Richard J. "Dick" Shinnick, a retired career foreign service officer, has been named director and chief operating officer of the U.S. State Dept.'s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), the department unit in charge of embassy construction and security upgrades around the world. He replaces Army Major Gen. Charles Williams, a retired Corps of Engineers officer appointed to head the multi-billion-dollar building program in 2001 by former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Williams retired from the OBO post last month.

Shinnick, who returned to State on Jan. 1, is a former Senior Management Officer and worked as managing director for the department's Office of Operations and Management. He later served as management special advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Management. Shinnick is based in OBO offices in Rosslyn, Va.

Industry sources say that Shinnick is taking the job on an "acting" basis and that he has "brought a few seasoned State employees with him to assess the situation" in OBO. They do not know of any other major staffing changes in the agency.

Shinnick comes in as OBO faces increased scrutiny from Congress and prosecutors over embassy contracting issues, particularly cost and schedule problems on the $612-million compound in Baghdad. Congressional hearings are set to begin in the next few weeks on that project, whose contractor is First Kuwaiti Trading Corp., a Lebanese owned firm.

Despite changes in embassy design and construction practices that have ramped up delivery of new embassy facilities, contractors have been up in arms over Williams' management of the program, particularly his approach to risk allocation and cost reimbursement.