Ex-P&G chief said to be pick for VA job

Obama to name West Point grad

FILE - This Sept. 22, 2011 file photo shows Robert McDonald, CEO and president of Procter & Gamble, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. President Barack Obama is selecting the former Procter and Gamble executive as his choice to be secretary of Veterans Affairs, an administration official said Sunday, June 29, 2014. McDonald, 61, is a native of Gary, Ind., who grew up in Chicago. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - This Sept. 22, 2011 file photo shows Robert McDonald, CEO and president of Procter & Gamble, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. President Barack Obama is selecting the former Procter and Gamble executive as his choice to be secretary of Veterans Affairs, an administration official said Sunday, June 29, 2014. McDonald, 61, is a native of Gary, Ind., who grew up in Chicago. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama intends today to nominate Bob McDonald, a former chief of Procter & Gamble, to be the next secretary of veterans affairs, administration officials said Sunday afternoon.

Obama hopes that McDonald, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., can turn around an agency whose health system has been rocked by allegations of mismanagement and cover-ups of long patient waiting times, officials said.

The president last month accepted the resignation of Eric Shinseki, the retired four-star general tapped in 2009 to lead the agency. By appointing McDonald, Obama is betting that a new leader can overcome deep bureaucratic problems and the mismanagement that stemmed, in part, from a surge in the number of veterans needing care.

McDonald's nomination was praised by his peers in the private sector and military.

Jim McNerney, chairman and chief executive officer of The Boeing Co., called McDonald an "outstanding choice for this critically important position."

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who served with McDonald in the 82nd Airborne, said the nominee's "business acumen, coupled with his dedication and love of our nation's military and veteran community, make him a truly great choice for the tough challenges we have at VA."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called McDonald "a good man, a veteran and a strong leader with decades of experience in the private sector. With those traits, he's the kind of person who is capable of implementing the kind of dramatic, systemic change that is badly needed and long overdue at the VA."

"The choice suggests a real focus on customer satisfaction, as opposed to what you might get from a retired general or medical leader," said Phillip Carter, who follows veterans' matters for the Center for a New American Security.

McDonald led Procter & Gamble from 2009 to 2013. During that time, the company website states, "P&G realized annual sales of over $84 billion. The company had more than 120,000 employees, 120 plants and 200 brands in 35 categories, of which 25 brands generate over $1 billion in sales each year."

But investors, including activist investor William Ackman, voiced frustration over the company's slow revenue growth and stagnant market share gains. Ackman, who took a 1 percent stake in the company, pressed for the company to streamline operations and improve results.

In a letter announcing his retirement from P&G, McDonald wrote, "This has been a very difficult decision for me, but I'm convinced it is what is in the best interests of the company and you."

McDonald has also served on the board of directors of the Xerox Corp., the United States Steel Corp., the McKinsey Advisory Council and the Greater Cincinnati regional initiative intended to "grow high-potential startups" in the Cincinnati region.

A native of Gary, Ind., McDonald, 61, grew up in Chicago and graduated from West Point in 1975 with a degree in engineering. He also earned an MBA from the University of Utah in 1978.

In other news, program specialist Scott Davis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that health benefit applications for more than 10,000 veterans may have been improperly purged from the VA's Health Eligibility Center's national data system in suburban Atlanta.

The center doesn't process all applications, but helps manage the national enrollment computer system and offers enrollment guidance for VA hospitals across the country.

Davis, who joined the VA in April 2011, began filing complaints in January and said managers were focused on meeting goals linked to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to meet their bonus targets. He also asked the VA's Office of the Inspector General to investigate the potential mishandling of a $5 million federal contract.

"We don't discuss veterans," Davis told the newspaper. "We do not work for veterans. That is something that I learned after working there. Our customer is the VA central office, the White House and the Congress. The veterans are not our priority. So whatever the initiatives are or the big-ticket items, that is what we focus on."

Davis said the VA placed him on paid administrative leave after he filed the complaints, and he cited stress as factor in taking medical leave in mid-June.

Local VA spokesman Floretta Hardmon said the organization takes the allegations seriously and officials are cooperating with investigators.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by Julie Pace, Tom Raum and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Juliet Eilperin, Greg Jaffe and Stephanie McCrummen of The Washington Post.

A Section on 06/30/2014

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