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Whitmer Appointed Executive Officer at NEI

David L. Whitmer has been appointed to the position of associate director for management and executive officer of the National Eye Institute (NEI). NEI director Paul A. Sieving, M.D., Ph.D., said, “We are very pleased to have an executive officer of David’s expertise at the NEI. His extensive managerial experience here at NIH will serve him well in this senior leadership position.”

In his new position, Whitmer serves as the principal advisor to Dr. Sieving on all management issues affecting the NEI. These responsibilities include managing the NEI ’s financial, human resource, information technology, and procurement activities, and coordinating the institute’s ethics and equal employment opportunity and diversity programs. The NEI has approximately 520 scientists, clinicians, support staff, volunteers, and contractors, and a FY 2006 budget in excess of $670 million.

Before coming to NEI, Whitmer served as the executive officer and director of the Division of Management Services, Center for Scientific Review (CSR) and as chief of the Management Policy and Administrative Services Branch of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

He began his NIH career as a presidential management intern in 1993, spending his first year as an administrative officer for the Division of Cancer Etiology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He then moved to NCI's office of the director, where he served as a management analyst.

Whitmer holds a master's degree in public administration and political science from the University of South Florida in Tampa.