A Short History of OFPP Administrators

(*This article was published and released on LinkedIn October 10, 2025)

On a recent story-hour with some of the original Architects of Inefficiency, a claim was made and perpetuated along the following lines ‘The reason contract bloat and redundancy exist is in government contacting is OMB’s fault.  It was the acting positions that resulted in ineffective management to control contract proliferation by other agencies and keeping NASA and NIH in check.’ 

With any good claim there are always opportunities to test to see if it is true or not; whether what they say is fact or fiction; whether what the evidence would indicate this to be more of the “common sense” they claim have, or if it is rather more narrative spin for the purpose of self-interests.  Listening to these three (ahem) experts the past 9 months (longer) I was skeptical that there was a relationship between the lack of a politically appointed OFPP Administrator and contract proliferation.  So, I decided to take a look and see what I see.

First discovery, there is no actual list of former OFPP administrators.  Nothing that I found in any .gov sites, nothing on Wikipedia, nothing in Google Scholar.  So, I had to construct a timeline. I constructed a timeline from 1988-Present to present of OFPP Administrators and acting-Administrators starting with Allen V. Burman (who served under presidents Ronald Regan and George H. W. Bush) who began initiating the reforms that laid the foundation for Clinger-Cohen though to the present day appointment of Dr. Kevin Rhodes (welcome Dr. Rhodes!).  I then assembled a list of government-wide vehicles to see either a) when they were established or b) when the first order was placed.  Bloomberg Government served as my tool to pull and draw that information when it was not archived through an agency site.

And here is a table of what I found: 

Relationship between OFPP Administrators and the increase in government-wide agreements

TABLE SUMMARY

• The grey indicates a period of time where an acting OFPP administrator was assumed through OMB Senior Executives - there have only been two since 2003 in Acting Administrators Robert Burton and Leslie Fields.

• The red/pink indicates a GSA established government-wide acquisition vehicle.

• The yellow indicated when NASA competed their SEWP contract.

• The orange indicates one of the NITAAC GWACs.

• There was no vehicle growth in 2000-2003 when Agela Styles served as OFPP Administrator, when Robert Burton or Paul Denett were acting Administrator's (though it was only for period towards the end of the George W. Bush Administration.

TABLE ANALYSIS

In 1992, the George H. W. Bush Administration sought to address growing problems in federal IT contracting. The General Services Administration’s Federal Supply Schedule model was ill-suited for rapidly evolving IT needs, and dissatisfaction was widespread. Recognizing the need for reform, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), and the General Services Administration (GSA) turned to NASA to pioneer a new approach—launching the government’s first Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC).

For about 10 years NASA experimented with their SEWP GWAC (recompeting it and evolving it from SEWP I-III), and NIH experimented with their models as a service GWAC (CIO-SP model 1 and 2) and a GWAC for Imaging Equipment (Image World model 1 and 2).  It is also obvious to note that this was all occurring at the time there was a Senate-confirmed OFPP Administrator.

GSA established their first GWAC in 1999 with the creation of the ANSWER GWAC (Applications ‘n Support for Widely-Diverse EndUser Requirements – don’t blame me…I didn’t make the acronyms up), followed by the Alliant predecessor programs in the GSA Millennia and Millenia SB GWAC in 2000.  These were followed by their 8a Stars GWAC in 2004 and the establishment of the Vets GWAC in 2007.  This decision was followed by the creation of the Alliant and Alliant SB GWAC family (which were in direct ‘competition’ with NITAAC’s CIO-SP program). 

What is interesting about these actions (along with the establishment of the GSA GWAC family) is it runs contrary to why OMB and OFPP’s (and with GSA’s agreement) created GWACs to begin with, which was to create structures outside of GSA so the federal government could service their IT mission needs, yet just a few years later GSA began duplicating vehicles and efforts. (*Next article I write will be on the premises of the establishment of GWACs).

What else was occurring then?  Lorita Doan was the GSA Administrator from May 31, 2006 – April 29, 2008.  She led a campaign very much like the one being waged today on behalf of the Architects of Inefficiency and their Coalition of Self-Interests.  She openly questioned why NASA would be in the position to serve the needs of federal acquisitions through GWACs and GSA should ‘take’ their program.  This was the first time GSA and GSA-driven interests tried to kill NASA’s program.  They made many of the same claims made repeatedly by former GSA executives when they ask.  “Why is NASA doing that?  This should not be them; this should be us who are in control over this acquisition mechanism since we self-proclaim ourselves to be responsible not just for the Federal Supply Schedule but for ALL government-wide acquisitions.” (Mwahaha!) 

OMB disagreed then and allowed NASA to launch their 4th version of their SEWP GWAC.  Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia (I know...not everyone's favorite source, but am only using it this once), Ms. Doan had a number of controversies during her tenure related to accusations of steering contracts, curb agency audits, Hatch Act violations, and blaming the GSA IG for Sun Microsystems who ended their agreements with GSA. The company ultimately decided to stop selling directly through that agency. (Foreshadowing?)

All of this continued through 2011, when OFPP still had an Administrator. But what happened when OFPP didn’t? Revisiting the claim made by The Coalition of Self-Interests, one might assume that OMB was to blame for the bloat, duplication, and rising costs. Yet from this vantage point, the opposite appears true. When GSA-centric interests couldn’t eliminate GWAC mechanisms that operated beyond their control (by design), the agency instead chose to enter the GWAC creation game itself.

During the Obama Administration, Anne Rung was first initially appointed to the General Services Administration from 2012 to 2014 then became the Administrator of OFPP from 2014 to 2017.  This is when the GSA started building outsourcing initiatives around the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative and later through Category Management - an internal GSA initiative that she took government-wide (please refer to previous posts for short histories on Strategic Sourcing and Category Management if interested).   This is also the beginning of a period where Ms. Leslie Fields had to serve as acting OFPP Administrator with greater frequency than any of her previous civil servant colleagues.

So, what happened then?  Talk about BLOAT!  Talk about increased costs for industry!  GSA then instituted a mechanism of Schedule-based government-wide BPAs as a tool and really got into the acquisition vehicle creation game.  Companies now had to go through the administrative burden of managing their Schedules contract, add the new burden of responding to BPA requirements and managing the BPA terms, before then getting to the additional expense required to bid on real requirements driven work that would come from task orders, which they would then have to put resources towards, execute, and manage.

WHAT TO CONCLUDE

So now ask yourself, what has been the reason and cause of government contract bloat?  Is The Coalition of Self-Interests correct in stating that the lack of a politically appointed OFPP Administrator is the cause of government contract bloat, or are these the conditions we find ourselves in due to self-inflicted wounds by GSA who decided to get into the GWAC and Schedule BPA creation and perpetuation game for the past 20 years?  Look at the chart above and tell me, who appears to have increased costs for companies doing business with the federal government?

This Coalition of Self-Interests have gaslighting and mischaracterizing NASA’s leadership and program for the past year while falling on old tropes to advance their own agenda for a Schedules-based world. 

You know…some people are shameless. 

Welcome aboard again Dr. Rhodes!  Many look forward to OMB’s decision regarding NASA’s gold-standard program. Far be it for me to make suggestions as to which programs and contracts to cut, but a good start may be at the source of the bloat to begin with.