McKay earned her bachelor’s degree from Ferris State University in Michigan in 1982 and her master’s degree in business administration from Auburn University at Montgomery in 1992.

 

A certified public accountant and certified government financial manager, McKay previously served as the Defense Department’s deputy chief financial officer, the principal advisor to the under secretary of defense (comptroller)/chief financial officer for accounting and finance matters. She was responsible for developing and implementing the Pentagon’s accounting, finance and general financial management policies. McKay also served as a member of the United States Chief Financial Officers’ Council and represented the Pentagon on various other inter-agency groups and councils.

 

McKay then became the DFAS principal deputy director in August 2006, a position she held until being promoted to director of the agency.

 

In March 2010, McKay’s agency received some unwelcome publicity when it fired 25 employees in the DFAS’s Cleveland office because they failed background checks on their credit. The workers and their union argued that the terminations were unfair due to the fact that the employees didn’t handle classified information, and finding new jobs was going to be challenging in a depressed economy.

 

Teresa McKay (Defense Finance and Accounting Service)

Workers Who Help Process Obama's Paycheck Face Termination (by Dalia Fahmy, ABC News)