The Commerce Department helps make American business more innovative at home and more competitive abroad. Assistant Secretary Scott Quehl, Chief Financial Officer, will outline his holistic approach to program and project leadership. He’ll discuss how to meet both critical mission objectives fiscal control mandates.

Mr. Quehl’s experience ranges from Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras to CFO for the Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia. He was Managing Director and co-head of the Infrastructure Advisory Group for Tax-Exempt Capital Markets at JP Morgan Securities.

Before receiving his commission, Mr. Quehl supported local, state, and national governments in 14 states, the District of Columbia, and four countries in financial stabilization, service delivery improvement, cost containment, revenue enhancement, competitive contracting, workforce, organizational consolidation, infrastructure, and capital market initiatives.

Mr. Devaney’s federal career spanned 40 years. He investigated white collar crime as well as federal waste, fraud and abuse as a Secret Service agent and as Inspector General of the Interior Department. Since it’s inception in 2009, he was chairman of the Recover, Accountability and Transparency Board, where he set new standards for use of tools for tracking federal grant and contract dollars.

Mr. Devaney is noted both for his skill in detecting fraud as well as for his inspiring leadership style. In a special fireside Q & A chat format with Federal News Radio’s Tom Temin, Mr. Devaney will discuss lessons learned about the mechanics and technologies of financial fraud detection, how to motivate people to do right, and his views on leadership and ethics.

The Samurai were highly skilled warriors whose training included calligraphy and flower arranging, as well as martial arts. To our modern mindset, the inclusion of skills that cultivate artistic sensitivity in the education of a warrior might seem counterintuitive.

At the time, however, these skills were deemed essential to the education of a strong warrior, allowing the violent existence of the samurai to be tempered by wisdom and serenity.

In the same way, accountability in government cannot be limited solely to reporting on spending. Inspired by the holistic approach of the Samurai, the panel will discuss innovative practices and essential characteristics not usually associated with accountability systems. The discussion will address how to create a culture that supports innovation, transparency, and education (versus training), and why this combination translates into a high-performing, accountable workplace.

The panelists will share their experiences in moving away from one-dimensional leadership to an approach that creates accountability and rewards on multiple levels.

What do the future leaders of the federal workforce think of the environment that we have created for them to spend 40 plus hours a week in over the next 20 to 30 years?

In this session, young federal government professionals speak openly about leadership development programs that are available to them in the federal government, while officials from these leadership development programs discuss how the federal government perceives the needs of the next generation of leaders.

The federal government and its contractors have come through a couple of trying years. The Obama administration has issued several policies aimed at clarifying the inherently governmental definition, increasing the use of strategic sourcing, reducing time and materials contract in favor of fixed price, fixing or deleting troubled projects, and re-establishing equitable pre-award communications. In the next 18 months to two years, agency program and contract managers, plus their supplier counterparts, face some new challenges.

We all sing about the Star-Spangled Banner with pride, but what do we know really know about the famous flag itself?

Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss will share her experiences as the Senior Textile Conservator for the Star-Spangled Banner restoration project. Thomassen-Kraus will talk about the history of the flag and its early preservation, how the project was viewed as an opportunity for transparency and public participation, the project’s outreach efforts, professional collaborations and the external partnerships with other government agencies.

She’ll also discuss the project as a “public-private partnership” funded project, the staffing of the project with its goals of mentorship and training, and the challenges of managing and motivating a temporary work force while in the public eye.