Corey Rindner

State
Corey Rindner
Procurement Executive

As he describes it, Corey Rindner has worked in acquisition "since last century." He entered public service in 1974 as a procurement intern for the Navy. In the 31 years since, he cycled through jobs that have given him an opportunity to observe federal procurement trends from a government, industry and academic perspective. Now, as the chief procurement executive at the State Department, Rindner finds one development worrisome: Fewer young people are learning about the profession. You can "go through an entire education and never hear about" procurement, he laments.

It's not easy to recruit, Rindner notes. There's a limited pool of applicants and the State Department faces competition from other agencies with exciting missions. There's the balancing act of determining when extra outreach would be cost-effective. And there's the lengthy application process, which Rindner would like to see simplified.

Besides sparking interest in the profession, Rindner is looking for ways to hold contractors more accountable for meeting goals on time and materials contracts. And he's trying to recast the definition of a successful procurement to emphasize the quality as well as the speed of the purchases. He also is focused on the Office of Management and Budget's emphasis on strategic sourcing. Rindner has held acquisition positions at various agencies and in the private sector and taught procurement at UCLA.