Tony Hullinger, Principal Deputy Director

Mr. Tony Hullinger became the Principal Deputy Director in December 2025. In this capacity, he aids the Director, Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) with oversight of the day-to-day accounting and finance activities of the Department of War (DoW). DFAS employs over 10,000 DoD civilian and military personnel at 10 locations throughout the United States, Europe and the Pacific. In fiscal year 2024, the agency disbursed over $612 billion by processing 137.4 million pay transactions to 6.6 million military personnel, federal civilian employees, military retirees and annuitants; 13.3 million commercial invoices; and 5.6 million travel payments. Responsible for 1,530 active DoD appropriations, DFAS is the trust fund manager for $845 billion in foreign military sales and $1.9 trillion in military retirement and health benefit funds. Last year, DFAS maintained more than 50.7 million general ledger accounts containing billions of transactions and handles accounts for worldwide operations and multi-disciplined appropriations of DoW.

In his previous role as Director of Operations, he was responsible for the management of DFAS’ mission-based organizations, providing direct finance and accounting support to the DoW along with various non-DoW agencies. He also served as Director of Strategy & Support, where he was responsible for developing and guiding implementation of the agency’s strategy and directing the agency’s mission support activities. From 2018 to 2021, Mr. Hullinger served as the Director, Enterprise Solutions and Standards (ESS), responsible for providing financial management services and standard enterprise solutions to support the Department of Defense mission and the DFAS customers. From 2015 to 2018, Mr. Hullinger served as the Director, Enterprise Audit Support, where he led enterprise-wide audit initiatives and guidance for DFAS' support to the Department of War audit readiness efforts.

In October 2012, Mr. Hullinger was selected into the Senior Executive Service as the DFAS Chief Financial Officer, where he managed the day-to-day financial operations of the Agency by directing the formulation, presentation and execution of DFAS' annual and multi-year budgets.

Mr. Hullinger holds a bachelor's degree in Corporate Finance and Financial Institutions from Ball State University, an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University, and is a Certified Defense Financial Manager. Mr. Hullinger graduated from the Harvard Senior Executive Fellows Program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and is a recipient of the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service.

Page updated Feb. 3, 2026