Geren won't serve as Army Secretary under Obama

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http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1107852.html

Geren won't serve as Army Secretary under Obama
By CHRIS VAUGHN


Army Secretary Pete Geren, who left Fort Worth in 2001 for a stint in the halls of the Pentagon, said Monday that he will not stay on as head of the nation's largest military service once the Obama administration moves to Washington, D.C.

The change won't be immediate, though. Geren said he has been "asked and have agreed to stay on as secretary until my successor is confirmed," Geren said in an e-mail to the Star-Telegram. "Beyond that, I do not know what comes next. I will not begin to look for my next job until I have finished here."

President-elect Obama has not yet named a nominee for Army secretary.

Geren was sworn in as Army secretary in July 2007, although he had been serving as acting secretary since March of that year. He was promoted from undersecretary when Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Secretary Francis Harvey to step down in the wake of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal.

A former congressman from Fort Worth, Geren left behind his law and business practice in Fort Worth in 2001 to serve as a special assistant to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He also served as acting Air Force secretary in 2005.