Gary Christle Leadership Excellence Award

Gary Christle

Gary Christle was responsible for US Department of Defense (DoD) Acquisition policy as
embodied in the DoD 5000 series documents. This responsibility included the role of Defense
Acquisition Board executive secretary, establishment of Acquisition Program Baselines, and
supervision of the monthly Defense Acquisition Executive Summary process for monitoring
the cost, schedule and technical status of major acquisition programs. He was also responsible
for policies regarding contractors’ internal cost and schedule control systems (Earned Value
Management Systems (EVMS)) and was a member of the DoD Cost Analysis Improvement
Group. Gary retired from Federal Service in October 2000 as the Deputy for Acquisition
Management, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics).

Subsequently as an independent consultant, Gary has also undertaken program
management process assessments of business units of several major Defense contractors.
He is currently with the Center for Naval Analyses. As a Senior Fellow with the Center for
Naval Analyses Mr. Christle has published reports on Headquarters reorganization, project
o!ce organization, program manager training, acquisition metrics, balanced scorecards,
earned value implementation, and risk management for executives.
Throughout his distinguished career Gary has consistently worked collaboratively with
industry, encouraging both leadership on all sides of the table and the development
and ownership of appropriate project control standards to be applied when working
with US Government and in particular, US DOD. He initiated the Integrated Performance
Management Council which was ultimately responsible for the transformation of C/SCSC
(initiated by Driessnack – see above) into Earned Value Management Systems guidelines
embodied by the industry sponsored ANSI 748.

Gary’s leadership fostered an extensive body of knowledge. He made available to
government researchers, notably the Air Force Institute of Technology under Dr David
Christensen’s tutelage, the DoD earned value data base. He encouraged collaboration
with friendly foreign countries, leading to creation of a multilateral memorandum of understanding among Australia, Canada and US defense organizations and parallel but less
formal arrangements with Japan, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Gary Christle’s many awards reflect his distinguished career:
• Distinguished Military Graduate of Northeastern University; and holds a DoD level III
certification in Program Management
• Recipient of the Northeastern University Outstanding Alumni Award in the Field of Public
Service; recipient of the Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal (twice); recipient of
the Presidential rank designation of Meritorious Executive; recipient of the David Packard
Excellence in Acquisition Award; the General Hans H. Driessnack Distinguished Service
Award; recipient of the Vice President’s “Hammer” Award.
• When with the Project Management Institute CPM endowed an annual scholarship in his name.
• Frequent guest lecturer and Honorary Professor of the Defense Acquisition University ; and
• CPM has established this leadership award in his name!