical time for the department, which is planning for an enterprise financial and asset management system for its 22 disparate agencies. The CFO's office is the lead agency on the project working in collaboration with several other departmental agencies. A request for proposals for such a system will likely be issued in May with a roll out planned for the second quarter of 2005.

Maner currently works as the Customs agency's chief of staff, a position he's held since April 2002, advising the commissioner on policy, security, trade and management issues, as well as overseeing day-to-day operations of the office and interactions with executive and legislative branches.

Subsequently, he also became director of the agency's Transition Management Office last March, overseeing the merger of four component agencies -- the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Border Patrol, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Agriculture and Plant Health Inspection Service -- a task that is expected to take up to two years, involving 42,000 employees with combined budgets of $6.7 billion.

Before joining Customs, Maner was vice president of development and sales for ICG Commerce, an international supply chain services provider. Maner was a founder of Aligne Inc., a technology consulting firm specializing in e-commerce initiatives and supply chain outsourcing.

He worked under the first President Bush's administration in the White House Office of Advance and later as staff assistant to Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater from 1991 to 1993. He has been special assistant to the United Nations Envoy to Somalia, helping manage operations and interactions among the 30 nations contributing troops and aid.

He received his bachelor's degree from Purdue University and master's in business administration degree from J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.