Jerome Johnson
Jerome A. Johnson, a 4th generation Washingtonian and lifelong resident of the District of Columbia, has been professionally active in public administration and contract management for more than 25 years; serving as a contracting professional for four District of Columbia Government agencies. For example, Jerome served as Commodity Manager and Supervisory Contract Specialist/Contracting Officer for the Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP), Chief Contracting Officer/Co-Chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee for Finance and Administration, Associate Director of Grants and Procurement for the Department of Employment Services (DOES), Agency Contracting Officer for the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and Management Analyst for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO). In these positions, he has worked with and advised agency directors, managers, supervisors, procurement personnel, elected officials, Federal and State government executives, international government leaders, business community stakeholders, non‐government organizations, and District residents on myriad issues and topics related to public purchasing.
Jerome is not only recognized as an expert in statutory, regulatory, and policy authorities governing public purchasing and grant making at the federal, state, and local government levels, but also as a competent public administrator. For example, as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer for DOES, he oversaw the day‐to‐day functions of human resources, risk management, agency policy development and implementation, fleet management, mailing services, asset management, security and credentialing, document management, information technology, labor economists, federal and local youth programs and customer service. He also established functional relationships between DOES and domestic and international partners (eg. USAID, US State Department, United Nations, the People’s Republic of China, Republic of South Africa, the Smithsonian, etc.) in furtherance of workforce development initiatives in the District of Columbia. He helped to establish the GlobalKids program in the Mayor Barry’s Youth Leadership Institute, which exposes District youth to international issues and cultures, and facilitated the selection of three youth to travel to Beijing, China to represent the District of Columbia at the Chinese Youth Federation’s Annual Youth Conference. While serving as the Director of Partnerships and Development for the Department of Parks and Recreation, he established fundraising protocols that produced record quarterly fundraising gains and set the stage for future fundraising efforts. Additionally, he established Cookery202; the first robust culinary arts program in the DPR inventory of programs for east of the river residents.