Charles R. Christopherson, Jr.,
Chief Information Officer

Charles Christopherson was confirmed as Chief Financial Officer of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) by the Senate on November 10, 2005. Under the Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990, he is responsible to "oversee all financial management activities relating to the programs and operations of the agency." The Chief Financial Officer has direct management of approximately 1,500 of employees located at the Washington D.C headquarters and National Finance Center in New Orleans, LA.

On July 18, 2007, Secretary Mike Johanns appointed Mr. Christopherson to be USDA Chief Information Officer. He will lead the Office of the Chief Information Officer in providing comprehensive information technology resources, services, and support to the Department.

The USDA is one of the largest civilian agencies in the federal government with over 100,000 employees and over one-third of the non-taxable debt. The financial organization of the agency accounts for over $120 billion in program level funds and over $90 billion in loans.
These programs support the areas of forest maintenance and fire fighting, farm commodity support, food safety, agriculture development, foreign agriculture trade, domestic and foreign nutrition services, rural development, and agriculture research. With the myriad of programs, the USDA's financial organization relies on a vast amount of complex financial software to support production and reporting requirements.

In addition to the financial management of the programs of the USDA, the Chief Financial Officer is responsibility for the National Finance Center. National Finance Center (NFC) is a Payroll Services Center of Excellence and a Human Resources Center of Excellence for the Federal Government. Through its high quality, low cost approach, NFC annually processes payroll for 132 federal organizations totaling $61.5 billion in salaries for 567,000 civilian federal employees. The NFC reconciles 4 million healthcare benefit records and services $.3 billion in receivables. In 2005, as New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the NFC successfully exercised an emergency deployment plan to relocate computer systems and personnel to five alternative worksites with no visible disruption to its federal payroll customers.

Prior to his confirmation, Mr. Christopherson was co-founder and President of CB Solutions LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in company turnarounds and cash management. Mr. Christopherson has extensive experience as a restructuring executive in the area of finance and operations. This experience includes executive management in operations and finance for the construction, technology, and communications industries. He has been responsible for the functional areas of marketing, sales, operations, finance, accounting, information systems, and human resources.

As a Business Group Vice President of Operations and Finance at Encompass Service Corporation, Mr. Christopherson was a member of the senior executive team that streamlined marketing, sales, operations, finance, and information technology in a new roll-up of large local construction companies which created the largest electrical, HVAC, network, and facility services company in the United States. The national company was well known for such it projects such as Reliant Stadium in Houston, American Airlines Center and Arlington Stadium in Dallas, and Coors Field in Denver. As the recession impacted the construction industry, Mr. Christopherson was a member of the final management team designed to generate company cashflow and sell operations.

As the Chief Financial Officer on the restructuring team of ICG Fiber Optic Technology, the company gained financial profitability within six months. While still in the position of Chief Financial Officer, Mr.
Christopherson became the Acting Chief Operating Officer. During this twelve month period, the company became the second largest network infrastructure installer and the second largest value added reseller of Lucent/Avaya network infrastructure in the nation. With its record profitability, stellar reputation, and increased market value, the company was sold to an industry consolidator. Prior to ICG Fiber Optic Technology, Mr. Christopherson was a consultant to Fortune 500 companies; responsible for consolidations, internal reporting, external reporting, and diversified operations for Pacific Telecom, Inc.; and an Assistant Area Controller for Red Lion Hotels.

Mr. Christopherson was born in the farming community of Twin Falls, Idaho. He has a Masters in Business Administration from the Oregon Executive MBA program; a Bachelors in Science from the nationally ranked accounting program at Brigham Young University; and a Certified Public Accountant license in the State of Washington. He has been a Member of the Board of Directors with business and charitable organizations; and a conference speaker on financial management, financial organizations, corporate measurements, and corporate reporting.

http://www.ocio.usda.gov/christopherson.html