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Michell C. Clark is the Department of Education's Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief Human Capital Officer. He was nominated by President Bush on December 13, 2005, confirmed by the Senate on March 13, 2006, and was sworn in on March 17, 2006.

He was designated the acting assistant secretary for management, acting chief information officer and acting chief human capital officer, effective July 30, 2005. Prior to this designation, he served two years as deputy assistant secretary for management, providing the Department with budgetary guidance and leadership in all areas of information technology (IT) and security, including physical, personnel and computer network security. He concurrently served as the director of security services from March 17, 2003, through Nov. 12, 2004.

Prior to joining ED, Clark was employed with PricewaterhouseCoopers, L.L.P. headquartered in Fair Lakes, Va., for five years from 1998 to 2003. He served with PwC as the practice leader for its General Customer Relationship Management practice. Projects he managed included an e-Government assessment of Virginia's Department of Information Technology; an assessment for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service on integrating its Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) fingerprint data with the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System; and a five-year e-Business plan for the Defense Contract Management Agency to support worldwide operations.

In 2001, Clark was a member of the electronic government advisory committee to the Joint Commission on Technology and Science, Virginia General Assembly.

Clark served 20 years in the U.S. Army, including one tour of duty directly supporting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He received his honorable discharge in June 1998 at the rank of lieutenant colonel.

During his last two years of service, the Army stationed Clark in the Pentagon's Program Analysis and Evaluation Directorate, where he worked on DOD budget issues, helping to coordinate both the Army's six-year $365 billion fiscal program as well as several annual budgets.

In 1995 and 1996, Clark worked on security and strategic planning issues for all four branches of the armed services while at the Pentagon's Office of the Director of the Joint Staff. There, among other duties, he improved the quality and timeliness of security and logistics information provided to the secretary of defense and the president.

From 1993 to 1995 at the Pentagon, Clark had his most memorable assignment working for the Office of the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff as the executive assistant to the director. He worked on security, political, strategic planning and defense issues for the four armed services and also directed the Physical and Personnel Security Divisions of the Joint Staff. He managed IT operations and security activities, including a Top Secret-Sensitive Compartmental Information (TS-SCI) computer network, and he supervised military and civilian personnel from all four services and established a new Joint Staff Directorate of 140 personnel to consolidate executive management functions.

From 1991 to 1993 at the Yongsan Garrison, in Seoul, South Korea, Clark worked for the Office of the Comptroller, running a functional review of its operations throughout the peninsula. As a part of that review, he developed and implemented a program to identify and streamline the operations and functions of the 8th Army in Korea. He implemented and directed a U.S. Forces, Korea command-wide Study Program to streamline base operations and functions that identified $6.2 million in savings.

From 1990 to 1991, Clark attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. In 1988, the Army sent him to Purdue University for two years, where he earned an M.S. degree in industrial engineering.

He began his Army career as a 1978 West Point graduate with a major in engineering. During his first ten years of service, he worked stateside for the Army in a number of posts. While stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash., he was an executive officer to a multidivisional branch providing comprehensive administrative support for more than 100,000 personnel. At Fort Greely, Alaska, he ran a full-service printing plant, processing more than 15,000 jobs per year. In his next post at the Reserve Components Personnel and Administration Center (RCPAC) in St. Louis, Mo., he managed a staff of 18 that anticipated, planned, and executed the personnel-related components of military operations for 15,000 soldiers while present at their home base and deployed to sites throughout the world. As a performance management and measurement chief at RCPAC, he also coordinated all high-level or sensitive information for an Army Field Operating Agency.

Clark is a frequent speaker on how government agencies, including the armed forces, can use technology to improve their business and procurement practices. He and his wife and two sons live in Woodbridge, Va.