Rocked by the forced resignations of its past two administrators, the General Services Administration (GSA), which serves as the federal government’s lead acquisition agency, has a new administrator in Daniel M. Tangherlini, who is promising to right the ship and run the agency ethically. He was confirmed by the Senate on June 27, 2013. His most recent predecessors, Lurita Doan and Martha Johnson, both left after scandals: Doan resigned in April 2008 because of serious allegations of conflicts of interest and use of federal properties for partisan purposes, which is prohibited by the Hatch Act, while Johnson left on April 2, 2012, after an Inspector General report found “excessive expenditures and employee misconduct” relating to a conference in Nevada being planned by a subordinate.
Born in 1968, Tangherlini grew up in Auburn, Massachusetts, where his father was a professor of Physics at nearby Holy Cross University. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago in 1990 and 1991, respectively, and his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2001.
After graduation, Tangherlini started his career in public service with a job at the Office of Management and Budget in the White House, where he worked from 1991 to 1997, leaving to serve briefly in the Policy Office of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in 1998. In November 1998, Tangherlini joined the D.C. Police Department as its chief financial officer. His work with newly elected Mayor Anthony A. Williams led to a new job in June 2000, as head of the District Department of Transportation, where he remained until February 2006, when he joined the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) as interim general manager. Although expected to become Metro’s next general manager, Tangherlini instead became city administrator and deputy mayor of Washington, DC, in early 2007.
He returned to federal government service in July 2009 to serve as the Treasury Department assistants secretary for management, chief financial officer, and chief performance officer.
Before he joined the administration of D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty in 2007, Tangherlini was a co-founder, with a number of others who were well-connected to District government, of EdBuild, an educational services firm that ran into controversy when the D.C. Board of Education awarded it a no-bid $57.6 million construction contract, which the D.C. City Council killed. The company has since been dissolved.
Tangherlini is married to Theresa Picillo and they have two children, Cassandra and Francesca. He donated $250 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
-Matt Bewig
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