“It was the kind of thing that just pure competence and capability outweighed any political connections you’d expect when you talk about a political position that’s confirmed by the Senate,” he said.

As for the new job, “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, of course, considering the circumstances the IRS finds itself in,” McMillin said. “But I think he’s an excellent choice to have his hand on the tiller, to right things while they look for longer-term leadership.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, met with Werfel on Thursday for the first time.

“If I was the president I would find the very best businessman I possibly could who’d be willing to take it (the IRS) over and have the authority to be able to straighten the mess out,” Hatch said in a statement. “I don’t know whether Werfel has that kind of dimension or not, but I hope he does.”

Werfel, 42, didn’t respond to a request for an interview. He earned his undergraduate degree in 1993 in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University and his joint degrees from Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill in 1997.

“He’s the hard-working kind of person who does what needs to be done,” said Donna Dyer, the director of career services at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. “I’ve never heard anything negative about Danny.”

Dyer said she’s kept up with Werfel as part of the school’s outreach to alumni. Generally a few of the school’s students have summer internships at OMB.

Obama named Werfel as acting commissioner of the IRS in mid-May after firing acting Commissioner Steven Miller in a move to quell a growing scandal. The Treasury Department’s inspector general had confirmed what he called an inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

After Werfel’s appointment, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said he’d known him for more than 15 years.

“Danny has a strong record of raising his hand for – and excelling at – tough management assignments,” Lew said in a statement, adding, “I am confident that his self-evident integrity and outstanding management skills will make an immediate difference in helping to restore public confidence in the IRS."

U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel took over leading the management team at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in Werfel’s absence.

“Danny’s tremendous management skills – his discipline and organization, coupled with his relentless focus on doing the right thing – has been a driving force leading the entire government through the sequester and many other challenges over the years,” VanRoekel said in response to a request for comment.

Werfel talked in 2007 about his own career during the Bush administration in an interview now online from the IBM Center for the Business of Government.

“I never would have guessed that I would have ended up in financial management particularly,” Werfel said at the time. He began at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, reviewing regulations, and found a niche in civil rights regulations.

Then he moved to working as a lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights for a couple years. But he said he “realized that my home and my heart was at OMB,” and he went back.

“Every time I worked on a management issue, I like to say that I was throwing right-handed because it seemed to come naturally to me and (was) something I could get very passionate about.”

Kevin G. Hall of the Washington Bureau contributed.