Elizabeth "Beth" Van Absher is the director of Logistics Services and Supply Chain Management at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) overseeing $1.9B worth of accountable personal property, fleet, and the NIH Supply Center (NIHSC). The NIHSC is the agency’s priority source for laboratory, fire, safety, and administrative supplies, and is the agency’s mandated source for personal protective equipment (PPE). Van Absher is the lead for the NIH Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) Council, in addition to serving as the agency representative on the HHS SCRM. She is a critical driver of good for government outcomes, ensuring supply chain stability through strategic sourcing, enterprise data sharing, collaboration, and modernization.
Van Absher is an integral part of the NIH and HHS teams to implement the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Public Law 117-58, collaborating across acquisitions, policy, HHS agencies and suppliers to ensure compliance with IIJA. Beth was also the lead for the PPE Plan of Action under Section 708 of the Defense Production Act in Response to COVID-19, during which the NIH Supply Center provided critical PPE to national intake sites on behalf of HHS to volunteers, children, families, and refugees. She also served as the agency lead for nitrile glove enterprise sourcing on behalf of HHS’s BuySmarter program.
Before NIH, Van Absher spent 12 years at the General Service Administration as the Deputy of Acquisitions where she oversaw 46,000 annual complex procurement actions supporting an annual $10 Billion integrated acquisition and supply chain management program in support of DoD and civilian agency missions worldwide. In 2016, she served as the Presidential Transition Officer for the Office of the President-Elect providing strategic acquisition expertise to two major political parties.
With 18 years in industry as vice president/corporate counsel for a nationwide small business real estate development firm, Van Absher has a B.A. in International Relations and Economics from Michigan State University, and J.D. from Wayne State University.
