Cortney McCormick was selected as the Acting Chief of Staff for the National Cemetery Administration (NCA), effective March 30, 2026. In this role, she serves as the senior advisor to both the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs and the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs in the executive leadership of more than 157 VA national cemeteries and more than 124 VA grant-funded Veteran cemeteries that provide dignified burials in national shrines for Veterans and their eligible family members.
After 17 years of VA service, Ms. McCormick was appointed as the Executive Director of the Office of the Executive Secretariat at the Department of Health and Human Services in January 2025. There she mediated policy discussions, managed a team of correspondence and policy analysts, and liaised with the White House, Congress and multiple Federal agencies.
She returned to the VA in September of 2025, as Senior Advisor to the Office of the Secretary, Chief of Staff. Prior to this, Ms. McCormick served as a national Employee and Labor Relations Specialist in the NCA Office of Workforce Relations from 2021; a national Collective Bargaining Negotiator with the VA Office of the Secretary from 2019; a Section Chief for Mental Health at the James A. Haley, VA Medical Center in Tampa Fla., from 2018; also as a Social Science Program Specialist at the center from 2012; and a Rehabilitation Counseling Therapist at the St. Croix USVI Veterans Center for one year in 2012.
Ms. McCormick earned a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology in 2004; and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a Minor in Neuroscience in 2001, both from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.