Alex Folk (Fed)

Alex joined the Office of Acquisition and Agreements Management (OAAM) in February 2021 and was selected as director in August 2022. Responsibilities include the effective management and delivery of acquisition and grants/cooperative agreement support to NIST and other bureau and agency partners. OAAM, under Alex’s leadership, is an active partner in several government-wide initiatives including the NTIA Broadband Program, through which the Financial Assistance and Agreements Management Office provides grants management for nearly $50 billon in financial assistance. OAAM, as part of NIST, has an active role in the over $50 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America (CHIPS) Program providing all related acquisition, other transaction agreement (OTA), and grants support. Under his leadership, NIST has expanded its OTA capability from one small award to a core competency with an established group with expanded capacity full depth of experience. During this time, OAAM has nearly tripled in size with a more than ten-fold increase in award dollars.

Beginning in 2014, Alex served as the executive officer as a member of the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) leadership team. In this role, he was responsible for all administrative functions of ITL. Responsibilities include management of administrative operations, budget/financials, safety, contracts, grants and human resources for a $160M laboratory program. An overarching role he played included leading process improvement activities across the lab in all administrative areas.

Alex joined NIST in 2000 as an account manager for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program. He managed all the financial agreements maintained between NIST MEP and the MEP Center affiliates located throughout the United States. Roles in this position included managing performance, developing and maintaining state and local partner relationships, and promoting best business practices throughout the system. Beginning in 2007, Alex served in the role of center operations manager responsible for the oversight of the federal partnerships and investments making up an annual budget exceeding $120M. Alex’s team was responsible for developing new service delivery capabilities for the MEP system to assist small manufacturers with the exploitation of innovation and technology to improve their competitive advantage. Additionally, Alex was responsible for two sustainability-focused multi-agency partnerships: E3 Economy, Energy, and the Environment, and the Green Suppliers Network program.

Prior to NIST, Alex worked in the utility sector for nearly 10 years, first as a construction engineer with the Potomac Electric Power Company, where he was responsible for outage project-management activities at three of the company’s power plants. He later took a position as a program manager for the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) Inc., where he managed several corporate programs across its two production facilities and provided oversight of all plant project development, coordination and budgeting activities. In his role, he managed an annual $50M company-wide project management budget and was program lead on a seven-year $347M collaboration with the Department of Energy.