"I don't have a sharp distinction between work and home life," Gordon said. "My life isn't compartmentalized, it's integrated."

Gordon completed some doctoral work in German history at Tel-Aviv University before returning to the U.S. and enrolling at Harvard Law School. After earning his J.D. and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he was hired as a government contracts associate in the Washington office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

His boss at the law firm, partner James McCullough, said Gordon was "one of our best associates ever" and adept at "helping clients find the right way forward."

GAO Career

In 1992, Gordon joined the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as a senior attorney in the procurement law division. Gordon's transition to the procurement field - which he said happened "purely by chance" - turned out to be a permanent career move. He steadily rose through the ranks of the procurement office, serving as managing associate general counsel from 2000 to 2006 and deputy general counsel from 2006 to 2010.

The team of GAO attorneys led by Gordon is trusted to ensure that procurement regulations are followed. Companies can file formal protests with the office when they lose a government contract and have evidence that the process was flawed. Given the billions of dollars in taxpayer money at stake, it's imperative that the GAO act as a neutral arbiter and give every procurement challenge a fair hearing.

"We're the watchdogs of the federal procurement system," Gordon explained in 2003. "Part of what we need to preserve is the integrity of the system and make sure protesters get heard, but part of what we also are trying to do is preserve it as a functioning system. If the system gets gummed up with people waiting months and even years over a protest, it is unacceptable."

The GAO sustains a procurement protest when the office finds errors or illegality that "prejudiced the protester's chances of winning the contract," according to Gordon. The agencies involved in the contractual dispute are not obligated to reopen the bidding process, but if the GAO's recommendations are not followed, Congress is notified and given the chance to intervene directly.

Gordon has noted that, "in most countries, corruption can be found in government procurement," and he clearly sees the preservation of a fair, ethical contracting system as more than just a formal obligation; reporters who visited with Gordon at the GAO in 2003 noted, tellingly, that he had hung a plaque with the Biblical quote "Justice, justice, shalt thou pursue" on his office wall.

Tanker Contract Fight

One of the most highly-publicized procurement disputes on the GAO docket during Gordon's tenure was a battle between Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS over a lucrative tanker contract with the Air Force.

For more than a decade, the Pentagon has sought to replace an aging fleet of KC-135 aerial refueling jets with a new line of tankers. Attempts to finalize the $35 billion contract have been repeatedly foiled by accusations of mismanagement and corruption in what one Boeing official described as "the longest-running soap opera since 'Days of Our Lives."'

In 2008, Gordon's team upheld a protest from Boeing after the Air Force awarded the tanker contract to the Northrop/EADS bidding team. Gordon stressed that the decision was made only because the Air Force had not properly followed the ground rules of procurement. "We didn't see an iota of evidence that there was intentional wrongdoing, no evidence of bias, no evidence of criminality," Gordon said.

The tanker project remains in limbo, though the Pentagon is expected to award the contract by the end of 2010.

Pentagon Report

At the behest of Congress, Gordon conducted a GAO investigation into a Department of Defense messaging operation that began during the runup to the Iraq war. The public relations blitz -first reported in a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times story - involved retired military officers who were given unusually wide-ranging policy briefings by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Bush administration officials.

The retired officers who attended the briefings made regular appearances on cable news shows as independent military analysts, according to the Times story, and rarely disclosed their close ties with Bush officials. The Times obtained internal Pentagon documents that showed the officers were purposely courted as "surrogates" to amplify the administration's national-security message in the media. The story claimed the Pentagon aimed to "transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse" to shape public opinion.

The Times report also suggested a possible conflict of interest was present in the arrangement, as most of the officers linked with the program were also employed by major defense companies that do business with the Pentagon.

Gordon's report on the operation for the GAO cast a skeptical eye toward the Pentagon's activities but ultimately concluded that no laws were broken.

OFPP Nomination

President Obama nominated Gordon to head up the OFPP on Oct. 5, 2009. Members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs expressed unusual enthusiasm for Obama's choice, with chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) calling Gordon "one of the most broadly supported, noncontroversial" nominees ever considered by the committee. Gordon was confirmed by the full Senate on November 21, 2009.

The enthusiasm for Gordon's selection likely stemmed, in part, from the unseemly recent history of the OFPP. His immediate predecessor at the office, Paul Denett, resigned in 2008 after his wife was accused of trying to steer an Interior Department contract to a friend. Prior to that, the position was held by David Safavian, a former General Services Administration employee who was accused of trying to aid the business activities of the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Safavian was ultimately convicted of obstruction of justice and making false statements in court.

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