Jim Russell serves as deputy director of the Defense Contract Management Agency, where he acts as the principal adviser to Director Charlie Williams on the agency’s mission and management issues.
That responsibility encompasses more than 10,800 civilians and military personnel performing contract management work at more than 740 locations, covering $224 billion in unliquidated obligations across 17,900 contractors and 335,000 active contracts.
Prior to his current position, Russell served as the agency’s comptroller and executive director of financial business operations, where he advised the agency director on managing the DCMA’s infrastructure and oversaw an annual $1.2 billion budget.
Russell’s duties included strategic planning, resourcing, budgeting, agency review, assessment, evaluation, business development and marketing.
He started his civilian service career as an analyst at the Defense Logistics Agency’s operations research office in Richmond, Va., moving in 1987 to Defense Contract Administration Services Region-Chicago as a senior operations research analyst.
Three years later, he became DLA’s senior studies director for acquisition management, working out of the agency’s headquarters.
Russell then elevated to the senior program director on the DLA’s program objective memorandum team, leading programming efforts for Defense Logistics Support Command and Defense Contract Management Command.
In 1998, Russell became director of strategic planning, programming and analysis at DCMC, holding responsibility for strategic and business planning.
He also led performance planning, resourcing, management review and assessment.
Russell holds a bachelor’s degree in computer and information science from Ohio State University, a Master of Management in finance and organizational behavior from Northwestern University’s J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a Master of Science in national resources strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
