ONPA Hires New Audit Manager

The Office of the National Public Auditor recently hired Mr. Eric Spivak to fill the position of Audit Manager. Eric arrived on Pohnpei on February 26, 2009, after accepting a 2-year contract through March, 2011. The staff warmly welcomes Eric to the ONPA family.

Eric is originally from the State of New Jersey, USA. Prior to his recruitment, he had spent time working in Phoenix, Arizona for several years and then moved to Salem, Oregon. He was recruited from Salem .

Eric is a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) with over 14 years of auditing and management consulting experience. He is experienced in the areas of compliance, internal, operational, performance, and Sarbanes-Oxley auditing. He has been an independent consultant since 2005 and has provided services to state and local governments, private corporations, regulated utilities, and non-profit organizations in the USA. Prior to becoming a consultant, he held government audit positions with the Office of the Auditor General of the State of Arizona, the Administrative Offices of the Arizona Supreme Court, and the City of Scottsdale, which is a city of 200,000 residents in Arizona.

Eric completed his education at Arizona State University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and a Masters degree in Public Administration. The focus of his Master's degree was in the area of public policy analysis and program evaluation.

Eric stated that he is very impressed with the Office's professionalism and level of competence. He expressed appreciation for the warm welcome and pleasantness from the staff and the people he has met on Pohnpei since his arrival two weeks ago.

Eric's primary objective is to help staff in their professional development. He said that it is important that FSM develop the skills, experiences and leadership capabilities of its own citizens so that it does not need to recruit from outside FSM in the future. He looks forward to sharing his auditing experience and skills with the staff working under his supervision so that they can achieve this objective.

He also added his secondary objective is to help the Public Auditor in developing a set of performance measures for government operations. He stated that performance measures provide a level of transparency and give the citizens an opportunity to judge whether the government is operating efficiently and effectively. According to Eric, government performance measures have become an important tool in the USA. As tools, they allow organizations to evaluate themselves against past performance and to compare themselves against similar organizations.

He stated that he's been honored to be given the opportunity to work at the FSM Public Auditor's Office.

Eric will be joined here by his wife Wenonoa. They both look forward to the opportunity to learn about the rich cultural history of Micronesia and hope to travel to some of the outer islands while here.