RETIRED MARINE CORPS OFFICER, MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION EXPERT
Tayrn Gude was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College. She subsequently attended the Marine Corps Officer Candidate Course in Quantico, Virginia, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant.
After fulfilling her initial commitment, Tayrn left active duty to pursue a civilian career as a management consultant. During her consulting career, she worked for major consulting firms and provided value to clients in a variety of industries, including consumer products, pharmaceuticals, casual wear and higher education. She currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Director, Human Capital and Resource Management for the Defense Contract Audit Agency( DCAA), and is a member of DCAA’s Executive Steering Committee. Her duties include day-to-day oversight of a shared services organization, including a $650M budget; human resources for 4800 civilian personnel; logistics and administrative services; and, the DCAA Audit Institute in Atlanta, GA.
Tayrn was recalled to active duty to support the Global War on Terror in September 2001, and remained on active duty until October 2010. Her assignments included serving as a Marine Corps Congressional Liaison, where she prepared Marine Corps witnesses for testimony before congressional committees; serving as the Deputy Branch Head for Congressional Correspondence; and, as the Office of Legislative Affairs liaison to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Military Personnel. During that time, she graduated from the Marine Corps Command & Staff College and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. She was also assigned a collateral duty as the Marine Corps voting member on the Naval Clemency and Parole Board.
Her last active duty assignments pertained to enemy combatants confined aboard U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Cuba. She held a variety of positions, including Case Research Officer for detainee Administrative Review Boards; Team Lead for the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, where a team of joint officers summarized the U.S. Government’s evidence used to determine detainees’ enemy combatant status; and, established the Executive Secretariat for the newly-formed Detainee Task Force in 2009 in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Rule of Law and Detainee Policy).
Tayrn’s civilian federal career began with the U.S. Department of Justice/INTERPOL Washington, where she served as the administrative officer in the Executive Office; she supervised human resources, budgeting and financial management, logistics and procurement, travel card and visa/passport processing, and public and congressional affairs. She then joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), where she served as the Deputy Director for Administration with Wildlife Services. In that capacity, she directed the activities of administrative professionals responsible for supporting a nation-wide program with $100M in annual appropriations, and cooperative service agreements/non-appropriated collections of $80M. She ensured policy guidance and execution-level resources were synchronized nation-wide and across three regional offices.
Immediately prior to joining the Defense Contract Audit Agency, Tayrn served APHIS as the Deputy Director for the Acquisition and Asset Management Division (AAMD). As the Deputy Director, she managed the day-to-day internal operations of an administrative shared-services organization with employees in 5 U.S. locations. She supervised AAMD’s service to more than 12K USDA customers in the areas of acquisition policy; real and personal property management; general and specialized contracting; purchase card management; acquisition workforce management; procurement systems management; facilities and conference services management; printing, distribution, and mail management; Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization; aircraft and fleet management; and, energy and recycling management.
She earned a Master’s in Communications from American University, and completed coursework for Naval War College. Her deployments include tours in Fallujah, Iraq, and Kabul, Afghanistan. Taryn received a Juris Doctor (cum laude), and is licensed to practice law in Maryland. She lives with her husband in Fort Washington; they have a daughter at Penn State and a son at West Point.
