principal area officer
The term principal area officer means, with respect to an Executive agency, the senior official of the Executive agency who is located in a metropolitan area and who has no superior official within that metropolitan area other than in the Regional Office of the Executive agency. Where an Executive agency maintains facilities of more than one bureau or other subdivision within the metropolitan area, and where the heads of those facilities are in separate chains of command within the Executive agency, then the Executive agency may have more than one principal area officer.