Instructors

Nick Johnston is part of the Audit Quality Group at the New Zealand Office of the Auditor-General. Nick is responsible for quality assurance over the various products produced by the Office, including annual audits performed by appointed auditors. His role includes managing the quality reviews&nb...

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Kino S. Kabua is currently the Chief Secretary and has been in her position since March of 2020.  Prior to that, she was the Deputy Chief Secretary overseeing the National Disaster Management Office in the Marshall Islands, having joined the Office of the Chief Secretary in 2015.   

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Drummond Kahn serves on the faculty of the Graduate School USA, training auditors and financial managers in the U.S. and overseas.  Since 1990, Mr. Kahn served in federal, state, and local government auditing positions.

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Karden is a special agent with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), Office of Inspector General (OIG), where she has spent nearly 20 years dedicated to fighting fraud, waste, and abuse of government funds. She began her career at DOI OIG as a writer-editor in Washington, DC, working with both audits and investigations on report writing.  She then ventured into the field as a special agent, conducting criminal investigations involving DOI grants, contracts, and employees in the Pacific Northwest, California, and Alaska.

Since 2009, Karden has provided Fraud Awareness Briefings to DOI employees, government contractors, and tribes in Alaska and throughout the Western United States.  Karden specializes in criminal fraud and theft investigations involving tribes and tribal organizations and regularly provides training for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other Alaska Native organizations. She considers outreach to be an essential part of public service and enjoys the collaborative environment in Alaska, where she has resided since 2015.

Karden holds a bachelor’s degree in political science, and a minor in English, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). She also earned a post-Baccalaureate degree in Criminology from Portland State University and a master’s degree in Criminal Justice from Boston University. She is a certified fraud examiner. Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Karden served on the Outer Continental Shelf Review Team, which received an Award for Excellence from the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency in 2011.

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In April 2016, Les Kondo was appointed by a joint session of the Hawaii State Legislature to serve as State Auditor for a term of eight years. Prior to his appointment as the State Auditor, Mr. Kondo was the Executive Director and General Counsel of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission. The Hawaii State Ethics Commission administers and enforces the State Ethics Code, which applies to over 70,000 state employees and officials, including state legislators, and the State Lobbyist Law. Mr. Kondo previously served as a member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, which regulates public utilities including Hawaiian Electric Companies and Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. He was formerly the Director of the Office of Information Practices. In that capacity, Mr. Kondo was responsible for administering Hawaii’s Sunshine Law and public records law. Prior to 2003, Mr. Kondo was a litigation attorney in private practice. He also served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Herman T.F. Lum of the Hawaii Supreme Court. 

Mr. Kondo received a Juris Doctor degree from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University. 

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Katharine began her career with Department of the Interior, Office of Inspector General (DOI OIG) in August 2019 as a Special Agent assigned to the Western Region Investigations office in Lakewood, CO, where she has worked grant and procurement fraud cases and was the lead agent on many multi-agency fraud investigations. Prior to working for the DOI, Katharine worked for the U.S. Department of State OIG in Arlington, VA, for approximately 7 years as a Special Agent and Forensic Accountant. Katharine earned her bachelor's degree in accounting from Michigan State University and a Master of Business Administration from George Mason University. Katharine is a certified forensic examiner and a certified anti money laundering specialist. 

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Mr. Kowalski had 33 years of HR professional experience in the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration.  He was a line manager for 21 of those years in large VAMCs.  For 6 years, he served as a national internal consultant in the VHA Human Resources Management Group that provided HR support and consulting services to VHA’s senior leadership in HQ and in the VISNs. He served on VA’s national labor management partnership council and on the national All Employee Survey committee. 

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Esther Lameko-Poutoa recently joined the PASAI Secretariat team in the role of Chief Executive. She is responsible for leading the PASAI Secretariat team to deliver the strategic plan, to engage and support Supreme Audit Institutions in the region to deliver their individual objectives and respon...

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Bob is Director of the Institute for Public Sector Employee Engagement. His book, Engaging Government Employees (Harper Collins), is the first book to focus on employee engagement in the public sector. Previously, he was Assistant Vice Chancellor and Director of Human Resources for the University of Wisconsin, Vice President-Research for the Partnership for Public Service, and Director of the Wisconsin civil service system. 

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Stefani has over 15 years of experience as a federal management and program analyst. She joined the U.S. Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General in 2009, becoming the third generation of her family to work for the DOI.

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