President Barack Obama nominated Bob McDonald, the former chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble Co., to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, reflecting the view that the agency's woes are a management failure.

"He's no nonsense, he's pragmatic, he does not seek the limelight," Obama said Monday. "He knows the key to any successful enterprise is staying focused on the people you're trying to serve."

Turning around the VA will take a "new culture of accountability," Obama said, adding that it won't be an easy task. "Bob's the manager we need to help get this done," he said.

Joined by his wife and adult children, McDonald said he planned to put veterans at the center of everything the VA does -- a bureaucratic twist on the old adage that the customer is always right.

Urging the Senate to confirm McDonald quickly, Obama reiterated his call for Congress to grant the VA secretary more authority to fire senior leaders if necessary. He said some of those responsible for falsifying patient records have been fired and more may be punished, adding that the scandal has "outraged us all."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate panel that will consider the nomination, said he's reserving judgment until he hears McDonald's plans to fix the VA. In particular, Sanders said he wants to know whether McDonald supports temporarily contracting out services to private medical providers to reduce waiting times.

If confirmed by the Senate, McDonald will succeed Eric Shinseki, who resigned in May amid a scandal over failures of the agency's medical system. Sloan Gibson has served as acting VA secretary since May 30.

A West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran who oversaw more than 120,000 employees as P&G's CEO, McDonald was picked to lead a department that serves more than 8 million veterans annually.

"You put a manager in to fix what clearly is a managerial problem," said Matt McCormick, vice president and portfolio manager at Cincinnati-based Bahl & Gaynor Inc. "He's far superior to who we had doing this before."

In a report issued by the White House on Friday, the department was portrayed as hobbled by a "corrosive culture" and lack of accountability. Its medical system has been beset by extended waits for appointments and allegations of falsified records to cover up those delays. VA officials often ignore orders from the central office, according to a summary of the report by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors.

Information for this article was contributed by Greg Giroux, Angela Greiling Keane, Lauren Coleman-Lochner, James Callan, Nancy Moran, Mary Schlangenstein and Phil Mattingly of Bloomberg News; and by Josh Lederman, Matthew Daly and Julie Pace of The Associated Press.

A Section on 07/01/2014