Incoming DHS No. 1 has served under 3 presidents

SAN DIEGO — Elaine Duke, who is set to become acting head of Homeland Security onMonday, has the distinction of serving in high-level positions in three administrations.

She was DHS undersecretary for management from 2008 to 2010, tapped by President George W. Bush and kept on by President Barack Obama. After she headed her own business consulting firm in the Washington area for seven years, President Donald Trump nominated her to return to government as deputy secretary and the Senate approved her appointment 85-14.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, named Trump’s chief of staff Friday, said at a conference last week that Duke was “a wonderful woman” with deep experience in government. He said her biggest assignment as the sprawling department’s No. 2 official was to bring more efficiency.

Duke will manage an annual budget of more than $40 billion and 240,000 employees. Created in 2003 in the aftermath of the terror strikes on the World Trade Center andPentagon, Homeland Security comprises more than 20 agencies, from the Coast Guard and Secret Service to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She’s avoided the spotlight on some of the department’s most politically charged assignments, like deportations and deciding who enters the country by air, land and sea.

Duke began her government career 28 years ago as an Air Force contracting officer and worked in the Navy, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Smithsonian Institution before joining Homeland Security in 2008.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Elaine Duke, who’ll lead the Department of Homeland Security after John Kelly was named White House chief of staff Friday, has worked in the federal government for nearly three decades.