Executive Women

Ms. Whittenburg is a committed champion of international trade education and training, currently serving as the Associate Director of the NCBFAA Educational Institute whose mission is to provide relevant content via multimedia platforms to equip our nation’s 21st century cross-border, trade-related workforce. She is a civil service and U.S. Army veteran helping American businesses design clear, legally compliant, and socially responsible cross-border international trade strategies. In her 10+ years as a Senior Executive and director, she oversaw a complex mission of facilitating lawful trade and exercising trade enforcement to ensure fair and competitive trade; and drove key enforcement strategies over priority trade areas, including Antidumping and Countervailing Duties, Intellectual Property Rights, Broker Compliance, Import Safety, Textiles, Trade Agreements, and Responsible Sourcing/Forced Labor. She led efforts to ensure that cargo processing/trade community stakeholders, participating Federal government agencies, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were actively involved in the planning, development, deployment, and sustainment of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Single Window, while managing a highly diverse staff of CBP professionals in pursuing transformative trade policies that promoted economic security and growth for American businesses, along with ensuring only safe and legitimate products entered the U.S. commerce. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Business at Dillard University, holds master’s degrees in both Public Administration from Georgia Southern University, and Legal Studies in International Business Law from the University of Oklahoma. Ms. Whittenburg also completed the Senior Managers in Government course at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. As an active member of the Executive Women in Government, Ms. Whittenburg has served as the President of this organization whose objective is to advocate for the advancement of women in senior leadership positions in the Federal Government.

Kimberly Walton is the former Executive Assistant Administrator for Enterprise Support at the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA). In that role, she was responsible for implementing processes that strengthen enterprise support services across TSA’s human resources, acquisition and procurement, training, logistics, and other critical enterprise support functions.
Enterprise Support provides services to 62,000 employees, manages 14,000 pieces of Transportation Security Equipment nationwide to secure 2.2 million passengers; trained over 7900 new officers, spent 1.89 billion in contracting dollars; and managed over 15,000 computers. Enterprise Support consists of 7 offices and 1900 employees and has a budget of 1.9 billion. Enterprise Support oversees TSA’s offices of Human Capital, Acquisition Program Management, Contracting and Procurement, Security & Administrative Services, Training and Development, and Information Technology.

Since joining TSA in January 2003, Ms. Walton has served as the TSA Ombudsman, Deputy Special Counselor, and then Special Counselor, where she served as the principal advisor to the TSA Administrator on all matters involving civil rights and liberties, equal opportunity, disability, privacy, and diversity issues. In January 2012, she became the Assistant Administrator for Civil Rights & Liberties, Ombudsman, and Traveler Engagement (CRL/OTE).

Before joining TSA, Ms. Walton served as the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the Department of Commerce’s the United States Patent and Trademark Office and as Director of Civil Rights for the Department of Commerce. She also chaired the department's diversity council. Before joining Commerce, Ms. Walton was an attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In 2015, she created, developed, and launched Women Executives at TSA ([email protected]), an Employee Advocacy Council that engages female executives and other interested employees to provide their unique perspectives on issues facing women in the workplace. She served as the President of [email protected] until 2021.

Ms. Walton is a 2021 recipient of the Presidential Rank Award and a recipient of the Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership. Ms. Walton has received a DHS Secretary’s Award for Diversity Management, TSA Silver Medal Award, and TSA Core Values Award. Additionally, she received the TSA Trailblazer Award in recognition of her pioneering efforts toward the advancement of women. While at the U.S. Department of Commerce, she received a Silver Medal Award and two Bronze Medals.

She is also a graduate of the National and International Security Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Ms. Walton holds a law degree from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and is a member of District of Columbia Bar. She studied psychology at the University of Tennessee and organizational psychology at Columbia University.

C. Michelle Bryan is the Deputy Director for Resource Management at the Federal Protective Service (FPS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She provides strategic leadership and executive oversight of the following programs in support of the FPS law enforcement and security mission: budget and finance, revenue, human resources, acquisition, personnel security, procurement, diversity and inclusion, ethics, project management, labor relations and the organizations program analysis and evaluation efforts. In this capacity, she oversees an annual budget of over $1.5 billion and supports a workforce of approximately 1400 federal employees and over 13,000 contractors.

Since joining FPS in November 1995, Deputy Director Bryan has served in several positions at both headquarters and in the regions. She served as the Deputy Director of Policy and Strategy Development where she provided oversight of the organization’s legislative affairs, communications, engagement, public affairs and Performance Quality and Compliance Division. Mrs. Bryan served as the FPS Chief of Staff and strategic advisor to the FPS Director FPS from 2007-2015. In this role, she led multiple change management initiatives and two major organizational realignments: from the General Services Administration (GSA) to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), as well as DHS HQ Management with minimal impact to agency operations.

Mrs. Bryan directed FPS’ effort to develop and implement a new revenue cost model for FPS Basic Security fees; an effort that was attempted several times since FPS moved to DHS (2003). Under Mrs. Bryan’s leadership, FPS was successful in receiving approval for a revenue model, which replaced the antiquated square foot real estate model that had existed for more than 50 years. Her efforts culminated with the approval of the new revenue cost model by the Office of Management and Budget, and the Budget Officer Advisory Council with a fee increase of $28.5M. Additionally, Mrs. Bryan led efforts to establish an FPS Cyber-Physical program, focusing on the cybersecurity of building automation systems and the potential impact to facility security.

In late 2021, while serving at FPS, she was selected by Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families, to serve a 5-month detail as the Site Director for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), Emergency Intake Shelter (EIS) located at Fort Bliss, Texas. In this role, she oversaw operations to temporarily care for thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the U.S. southwest border who have been apprehended by Customs and Border Protection.

Prior to joining FPS, Mrs. Bryan served a detail assignment at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, GA, as the Deputy Assistant Director for Administration. In this role, she led change management initiatives around human capital programs and operations and partnered with key stakeholders to communicate and implement organizational and cultural change. Mrs. Bryan also served as the Acting Chief Diversity Officer for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and as the FPS Chief of Mission Support in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Deputy Director Bryan is a graduate of the DHS Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program, recipient of the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Change Management and Leading Government Change certification, and alumni of the Federal Executive Institute Leadership for a Democratic Society Program and a certified Fascinate Advantage Advisor. A native of Georgia, Ms. Bryan and her family now reside in Maryland.

Ruth Ann Abrams has more than 20 years of executive experience in the federal government, private, and non-profit sectors. She served as Deputy Secretary at the Postal Regulatory Commission for over 10 years before starting a consulting business providing full-spectrum executive support. Prior to the Postal Regulatory Commission, Ruth Ann entered public service at the United States Postal Service from the private sector. Ruth Ann also served as Assistant Executive Director at a large non-profit in California. Ruth Ann currently resides in Fairfax, VA and very recently joined the Department of Justice.