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1992.02.20 :  Appointment -- Arnold Tompkins

Contact: John Gibbons (202) 245-6343
February 20, 1992

        President Bush has appointed Arnold R. Tompkins of
Clinton, Md., to the dual position of assistant secretary for
management and budget and chief financial officer for the
Department of Health and Human Services.
        Tompkins, 41, assumes responsibility for the federal
government's largest single-agency budget.  Congress last year
created the post of chief financial officer to improve financial
management in government agencies and Tompkins is the first HHS
executive confirmed by the Senate to be vested in this dual role.
     He is the first black official with responsibility for HHS'
budget, which at $544 billion represents almost 40 percent of
U.S. federal spending.                                            
        HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., called Tompkins
"exceptionally well qualified by training, experience and his
knowledge of departmental programs and issues to assume this
challenging and important responsibility."
        In addition to advising Dr. Sullivan on administrative
and financial management, Tompkins will oversee development of
the department's budget and provide guidance on general
management operations and major policies in areas such as grants,
contracts and automatic data processing systems.  

        Since June 1989, Tompkins had served as counselor to the
HHS deputy secretary. He also is executive director of the
Secretary's Task Force on Health Care Reform and executive
director of the Department Policy Council.
        Between April 1989 and February 1990, Tompkins was acting
assistant secretary for planning and evaluation and before that
he was deputy assistant secretary for social services policy for
four years.
        He came to HHS in April 1985 from the Department of the
Interior where he began his federal career in November 1984 as a
special assistant to the commissioner of reclamation, Office of
Policy Management.
        Tompkins was a senior policy analyst for the Reagan-Bush
Presidential Campaign in 1984.  Before that he worked for three
years with Mark A. Siegel & Associates, the Washington, D.C.,
consulting firm.  Between 1975 and January 1981, he worked for
several national and state GOP campaign organizations.
        Tompkins was born in Washington, D.C.  He attended the
Charlotte Hall Military Academy in Maryland and received a
bachelor's degree in history from Bowdoin College in 1972.  He
graduated from the Howard University School of Law in 1975.
        Tompkins is married to the former Mary Darlene Vestal of
Glen Burnie, Md., and they have a daughter, Whitney Lucille.

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