Introduction: What the Reader Can Expect

"Never retire." I often reflect on the conversation I had with Frank Dragotta, my high school principal, about 30 years after graduation. I was playing golf with my father-in-law and his friend, Frank. We were on a golf course near my hometown of Belvidere, New Jersey, which is tucked away in the northwestern part of the state. Belvidere is basically a tiny country town surrounded by farmland, and I visit the area too infrequently. Turning to the back nine, we got to talking about my career and the fact that my firm, where I was a partner, had a young mandatory retirement age. Frank said, "Never retire. You'll be bored. With your mind and skills, you'll want, and need, to do something."

Frank was right, and his words have reverberated around in my thoughts ever since. Since I'm an extreme planner, when I turned 50 I started thinking about life after retirement. I would be financially okay, but I wanted to continue doing meaningful work and keeping my mind active. I grew up with humble beginnings, and giving back from a successful career in some way was important to me.

Another 10 years later, after a full 37-year career, I was facing retirement as a senior global assurance partner with Ernst & Young. At EY, retirement is pre-fixed around 60 years of age; it's part of the partnership agreement signed many years earlier. While I considered which road to take next, I received a surprising email from the White House. Before I knew it-though after much thought-I was on my way to Washington, DC, to serve as the chief financial officer of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development under Secretary Ben Carson. I had no idea what I was in for, but I accepted the challenge.

This book will touch mostly on my postretirement career in government. I love learning to keep my mind active, and this presidential-appointed Senate-confirmed position did not disappoint. The world of federal government is fascinating. Much surprised me about the innerworkings of government; some things were unusual and disappointing. But I found there is a lot of good in government. There are many similarities comparing the business of government to the business of the private sector. There are also many differences-some frustrating, some refreshing-all of which are addressed in this book.

This book displays lessons in management applying private-sector practices within the realm of the public sector. It's not easy impacting change in government. The bureaucracy slows everything down. Still, we succeeded in completely transforming and modernizing HUD's frankly weak financial and digital infrastructure into a cutting-edge operation. This book describes how private-company experience can benefit the government to improve financial controls and modernize the IT environment. Strong financial controls and IT processes help American citizens by limiting fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer funds. Also, by improving the financial infrastructure and modernizing IT capabilities to be more consistent with the private sector, HUD became more efficient and effective in providing funds and services to those in need of housing.

This book is not about making political statements-I simply discuss the importance of bringing private-sector experience to the government. The Trump administration understood the importance of strong financial controls and IT modernization within government. In the private sector, strong financial controls are mandated by all stakeholders, including the government. By and large, the federal government ensures the entities with which it does business have strong financial controls. There are several monitoring and audit protocols to assure such. Regarding the private sector, publicly owned companies are required to have strong financial controls, which are regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. As described in this book, it's somewhat ironic that the government allows less of itself.

I loved and valued my years at EY; I would do nothing differently. Everything I learned at EY prepared me for my role at HUD. My time in the public sector has been some of the most meaningful and rewarding years in my career. I hope the reader walks away with a few thoughts: government service is very exciting and rewarding; financial transformation does not have to be onerously difficult or expensive; and more important, for those with a desire, there is life after retirement to do very meaningful work.

This book is written so that each chapter or part stands on its own. Some readers may be interested in how to evaluate a company in the first hundred days. Some readers may be interested in the business of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Others may be interested in the financial transformation process. In any event, the book was designed so that critical management learnings can be gathered from each chapter or part without reading the entire book, although I hope you do.

Below is what to expect from each chapter:

1. The Nomination Process: This chapter provides background information on my qualifications and prior learnings, which prepared me for the role. Also, I summarize the nomination and confirmation process of becoming a political appointee in a presidential administration. The process is complicated and intrusive into your personal life and finances. I did not fully appreciate the level of effort until I was well into it. I didn't grow up with social media, which I was thankful for during the background checks.
2. About HUD: HUD is a cabinet-level agency whose mission is focused on providing housing and community development assistance. HUD administers over 40 programs focused on affordable housing and assistance in addition to mortgage industry guarantees via Federal Housing Administration and Ginnie Mae. This chapter provides a sense of the depth and complexities of HUD's operations, which are similar to many cabinet-level agencies. The structure and innerworkings of government are not simple and take a while to digest. This chapter also discusses the budget process within a federal agency.
3. HUD's State of Affairs upon My Arrival: HUD's financial infrastructure was in disarray. HUD's financial systems were riddled with material weaknesses in their accounting process, which could not be audited. Also, HUD was not in compliance with most governmental financial reporting regulations. This chapter describes how shockingly ineffective the financial controls were at HUD upon my arrival.
4. My First Hundred Days: Becoming a leader of a large organization as a new member of management, in an unfamiliar industry, is not easy. It's even more challenging when the specific goal is to create significant change in a short period of time. This chapter explores how I approached the acclimation process to learn the business, develop relationships, and lead the transformation process.
5. Evaluation of Governance, People, Processes, and Technology: Understanding an entity's fundamentals of governance, people, processes, and technology is essential to evaluating the strength and weaknesses of an organization. This chapter explores the importance of such.
6. Understanding How It Got This Bad: Although short, this chapter stresses the importance of leadership and accountability and how things can go awry when either is lacking in an organization.
7. Barriers to Success: To lead a transformation, it is important to understand barriers that can derail progression. The sooner they are identified, the easier it is to work around them.
8. Building the Platform for Success: Business transformations need a clear vision, stakeholder engagement, leadership, and strong governance. This chapter explores how we accomplished that at HUD.
9. Financial and IT Modernization: This chapter explores the core approach to accomplishing our mission.
10. Coordination with Critical Service Providers: As with most businesses, partnership and third-party relationships are needed, and they require careful coordination and collaboration. This chapter discusses the changes we made with our business partners to accomplish our goals.
11. The Results-Where We Were in 2020: Many said we would never turn around the financial operations or reach our goal of a clean audit opinion in one term. This chapter summarizes all the progress we made. It is intended to demonstrate how much can be done in a relatively short period of time with the right focus, leadership, and team.
12. Making HUD's Transformation Sustainable upon a Change in Administration: Reaching a milestone is never the end game. The sustainability and continued growth should always be the focus. This chapter provides the reader guidance on how to think about continuation and sustainability, even though the initial mission was accomplished.
13. Differences Between the Private and Public Sectors: The title speaks for itself. There are many differences, but also some consistencies. The biggest consistency between government and the private sector is people working hard to do good work. I came to appreciate that working in the government sector provides a great sense of purpose and would encourage anyone to pursue government service at some point in their career. I did not necessarily share this view before my public service experience, but I do now.
14. Final Thoughts: I wrote this chapter to provide a sense of the uniqueness in being a political appointee. There are many...