Mary Lou Lindholm

Mary Lou Lindholm is founder and president of Lindholm & Associates, Inc. a management consulting firm providing a wide spectrum of consultation, strategies, tools and services for improving organizational and human performance. Her firm draws on her more than 30 years of providing innovative and creative solutions. She has guided Lindholm & Associates, Inc. to become a premier provider of world-class human capital, organizational and technical services and solutions. She serves as a consultant, lecturer and service-provider to both public and private sector clients.

Prior to her retirement from the federal government in early 2000, she was Associate Director for Employment at the U.S Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for nearly four years. In this role, she was solely responsible for the transformation of the Employment Service (a major program component of OPM ) to a self-funding, 1600-employee, 18-field office, business that provided human resource and organizational development services to federal, state and local governments as well as other public entities.

Ms. Lindholm also created and co-chaired the Human Resources Technology Council, comprised of major federal Human Resource Directors and Chief Information Officers. This Council became an important player in the study and development of hr systems modernization efforts throughout the federal government as well as the application of new technologies to meet management information needs.

As head of ES, Ms. Lindholm was also responsible for governmentwide policy and implementation in such areas as: staffing, employment, college relations, diversity, recruitment, career transition, workforce restructuring and downsizing, reduction-in-force, testing and examining, assessment and selection techniques, HR research and development, and organizational surveys and analyses. The services offered by the business side of ES covered these areas as well as those in compensation and pay, classification and position management, training and development, and employee and labor relations.

In her previous senior executive roles at OPM, Ms. Lindholm was responsible for the design, planning, management and execution of the downsizing of the agency as well as management of all agency administration functions.

Ms. Lindholm worked for three other departments/agencies prior to joining OPM in 1990. She held progressively responsible management positions at the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture and the General Accounting Office (now known as the Government Accountability Office). Her experience covered all administrative areas with significant emphasis in the personnel field. Her years of policy and operational work in all areas of personnel have defined her as a leading expert in the federal human resource arena. She has represented the federal government before Congressional hearings on proposed HR legislation and has met with Congressional and White House staff on many occasions.

She has participated and/or served in positions for various professional organizations including the International Personnel Management Association, Executive Women in Government, Society for Human Resource Management, National Association of State Personnel Executives, American Society for Public Administration, and the Federal Executive Institute Alumni Association.

Throughout her career she has received many honors including the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Executive Service (the highest award for Senior Executive Service members), the International Personnel Management Association-HR’s Leading Edge Award, the University of Maryland Alumni Achievement Recognition, the Vice President’s Hammer Award, and departmental and agency special awards.