The Senate unanimously confirmed Ashton Carter to be the next Deputy Secretary of Defense.  Carter, who is the current Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, succeeds Bill Lynn who announced in July that he planned to leave.

Before becoming USD(AT&L), Carter was chair of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government’s international and Global Affairs department.  During the Clinton administration, Carter served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for international Security Policy. 

Carter has been a member of the Defense Science Board and the Defense Policy Board, and co-chaired the Catastrophic Terrorism Study Group.  He was also a Senior Partner at Global Technology Partners and served on the Board of Trustees at MITRE Corporation.

As Deputy Secretary, Carter will be the Department’s Chief Management Officer (CMO) and will head DoD’s cybersecurity strategy. He will play an important role in DoD’s efforts to develop an effective program while reducing the long-term funding profile by hundreds of billions of dollars.  In addition to his DoD duties, Carter will serve on the Government Accountability and Transparency Board.