​Lee F. Ransdell, Director, DFAS Cleveland

Lee F. Ransdell is the Site Director, Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) Cleveland.  He manages the day-to-day operations conducted by more than 2,200 accounting and finance personnel for the Department of Defense.

DFAS Cleveland personnel pay the operational expenses for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.  The site provides pay support to 3.6 million people, including active duty, reserve and civilian employees of the Navy, Marine Corps, Department of Energy, Health and Human Services and the U.S Agency for Global Media, as well as military retirees and annuitants from all five Service branches.  On an annual basis, DFAS Cleveland processes approximately 165M accounting transactions, handles 1.3M customer inquiries, pays $22.5B in invoices, and distributes $450B disbursement and collection transactions.

Mr. Lee Ransdell transferred from the Department of Veterans Affairs where he served as the Executive Director, Financial Planning and Analysis for the Financial Management Business Transformation Service (FMBT).  In that position, he led the integration and provision of all business and IT FMBT sustainment activities in support of the Agency’s modernization of its financial and acquisition management systems.  Mr. Ransdell previously served as Deputy Executive Director for VA’s Financial Services Center, and led the delivery of an integrated system of services including accounting, payroll, budgeting, payment processing, travel, purchase card, project management, data analytics and activity-based costing.  

Prior to joining VA in 2014, Mr. Ransdell served 31 years in the United States Army.  He enlisted in 1983 as a field artilleryman and upon graduation from Officer Candidate School in 1985 was commissioned into the Finance Corps.  He led finance units at the company, battalion, and center levels and held a variety of financial management staff positions.  His deployments include the Multinational Force and Observers (Egypt), Operations Joint Forge (Bosnia), Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). 

Mr. Ransdell received his Master of Strategic Studies from the Air War College, Master of Arts - Management from Webster University and his Bachelor of Science - Business from Miami University.