By Marina Malenic
Kenneth Miller, special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force for acquisition since 2005, has resigned, the Air Force said yesterday.
Miller was special assistant to former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne. Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley were forced to step down last month in connection with a series of nuclear safety incidents.
“Mr. Miller’s plan was always to resign at end of Mr. Wynne’s tenure,” said Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Paoli. He added that acting service Secretary Michael Donley had asked Miller to remain in the position for an additional 30 days after first announcing his retirement last month.
Miller had been involved in Air Force procurement and contracting policies and the management oversight of various acquisition programs, including the Combat Search and Rescue Replacement Helicopter (CSAR-X) and KC-X tanker. CSAR-X and KC-X were both successfully protested by losing bidders and the competitions are slated to be re-run later this year.
A longtime Pentagon procurement official, he was selected to be the first acquisition deputy for the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Tactical Aircraft when the Navy first established Program Executive Offices in 1989.
Meanwhile, Donley today accepted the resignation of William Anderson, assistant secretary for Air Force installations, environment and logistics, effective Aug. 15.
In a letter addressed to President Bush, Anderson said Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ decision last month to force the resignations of Moseley and Wynne has undermined his own job performance.
“I can no longer draw on a critical mass of leadership within the Pentagon who share your vision for the support necessary to lean forward to aggressively support these American heroes,” Anderson wrote.
Bush has nominated Gen. Norton Schwartz as the new Air Force chief of staff and Donley to become secretary. Last week, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned Schwartz and Donley on nuclear safety concerns and what several senators characterized as the service’s poor track record on managing major procurement contracts (Defense Daily, July 23).