Senior Pentagon nominees advance to full Senate

The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to send the nominations for four key Pentagon posts to the full Senate.

The Senate will receive the nominations of Ellen Lord to be under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics; John Gibson to be deputy chief management officer; Lucian Niemeyer to be assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment; and Matthew Donovan to be under secretary of the Air Force.

Lord is the former chief executive of Textron Systems, Gibson most recently served as the president and chief executive of XCOR Aerospace, and Niemeyer and Donovan both previously served as staffers for the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Meanwhile, the White House has officially sent the committee the nomination of Mark Esper, vice president of government relations at Raytheon, to become Army secretary.