During the recent Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) Annual Conference in Washington D.C. from June 29 through July 2, we had the opportunity to videotape eight attendees speaking forthrightly about their areas of expertise, and we’ve been posting them weekly.

The first installment featured Lunda Asmani, Chief Financial Officer for Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut and the new president of the GFOA. The second was with Liz Farmer, officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts. The third was with Tanya Garost, City Manager of Martensville, Saskatchewan, and recent past president of GFOA. Last week’s featured Justin Marlowe, a research professor in the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, where he also serves as Director for the Center for Municipal Finance.

This week we visit with Dustin Lanier, founder and principal consultant for Civic Initiatives LLC., a nationally regarded expert on procurement, which he says, “is the focal point between finance, business and legal on the act of putting our public dollars to work and (doing) it in a way that is professionalized, drives good incomes, makes government a modern business partner and a business partner of choice.”

Among his astute observations about the nature of procurement, he says, “if you like changing government, you need to love procurement because you never have more opportunity to change than when you have money in one hand and requirements in the other.”