They've been in the news since the president has refused to let them cooperate with the Biden transition.
- Click here for the Wikipedia entry.
GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers and has an annual operating budget of roughly $20.9 billion. GSA oversees $66 billion of procurement annually. It contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U.S. federal property, divided chiefly among 8,700 owned and leased buildings and a 215,000 vehicle motor pool. Among the real estate assets managed by GSA are the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. – the largest U.S. federal building after the Pentagon – and the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center (which had previously been the Battle Creek Sanitarium run by John Harvey Kellogg).
GSA's business lines include the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) and the Public Buildings Service (PBS), as well as several Staff Offices including the Office of Government-wide Policy, the Office of Small Business Utilization, and the Office of Mission Assurance. As part of FAS, GSA's Technology Transformation Services (TTS) helps federal agencies improve delivery of information and services to the public. Key initiatives include the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, 18F (includes login.gov and cloud.gov), FedRAMP, the USAGov platform (USA.gov, GobiernoUSA.gov), Data.gov, and Challenge.gov, the U.S. Web Design System, and I.T. Modernization Centers of Excellence.
Here's a look at the career of its current chief, Emily W. Murphy.
Note the focus on small business:
After graduating from Smith College, Murphy moved to Washington, D.C., where she began her career at the Republican National Committee. She worked for the RNC from October 1995 to January 1997, where she served as Assistant to the Director of Administration. She then worked as a staff member for Jim Talent while he served as Chair of the House Committee on Small Business from January 1997 to July 1998, before leaving to pursue a law degree.
Murphy previously served as counsel at the United States House Committee on Armed Services, where she specialized in acquisition policy and reform. She has also held roles at the Small Business Administration and at the GSA, where she served as the agency's first Chief Acquisition Officer. Murphy served under three chairmen of the United States House Committee on Small Business. Her private sector experience includes five years in executive positions at a technology startup company engaged in federal contracting and three years as a government contracts attorney with two D.C. law firms.
