Gail Lovelace

General Services Administration
Gail Lovelace
Chief People Officer,
Chief Human Capital Officer

As the story goes, Gail Lovelace was director of human resources when she gave a speech that changed the structure of the General Services Administration. She told HR Magazine in 1999: "I said something to the effect that the government recognized money was important and created a chief financial officer. They recognized information technology as important and created a chief information officer. So where was the chief people officer?"

The crowd cheered, and newspapers covered the story. In 1998, the agency created the chief people officer position, which reports to the administrator, and chose Lovelace.

By the time the Chief Human Capital Officers Act passed in 2002, Lovelace had several noteworthy achievements under her belt, for which she received a Presidential Rank Award. She had developed a human resources information technology system for GSA and its clients, started an initiative to engage executives in recruitment and retention, and promoted the use of workforce flexibilities such as teleworking, recruitment bonuses, alternative work schedules, and subsidies for child care and transportation.

The Office of Personnel Management in 2003 tapped Lovelace to chair the Chief Human Capital Officers Council subcommittee on emergency preparedness. GSA also became the first agency to receive certification from the Office of Personnel Management for its performance-based pay system for senior executives.

Despite this progress, GSA has not led the field in human capital management. At the end of the second quarter, GSA still had a yellow in this area of the President's Management Agenda score card while 11 other agencies already had reached green, the highest rating. Some of GSA's remaining work involves merging the Federal Supply Service and the Federal Technology Service into a single acquisition workforce.