“His first day [as CTMO] is today,” a Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop on Monday, shortly after the hiring decision was announced.

In this brand new capacity for DOD, Parmeter is set to help steer the making and facilitation of  the department’s anticipated “total force’” talent acquisition and management strategy. 

Broadly, he’s now responsible for helping maintain and reform remote and hybrid work options, promoting the application of associated enabling technologies, and introducing creative career pathways and other opportunities to improve recruitment and retention. Parmeter will engage with stakeholders across all military components, the Office of the Secretary of Defense — and with relevant non-governmental entities.

This new position resides in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. 

The Pentagon’s establishment of this nascent CTMO role to improve talent management comes as the U.S. military is facing stark recruiting challenges — and DOD components are also struggling to compete against the private sector to hire personnel in high-tech fields like space and cyber. 

“Growing and shaping our workforce is critical for achieving DOD’s mission to defend the nation now and in the future. That’s why we created and prioritized the new senior-level position of the CTMO,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in a statement.

During his decades-long career so far, Parmeter led talent management efforts for roughly 160,000 service members at U.S. Army Human Resources Command and, most recently, served as Walmart’s head of “non-traditional talent.” According to DOD’s announcement, strategies Parmeter informed at that retail giant “resulted in the hiring of about 80,000 service members and military spouses per year.”

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The organization, headquartered in Silicon Valley, was launched by the DOD in 2015 to speed up the military’s adoption of commercial technology. Madsen, a former fighter pilot and deputy DIU director, stepped up to temporarily steer the agency on the heels of its former chief’s early exit this month.

“It’s a very deliberate process right now to find the next director — a lot of criteria for that,” Madsen said on Thursday at the Capital Factory’s Fed Supernova conference in Austin, Texas.

Now, “the search for that director has been pulled up to the deputy secretary of defense level,” he confirmed. 

The move means that the Pentagon’s No. 2 official, Hicks, “is personally involved in this, which is a message to the ecosystem of the importance that she sees in the next director,” Madsen added. 

Throughout her tenure, Hicks has made it an explicit priority to help drive technology advancements within the DOD.  

The unfolding search could continue for “who knows? Probably four to six months or so,” according to Madsen, who committed to continuing to serve as acting DIU director and supporting the industrial base until a new agency head is selected.

In his view, the next permanent lead will need to be someone “very, very comfortable with the commercial tech sector and able to translate and convert the commercial world to DOD, which is no small feat.” 

The individual will need to properly articulate how elements like funding cycles, venture capitalism, and other complex government and industry features work, according to Madsen. They’ll also need to have an interest in national security and the right personality and expertise to effectively engage Pentagon leaders on DIU’s impact.

“If anyone knows someone interested, let me know,” Madsen said.

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