Working Capital Fund October – 2021

October 28, 2021

On Thursday, October 28, the National Academy of Public Administration and Grant Thornton hosted a Working Capital Fund Symposium on Risk Management challenges in WCFs.

​The quarterly WCF Symposium aims to develop discussions between a relatively new operation and one or more established operations. Agency leaders share their insights to implement and sustain Working Capital Funds.

Recurring Moderators and Presenters:

Holden Hoofnagel, (WCF Chairman) serves as Director of the Office of the Secretary Financial Management, Department of Commerce (DOC). He is responsible for the management of the Office of the Secretary budgetary functions including development and oversight of the budget submissions to the Department, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and Congress.​

Gretchen Anderson has more than 30 years of experience in government finance and an additional 15 years in private industry. She joined the Grant Thornton Public Sector team in 2020 to help WCF entities better mitigate risks and harness the benefits such a financing model can provide. Her expertise is in implementing financial policy, budget justification, administering financing and investment programs, and WCF pricing, projections, and cash and cost management.

The Symposium featured a moderated roundtable discussion with guest speakers including:

• Al Runnels, Executive Director, American Society of Military Comptrollers, During his 27-year career in the US Army, Mr. Runnels commanded up through brigade level and also served as Chief of the Operations Branch in the J-8 Directorate of The Joint Staff in the Pentagon. He served as the first Commander of the 18th Soldier Support Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, NC, which consolidated Corps support responsibilities for the provision of personnel and finance services and operations under one group commander, including responsibilities of the XVIII Airborne Corps Finance Officer, Corps Adjutant General, and Commander of the North Carolina Area Casualty Command.
  
• Kenneth Newton, Director, Service Delivery at NASA Shared Services Center, Mr. Newton is the Director of Service Delivery at the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) in Hancock County, Mississippi and was appointed to the federal Senior Executive Service (SES) effective March 25, 2012. Mr. Newton possesses over 15 years of engineering and aerospace technology experience, coupled with more than 17 years of program management and service delivery acumen.
  
• Eric Smith, Chief of Staff, Defense Logistics Agency, Eric Smith became the Defense Logistics Agency’s chief of staff on May 9, 2021. As the Chief of Staff, he leads all Headquarters operations and directly supports six Major Subordinate Commands’ actions in strategic planning, enterprise integration, organizational governance, strategic communications, legislative affairs, small business programs, equal opportunity, and installation management. He supports eleven major DLA installations worldwide, as well as 27 distribution depots, 100 disposition facilities and 642 Defense Fuel Supply Points.

In the first part of the discussion, the panelists shared their experiences. Al talked about the challenges and successes of his implementation of ERM. Eric and Ken discussed formal ERM centers and the obstacles and breakthroughs they have had on that front.

In the second part of the event, the panelists discussed specific WCF risks including intrinsic timing, cost, and volume risks. They also talked about cultural challenges in developing an ERM program, budgetary risks, and how federal agencies generally think about ERM.

Following the roundtable discussion, Q&A breakout sessions allowed participants to discuss lessons learned from the talk and identify key ideas for future events.