Defense Contracting. Post-Government Employment of Former DOD Officials Needs Greater Transparency

Abstract : In 2006, 52 major defense contractors employed 86,181 of the 1,857,004 former military and civilian personnel who had left DOD service since 2001. This number includes 2,435 former DOD officials who were hired between 2004 and 2006 by one or more of the contractors and compensated in 2006, according to our match of DOD and IRS data. These officials had previously served as generals, admirals, senior executives, program managers, contracting officers, or in other acquisition positions which made them subject to restrictions on their post-DOD employment. We found 1,581 of the 2,435 former DOD officials about 65 percent were employed by seven of the contractors: Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., L3 Communications Holding, Inc., General Dynamics, and Raytheon Company. In addition, to estimate how closely related work assignments of former DOD officials were to their previous assignments at DOD, we examined in greater detail the job histories of a randomly selected sample of former DOD senior and acquisition officials employed by the contractors. While there may be proper justification for their post-government employment with a contractor, when we extrapolate from this sample, we estimate that at least 422 individuals post-government employment could have been working on defense contracts under the responsibility of their former agency, office, or command. In addition, we estimate that at least nine individuals could have not been performing services under the same defense contracts for which they had program oversight responsibilities or decision-making authorities while at DOD.