At OFDT, the success of our office is directly linked to the talent and experience of our senior staff. Their skills and dedication have enabled the improvement of Federal detention operations across the Nation and within its territories. Biographical information for OFDT senior staff can be found below.

Claudia Hill, Assistant Trustee for Detention Standards and Compliance

Claudia Hill commenced her service at OFDT in December 2001. From February 2003 to June 2004, Ms. Hill was selected to serve in an acting capacity as the Federal Detention Trustee.

Previously, she served as an Assistant Administrator of the D.C. Offender Section in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) Central Office, Washington, D.C. While there, she was selected to oversee the re-classification and transfer of over 8,000 DC offenders to FBOP institutions.

Ms. Hill served as an Assistant Administrator in the Correctional Programs Division, Central Office, Washington, D.C., where she was responsible for congressional, judicial, and public responses, supervised the FBOP Victim Witness Notification Program. She also supervised the FBOP International Prisoner Treaty Transfer Program, and Unit Management Policy Development and Training Division.

During her eleven-year career with the FBOP, Mrs. Hill was a Case Management Coordinator at the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum in Florence, Colorado, the FBOP's highest security level facility, and Allenwood Low Security Federal Correctional Facility in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. She was responsible for Unit Management Policy Development and staff training during the activation of these FBOP facilities. As a Case Manager at the Oakdale Federal Correctional Facility, Oakdale, Louisiana, she was responsible for inmate programming, release preparation, and parole/immigration reviews.

Ms. Hill is the recipient of numerous OFDT and FBOP awards from 1991 through 2008.

Scott Stermer, Assistant Federal Detention Trustee for Procurement

Scott Stermer joined OFDT in February 2004. Mr. Stermer advises the Federal Detention Trustee and Deputy Federal Detention Trustee on all detention program matters that relate to the area acquisition. He makes recommendations for changes or revisions in policies and practices or other matters required to produce the most effective management of detention resources. Additionally, he assists in establishing requirements and general planning objectives for meeting Federal detention resource needs and coordinate procurement actions required to meet current or future needs. He provides advice to officials of the components in the solution of operational or policy problems relating to acquisition of detention services from non-Federal providers (private, state and local).

Since joining the Department of Justice in 1986, Mr. Stermer has gained expertise in the financial management and contracting arena. His assignments have been located at several Federal correctional institutions in various positions ranging from Correctional Officer to Assistant Chief, Privatized Corrections Contracting Section for the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

In his career, Mr. Stermer’s responsibilities included policy development and oversight management of nationwide contracting, procurement, operations for the Bureau; managing several contracts for construction of detention and correctional facilities. In his last assignment, he was responsible for the BOP’s contractual agreements relating to private sector detention and correctional service contracts for Federal prisoners.

In 2000, Mr. Stermer participated in the Office of Budget and Management (OMB), Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s Acquisition Exchange Program. He was detailed to OMB to inventory and evaluate all Federal agencies policies and guidelines pertaining to the use of Performance-Based Service Contracting. He received high praise from the Executive Office of President on being ability to manage a government-wide policy program .

Mr. Stermer is a former member of the United States Air Force, and is currently pursuing a Bachelors Degree in area of Business Law and Public Policy through the University of Maryland. He has attended over 600 hours of specialized Federal government contract training.

Aarlen Hunt, Assistant Trustee for Budget, Finance and Forecasting

Aarlen Hunt joined OFDT in March 2004. Ms. Hunt is responsible for overseeing a budget in excess of $1 billion. She has had extensive budget experience with the Federal government. Prior to joining OFDT, she served as a senior budget analyst with the Justice Management Division at the Department of Justice from 1989-2004 where she served as deputy in the operations group and analyst with oversight for the United States Marshals Service and Federal Prisoner Detention appropriations. Before joining the Department of Justice, Ms. Hunt held positions at Peace Corps headquarters, Voice of America, United States Information Agency and the Social Security Administration/Office of Hearings and Appeals.

Ms. Hunt is a former member of the Peace Corps, where she served 5 years in Western Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Culver Stockton College and spent her junior year abroad in Germany at Schiller College.

Shannon Brown, Chief Information Officer

Shannon Brown joined OFDT in February 2005. Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Ms. Brown served as the Chief Information Officer for the Officer Personnel Management Directorate, U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC). As the Senior Information Technology (IT) Program Manager, Ms. Brown was responsible for requirements analysis, system design, functional testing and operational management of the personnel information systems required to manage over 83,000 active duty Army officers worldwide. She served as a principal technology advisor and implementer for the HRC, managing the design, delivery and long-term strategy of IT systems. A senior civilian leader within the organization, Ms. Brown served as the Co-Chair for the Personnel Transformation Working Group and a voting member on several HRC Configuration Control Boards.

Prior to joining HRC as a Department of the Army civilian, Ms. Brown worked in the commercial sector for IBM and America Online, Inc.
From 1989 to 2000, Ms. Brown was an active duty Army Aviation Officer. She served in several leadership positions around the world where she led Army Soldiers, civilians and contractors, maintaining millions of dollars worth of aircraft and aviation equipment, and managed large, complex aviation maintenance programs.

Ms. Brown earned a Master of Science Degree in Human Resource Management from Troy State, Dothan, Alabama, and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Zoology from Northern Arizona University. She is a Colonel in the Maryland Army National Guard and is currently serving as the Aviation Depot Maintenance Unit Commander. She is a maintenance test pilot for the AH-64 (Apache) and UH-1 (Huey) and an OH-58 (Kiowa) pilot.

Katherine Day, General Counsel

Katherine (Kathy) Day joined the OFDT in February 2004. Previously, Ms. Day served as Senior Counsel in the Bureau of Prisons’ Office of General Counsel and as Senior Counsel to the Legal Services Corporation. She also served as a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and, before that, as a law clerk to the Chief Administrative Judge of the U.S. Department of Energy Board of Contract Appeals.

In private practice, Ms. Day was a partner specializing in commercial law with the Washington, D.C., firm of Wyatt & Salzstein. She also worked as an associate with the New York law firm of Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker.

Ms. Day is a 1979 graduate of Vassar College and a 1983 graduate of the Albany Law School of Union University, where she was Articles Editor for the Albany Law Review. Before entering law school, Ms. Day was a News Editor for several trade publications at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

John Scalia, Jr., Statistician

John Scalia, Jr., joined OFDT in January 2002. Mr. Scalia collects and analyzes data on persons detained by Federal authorities and Federal detention programs and develops mathematical and statistical models to forecast future populations of criminal detainees. While at OFDT, he managed the development of the National Repository for Detention Space Availability, an Internet-based database of non-Federal detention facilities available for use by Federal law enforcement to house Federal prisoners.

Previously, Mr. Scalia served as a statistician at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, where he authored 14 agency reports addressing various aspects of the Federal criminal justice system. Prior to that, he served at the United States Sentencing Commission, where his responsibilities included the development of a methodology to assess the impact of amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on the Federal prison population.

Mr. Scalia received a Master of Science in Forensic Sciences in 1992 from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he also received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology in 1989.