Robert M. Speer

Robert M. Speer (born February 10, 1956) has served as Acting United States Secretary of the Army since January 20, 2017.

Early life and education
Speer was born in Fort Ord, California to a military family. He attended University of Notre Dame (BA, Accounting), Indiana University (MBA, Information Systems) and Industrial College of the Armed Forces of National Defense University (MS, National Resource Strategy). He was commissioned in the Army through the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).

Career
Speer served 28 years in the U. S. Army. In 2004, Robert Speer was tapped to establish financial controls in Iraq for $18.6 billion appropriated for reconstruction projects during the occupation of Iraq. He then served as a managing director for PricewaterhouseCoopers where he led their Defense and Army business. In October 2009, he was designated the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management and Comptroller) and in December 2014, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller. In January, 2017, Speer was one of only six senior Pentagon officials to be asked to stay through the transition to President Trump's administration.

Acting Secretary of the Army
In February 2017 Speer, saying a sufficient amount of information was already available, announced that the Army Corps of Engineers would grant the easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe. The pipeline crossing of the Missouri River will come just upriver of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and had been vigorously protested by the Sioux and other Native American, environmental, veteran, clergy and citizen groups and individuals. During the planning stage of the project, the crossing's proposed route had shifted from north of Bismarck, North Dakota by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) though not, per one fact check, due to citizen protests in Bismarck. ETP, the pipeline’s developer, "says the pipeline is safe". Speer's announcement said that, with the issuance of the permit, "we will have completed all the tasks in President Trump's Presidential Memorandum of January 24, 2017."

Personal life
Speer currently resides in Virginia. He and his wife have four adult children and one grandchild.