Patrick Fitzgerald is director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, having been appointed to this position Nov. 8, 2009.

The DCAA is the agency responsible for auditing the department’s contracts and providing cost accounting and financial advisory services regarding contracts and subcontracts to all DoD components responsible for procurement and contract administration.

Before joining the DCAA, he served as the U.S. Army‘s auditor general and held responsibility for managing worldwide operations of the U.S. Army Audit Agency, where he held a 30-year auditing career.

A 14-year veteran of the Senior Executive Service, his first position within the SES was deputy auditor general for forces and financial management at the USAAA.

In that capacity, he principally advised the auditor general on the agency’s programs for auditing functional areas of forces and manpower management, financial operations, information technology, the Corps of Engineers and civil works.

Between 2001 and 2004, he served as the agency’s deputy auditor general for policy and operations management, where he advised the auditor general on audit policy, follow-up and liaison, auditor training and recruiting and agency resources.

He served as the USAAA’s principal deputy auditor general from 2004 to 2006, where he developed and oversaw the execution of the agency’s strategic audit plan and overall management of audit operations.

Fitzgerald is the recipient of a Presidential Distinguished Executive Rank Award, Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award and the Army Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service.

The certified public accountant holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration/accounting (summa cum laude) from the University of Baltimore and holds a master’s degree in policy and management from Georgetown University.

He is also a certified information systems auditor and a certified government financial manager.

Navy Rear Adm. Elizabeth Train is director for intelligence for the Joint Staff, where she advises the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on intelligence matters and acts as the national level focal point for intelligence support to Defense Department crisis operations and indications and warning intelligence within DoD.

The 28-year veteran assumed this role in August 2011 following service as director of intelligence at U.S. Pacific Command.

According to the Navy, she is a naval intelligence officer, joint specialty officer, a specialist in joint and strategic intelligence and a qualified information dominance corps officer.

Train’s shore assignments include duty as aide to the director of Naval Intelligence; deputy assistant chief of staff for intelligence to the commander of U.S. Naval Surface Forces Pacific; operations officer at Joint Intelligence Center Pacific; executive assistant to the director for intelligence at U.S. Pacific Command; deputy assistant chief of staff for intelligence-fleet support to the commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet; director of the intelligence community management division within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations; and executive assistant to the director of Naval Intelligence within the CNO’s office.

During her command tour, she served as commander of the Navy Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center and the Center for Naval Intelligence.

Her operational assignments have included service as deputy assistant chief of staff for intelligence in Carrier Group Four; assistant chief of staff for intelligence in Amphibious Group Two; and director for operations for the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Combating Terrorism.

She graduated from the College of William and Mary and received her commission from Officer Candidate School in Newport R.I. She first reported to Patrol Squadron 19 in 1984 as a naval intelligence officer and served as the squadron’s air intelligence officer.

Train also holds two masters degrees, with one from the National War College in national security strategy, and the other in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College.

Since January 2010, Jill Singer has served as chief information officer at the National Reconnaissance Office, a joint intelligence community-Defense Department agency staffed by both CIA and DoD personnel.

The NRO is one of 16 agencies within the intelligence community and is responsible for achieving information superiority for the government and armed forces.

Singer also serves as an a government liaison to the AFCEA’s cyber committee and executive-on-ground for the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.

Before joining the NRO, Singer served as deputy CIO at the CIA. Other government service positions include director of the State Department‘s diplomatic telecommunications service and chief of systems engineering, architecture and planning for the CIA’s global infrastructure organization.

During her private sector career, she held positions at Science Applications International Corp., GE Aerospace and IBM.

Singer is the recipient of several awards including being named one of the Top Ten Women in Cloud in 2012; Ten Most Powerful Women in Federal Technology in 2011; CIA Mentor of the Year in 2010; CIO Executive Council “Ones to Watch” in 2010; and CIO Magazine’s Stand-Out Award for Collaboration and Influence award in 2010.

She holds a master’s degree in systems analysis and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of West Florida. She is also a graduate of the Federal Executive Leadership Program and the University of Virginia’s Executive Leaders Program.

James Clapper, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Air Force, serves as the country’s fourth director of national intelligence, where he leads the intelligence community and acts as the president’s lead intelligence adviser.

He was sworn in as DNI in August 2010, nearly six years after completing his tenure as director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency when he joined the agency as director in 2001.

Clapper’s government service also includes three years in two administrations as the defense under secretary for intelligence, where he served as the principal staff assistant and adviser to the secretary and deputy secretary on intelligence, counterintelligence and security matters for the department, where he also served as director of defense intelligence.

Directly following his retirement, he worked in industry for six years as an executive in three successive companies focusing on business in the intelligence community. He also served as a consultant and adviser to Congress, to the departments of Defense and Energy and as a member of several government panels, boards, commissions, and advisory groups.

He served in the Downing Assessment Task Force that investigated the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, and was vice chairman of a homeland security commission chaired by former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.

During Clapper’s 32-year military career, he served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; assistant chief of staff for intelligence at U.S. Air Force Headquarters during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm; and director of intelligence for U.S. Forces Korea, Pacific Command and Strategic Air Command.

He started his career as a rifleman in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, served two combat tours during the Southeast Asia conflict and flew 73 combat support missions in EC-47s over Laos and Cambodia.

He is a recipient of three National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medals, two Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Coast Guard’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award and several other U.S. military and foreign government awards and decorations.

The NAACP recognized him with the National Distinguished Service Medal and has received the Presidentially-conferred National Security Medal.

Federal Computer Week named him one of the Top 100 Information Technology Executives in 2001.

Clapper holds a bachelor’s degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland, a master’s degree in political science from St. Mary’s University and an honorary doctorate in strategic intelligence from the then Joint Military Intelligence College.

Kristen Baldwin is a principal deputy in the Defense Department, where she serves as the deputy assistant secretary for systems engineering within the office of the assistant secretary for research and development.

She is responsible for engineering and technical workforce, policy, and acquisition program implementation across the department and focuses on concept engineering and analysis, design, development and manufacturing, and independent program review and assessment for all of the department’s major weapon system acquisition programs.

Baldwin also serves as the department’s systems engineering workforce leader with responsibility for more than 40,000 department acquisition professionals and leads the department’s Systems 2020 initiative focused on designing systems for adaptability.

As the department’s director for systems analysis, she oversees development planning and modeling and simulation activities across the department, while leading cyber and system assurance, program protection, systems engineering for systems of systems and research and development initiatives. She also oversees the department’s Systems Engineering Research Center, a university-affiliated research center which researches systems engineering methods, processes and tools.

She joined the office of the secretary of defense in 1998, where she has since led capabilities-based planning in the acquisition process and has focused on requirements, acquisition and programming processes.

Baldwin has also served as deputy director of software intensive systems and managed the Tri-Service Assessment Initiative.

Prior to joining the OSD, she served as a science and technology adviser in the Army’s office of the deputy chief of staff for operations and plans and in a dismounted battlespace battle lab at Fort Benning, Ga.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree in systems management from Florida Tech.

Joe Jordan serves as administrator at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, having been confirmed by the Senate in May to succeed Dan Gordon.

According to the White House, Jordan is responsible for implementing acquisition policies covering more than $500 billion in annual federal contract spending.

Prior to this position, he served as a senior adviser to acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeff Zients since December 2011.

Between 2009 and 2011, Mr. Jordan served as associate administrator of government contracting and business development at the Small Business Administration.

According to SBA, his team worked with small businesses to help them compete for more than $500 billion in federal prime contracts and billions more in subcontracts.

Before joining the government, he was an engagement manager with management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, where he developed purchasing and supply management strategies for clients in several industries. He also worked with the firm’s public sector practice, advising state governments on reducing costs and gaining efficiencies.

In 2000, Jordan built and managed operations of web-based publisher-marketer Backwire, which quickly grew to 3 million subscribers, that company said. After Leap Wireless purchased Backwire, he became Leap’s project manager for strategic planning and product development.

Between 1998 and 2000, he worked on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.”

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Holy Cross and a master’s degree from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business Administration.

Pierre Chao is a co-founder and managing partner of Renaissance Strategic Advisors, which provides corporate strategy and transaction advisory services to clients in the aerospace, defense, space, government services, homeland security and intelligence markets.

Chao is also a co-founder of JSA Research, an equity research boutique specializing in the aerospace and defense industry.

Chao holds two decades of experience in the aerospace and defense management consulting, investment banking, equity analysis and policy analysis fields.

He has participated in 31 aerospace and defense equity offerings and initial public offerings, raising nearly $11.7 billion total, and also helped in dozens of buy-side and sell-side merger and acquisition assignments, according to Renaissance.

Institutional Investor has ranked his team number one in every year eligible and on the All-America Research Team every year eligible.

Prior to founding Renaissance, he served as director of defense industrial initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2003 to 2007.

Before joining the CSIS he served as a managing director and senior aerospace and defense analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston between 1999 and 2003, where he followed that sector on a U.S. and global scale. Between 2003 and 2006, he served as an independent senior adviser to CSFB.

From 1995 to 1999, Chao was the senior aerospace and defense analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and held that same post at Smith Barney in 1994. Before that, he served at Boston- and Paris-based consulting firm JSA International from 1986 to 1988, and then again from 1990 to 1993.

Prior to joining JSA, he worked in the New York and London offices of Prudential-Bache Capital Funding as a mergers and acquisitions banker focusing on aerospace and defense from 1988 to 1990.

He is a guest lecturer at the National Defense University and the Defense Acquisition University and he has served on several Defense Science Board, Defense Business Board and National Academies of Science task forces.

Chao holds dual degrees in political science and management science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As the 23rd Commandant of the Coast Guard, retired Adm. Thad Allen served as the branch’s highest-ranking member from 2006 to 2010.

The 39-year Coast Guard veteran currently serves as a senior at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he provides thought leadership and client engagement for the justice and homeland security business.

He also contributes to other initiatives in energy, defense and international markets.

In September, he addressed the Potomac Officers Club at a luncheon while a senior fellow at the RAND Corporation.

During his term as commandant, he directed the federal government’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as national incident commander. In 2005, he led the government’s responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as the principal federal official.

Other senior leadership assignments included Chief of Staff of the Coast Guard, Atlantic Area Commander, Commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District (Southeast U.S. and Caribbean Region) and Coast Guard Director of Resources.

He graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in management. He also holds two master’s degrees, one from George Washington University in public administration and another from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in management science.

Raytheon and Government Security News recognized Allen in November 2011 with a distinguished leadership award in public safety, GSN’s highest public safety award.

In his videotaped acceptance speech, he advocated for giving first responders access to the same kind of interoperable communications citizens have in their everyday lives.

Gwynne Kostin is a director within the General Services Administration, where she serves as head of mobile in the GSA’s office of citizen services and innovative technologies.

She works with federal agencies to provide citizens mobile access to the federal government.

She previously served as director of GSA’s center for new media and citizen engagement, where she worked to engage government and citizens through development of cross-agency tools, policies and services. The agency says she launched the government’s free, policy-compliant “build-a-blog” platform apps.gov NOW and the contest platform Challenge.gov.

Before joining GSA, she served as director of new media for the Department of Homeland Security, where she worked to leverage new technologies for creating the department’s first social media strategy. She also developed a cross-agency web communications model for disaster response and led new media communications and strategy for the department’s 22 agencies.

Michael Hayden is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and has also served as the country’s first principal deputy director of national intelligence.

In his capacity at the DNI’s office, the retired four-star Air Force general was the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces.

The 39-year military veteran is currently a principal at The Chertoff Group, where he advises clients on how intelligence events worldwide can affect their businesses.

His areas of focus include technological intelligence, counterintelligence, communications, data networks, global political and terrorist risk analysis and the intelligence community’s structure and strategy.

Hayden was one of several former military and civilian officials, including former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, to sign a letter in June urging Congress to move forward on cybersecurity legislation.

He led the NSA between 1999 and 2005, the CIA between 2006 and 2009 and served in the DNI’s office between 2005 and 2008.

At the CIA, he was responsible for the collection of information on plans, intentions and capabilities of the country’s adversaries; production of analysis for decision makers; and carrying out of covert operations against terrorists and other enemies.

In November, he delivered a keynote address at a MarkLogic-hosted forum on the role of big data in the government.

He has also served commander of the Air Intelligence Agency, director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center and chief of the Central Security Service.

He graduated from Duquesne University with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1967 and also holds a master’s degree in modern American history from Duquesne, earned in 1969. He is a graduate of the university’s ROTC program and began his active military service in 1969.

He also completed postgraduate work at the Defense Intelligence Agency‘s Defense Intelligence School.