Doan heads to full Senate for confirmation

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today approved Lurita Doan to be administrator of the General Services Administration. The committee's approval came with no objection.

The Senate still must act on her final confirmation.

Doan testified before the committee May 22 in a brief confirmation hearing, detailing her plans for repairing GSA if confirmed.

Doan said she would use the best practices in government contracting and build quantitative metrics to show GSA services are improving to persuade customers to come back. She also said she wants to “make GSA one of the best places in government to work.”

Low morale is a serious problem within GSA. Many people have left GSA, leaving many agency heads in acting roles.

Experts say time is against her. President Bush has 30 months left in his second term.

“If she is confirmed and moves quickly forward, she can achieve significant progress in the remainder of the administration’s term,” said Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at Federal Sources.

“At least she’s got a jump start,” he added.

Congress has approved the Federal Acquisition Services reorganization. The committee passed the GSA modernization bill, and GSA has conducted studies on how to expand its offerings.

“She understands the magnitude of her task, and I am certain that she’ll get the GSA train on the right track to recovering its positive relationships with their customers,” said Robert Guerra, partner at the marketing consulting firm Guerra Kiviat, and a friend of Doan.