Paige Hinkle-Bowles

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy
Department of Defense

Ms. Paige Hinkle-Bowles, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy. Her responsibilities include development and oversight of civilian personnel plans, policies and programs that affect over 900,000 defense employees worldwide. Ms. Hinkle-Bowles’ portfolio spans the full spectrum of the Human Capital Lifecycle, to include talent acquisition, development and sustainment, performance management, strategic workforce and succession planning, and leader development. Specific programs within her area include Senior Executive management, human resources functional community management, and policy for deployed civilians. Prior to this appointment, Ms. Hinkle-Bowles served as the Principal Director to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Civilian Personnel Policy. In that capacity, she co-led an interagency team charged to respond to President Obama’s mandate to better prepare Service members for transition to civilian life. Ms. Hinkle-Bowles also served as the Deputy Director of Force Management Policy, Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C., with responsibility for establishing force management policies for more than 675,000 Air Force military and civilian personnel. Ms. Hinkle-Bowles entered federal civil service in 1989 as a Strategic Air Command intern at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. She has held a variety of positions throughout the Air Force and Department of Defense, to include serving as Director of the Regional Personnel Center for U.S. Air Forces in Europe; Civilian Personnel Officer at RAF Mildenhall, England; Deputy Director for Human Resources in the DoD Program Executive Office, National Security Personnel System; and Director of the Air Force Senior Executive Management Office. Ms. Hinkle-Bowles earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from Texas A&M University and her Master of Arts degree in political science and public administration from Midwestern State University. Her professional military education includes Squadron Officer School in-residence and Capstone, and she is a graduate of the Senior Executive Fellows Program at Harvard University.

Day 2

Friday, February 5th, 2016

09:00 Managing the Civilian Workforce at the Department of Defense

People are the most valuable asset to any corporation and this is no less true at the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD employs 900,000 civilians in more than 600 occupations, in over 3,000 locations, to include nearly 100 foreign countries and territories, around the world. The past few years have been challenging for the Department, and there will always be new challenges, so how do we look forward and focus on the opportunities that the future will bring when we have such a large and diverse workforce?

The DoD continues to focus on what we must do to change and adapt to maintain superiority well into the 21st century. In the coming years, the Department has many opportunities to build upon the strengths of our civilian workforce by:

Focusing on the future through Strategic Workforce Planning
Implementing and evaluating a new performance management system
Continuing to attract, recruit and retain the “best and brightest”