The White House last week sent Sean Stackley’s name to the Senate for nomination as the Navy’s top weapons buyer.

However it’s unknown when the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) will take the matter up.

Stackley, a SASC staff member, would oversee a number of troubled programs including the Littoral Combat Ship, Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, VH-71 and the Navy’s shipbuilding effort.

Stackley would replace Delores Etter who resigned last fall to return to teaching at the Naval Academy. John Thackrah has been serving as interim acquisition chief since Etter’s departure.

Stackley graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1979 and received a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986, according to a Navy spokesman.

As a Navy captain, Stackley had a hand in several shipbuilding programs. He managed the LPD-17 program starting in 2001, a Northrop Grumman [NOC] employee publication reported in 2001. He also served as a test officer for the DDG-51 in Bath, Maine, the publication said.

Stackley retired from the service in 2005 after 25 years and has worked since on the Republican staff of SASC. That position is expected to give the lame-duck nomination an easy approval process.