Navy appoints new director, Acquisition Career Management - Christine Stelloh-Garner

Program Manager, Jan-Feb, 2003

Christine Stelloh-Garner assumed duties as the Director, Acquisition Career Management, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development & Acquisition) in January 2003, reporting directly to the Navy Acquisition Executive. She is responsible for ensuring that Navy and Marine Corns acquisition workforce members have education, training, and experience to meet congressionally mandated Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act requirements.

Stelloh-Garner was born at the Millington Naval Air Station in Memphis, Tenn., and spent her youth in the United States and Japan before joining the Naval Air Systems Command as a clerk-typist in 1974.

As an upward mobility program trainee, she transitioned to program and management analysis, serving in positions involving various facets of program and facility management. Assignments included the Joint Service, Tilt-Rotor V-22 Deputy for Program Appraisal, and Program Manager for both Caribbean Regional Operations Center Upgrade and, Later, the AH-1 Night Targeting System. Additionally she served on the Command Federal Women's Program Committee.

Briefly leaving the Naval Air Systems Command in the mid-1980s, Stelloh-Garner remained active in naval aviation as a Booz-Allen & Hamilton consultant at the Naval Aviation Depot in Cherry Point, N.C., and as family readiness advisor for Marine Medium Lift Helicopter Squadron (HMM) 264. She also represented Advanced Technology, Inc., as a program consultant for naval aviation.

Stelloh-Gamer joined the staff of the Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Tactical Aircraft Programs as a Deputy for Acquisition before being selected to the Senior Executive Service and assuming responsibility as Deputy PEO for Air Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Assault and Special Mission Programs in March 1998. As the Deputy PEO, she provided oversight and insight for over 100 efforts from the following program teams with an annual appropriation of approximately $4 billion: Air ASW Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (P-3, S-3, EP-3, ES-3, VPU); Multi-mission Helicopters (MH-60, SH-60, HH-60), MH53, Air ASW Sensors and Sonobuoys; Marine assault aircraft (AV-8, AH-1, UH-1, CH-53, V-22); and special mission Executive Helicopters (VH-3, VH-60) T-45 Training System, and E-6 Airborne Command Post.

Selected as the Department of Navy's Acquisition Reform Executive in May 2001, Stelloh-Garner was the facilitator and catalyst for innovation, streamlining, and change across all acquisition processes of the Navy and Marine Corps. She also served as the Department's Standardization Executive. In November 2002, Stelloh-Garner became the Director for Program Analysis and Support in the newly formed office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Acquisition Management before assuming her current responsibilities.

As a collateral duty from early 2000 until January 2003, Stelloh-Garner served as the Defense Acquisition Management Functional Advisor. In this capacity she led a team of representatives across the Department of Defense in establishing requirements and providing recommendations to the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology & Logistics) concerning certification requirements and fulfillment of more than 10,000 Department of Defense acquisition workforce members in the Program Management career field.

A graduate of the Defense Systems Management College Program Management Course, Stelloh-Garner also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Mount Vernon College. An amateur garden designer, she and her husband, Robert Garner, enjoy their southern Maryland oasis.