Patricia Healy

Agriculture
Patricia Healy
Acting Chief Financial Officer

Patricia Healy, acting chief financial officer at the Agriculture Department, spent a year in the private sector before joining the federal government in 1987. And, she says, she has no real desire to go back. "I'm very content to be a civil servant," Healy says. "One thing you can do in government is work on major efforts that have a serious impact."

Healy, who has been acting CFO since December 2003, was recognized by the Office of Personnel Management with a Presidential Rank Award two years ago for her accomplishments, including establishing an integrated financial management system and evaluating Agriculture's personal and real property.

But there is far more work to be done, as the agency's poor red rating in financial performance on the presidential management traffic-light-style score card indicates. Among other things, USDA must improve its system of internal control and data integrity. In 2002, USDA had its first ever clean audit and has continued on that path since. Healy also oversees the National Finance Center in New Orleans, which processes the payroll for about 550,000 employees. The center's 1,500 workers and services were relocated to Philadelphia in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August.

Before joining USDA, Healy worked at the Internal Revenue Service as the national director for the systems and accounting standards division. She says it was quite a change to be responsible for an entire department. "I have to centralize financial management at a department level, where there are many different kinds of missions," she says. "I needed a broader perspective." Her goals are simple: "Refine the information and get it out to the people who need it-with some analysis so people can use it-so we're all looking at the same information, at the same time, with the same accuracy."

A native of New Jersey, Healy has a bachelor's degree in German from Ohio State University, a master's degree in library and information science from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the University of Maryland.