WT 360: The market from all angles

Huntington Ingalls Industries just completed its largest-ever acquisition, the $1.65 billion deal for Alion Science & Technology, and is now at work integrating that big piece into the shipbuilder’s technical solutions segment.This episode of Project 38 both functions as an update on that integration and a big-picture explanation of HII’s strategy for its technical solutions segment from its president Andy Green.Much change and portfolio shaping has taken place since HII stood up the technical solutions segment in late 2016 to house its government services work, of which our Ross Wilkers has discussed with Green a few times since.This latest conversation between Green and Wilkers includes a discussion on where HII looks to make sure its shipbuilding and solutions sides contribute to what the other is doing and the company at-large, plus some of the technical challenges they work on together and particularly in the emerging unmanned maritime domain.

The market has rarely seen the level of merger-and-acquisition activity that we see today with a plethora of large and small buyers.To breakdown what’s driving the deals, Editor Nick Wakeman spoke with Bob Kipps of the investment bank KippsDeSanto. Kipps shares his views on why the market has been so good to buyers and sellers as well as the critical role being played by private equity firms, who drive nearly half of the transactions.The expectation is that the pace of mergers and acquisitions will continue and Kipps explains why.

Noblis has found itself writing more code than papers these days amid the nonprofit organization’s continued push to be at the nexus of science and technology for federal agencies.This episode of Project 38 takes you inside that multiple-year reinvention and how that plays out today as our Ross Wilkers pays a visit to Noblis CEO Amr ElSawy and Mile Corrigan, senior vice president of federal civilian solutions.In finding that imbalance between code and papers, Noblis is also making an initial foray into the world of solutions and products with launch number one focusing on cybersecurity: which in the past year has found itself top of mind for many agencies again given the many high-profile breaches.A second part of Noblis’ journey means integrating the acquisition of McKean Defense and that business now helps form the backbone of a new organization to serve defense clients. ElSawy and Corrigan provide an update on that integration and how Noblis is looking to spread the people and resources of McKean across the entire enterprise.

Even amid big changes above it, AT&T's public sector and public safety businesses have the same main three pillars for long-term growth and a mandate to bring the company's commercial offerings into the government space.Get the inside view here in this second part of our Ross Wilkers' interview with two AT&T executives in charge of both aspects of that strategy -- Jason Porter, president of public sector and FirstNet; and Jill Singer, vice president of defense and national security.AT&T counts the governmentwide EIS network modernization contract and FirstNet national public safety network as two franchise programs for agencies, while the 5G revolution has implications for every individual and institutions.Porter and Singer explain how AT&T looks for synergy and applicability across its consumer and public sector businesses, plus offer updates on both the EIS and FirstNet initiatives.

What does AT&T’s broad strategic reset to focus on technology and connectivity mean for its public sector and public safety businesses?Part one of Project 38 gets some answers to that question from two AT&T executives responsible for carrying out that vision in the government market -- Jason Porter, president of public sector and FirstNet; and Jill Singer, vice president of defense and national security.Two particular threads help illustrate AT&T’s re-casted vision: the sales of the media businesses (which we did not go over) and divestiture of the defense IT professional services business (which we went over in detail).Porter and Singer explain to our Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers how they see AT&T’s return to its connectivity core as making more room to invest in the public sector and FirstNet public safety network businesses. They also lift the curtain on AT&T’s vision for the post-pandemic future of work.

Verizon’s mantra both for its public sector business and the corporation as a whole is to be the indispensable partner alongside customers for modernizing their networks.In this episode of Project 38, Verizon’s public sector leader Jennifer Chronis explains to our Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers how that approach as part of the overall “Verizon 2.0” vision informs the telecommunications giant’s federal market strategy.Chronis also overviews how Verizon ties these common technology threads between both the commercial and public sector sides of Verizon: 5G adoption, cloud computing, software-defined networks and pretty much everything under the umbrella of modernization.For many federal agencies that means leveraging the government-wide EIS contract for next-generation telecom services. EIS and Verizon’s future of work strategy were additional topics of discussion.

Raytheon Technologies as the world knows it today has only just begun its second year since the megamerger to create the No. 2 company on this year’s Top 100 rankings.The aerospace-and-defense giant’s intelligence and space segment is headquartered in our region: Arlington, Virginia to be exact. For this episode of Project 38, that segment’s president in Roy Azevedo takes Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers inside the mega-integration at the operational level and the technology synergies Raytheon is looking to capture.Also on the agenda for this discussion: how Raytheon Intelligence and Space is undertaking its own digital transformation alongside federal customers, that business’ acquisition of a small satellite maker in late 2020 and the overall company’s thinking with respect to the post-pandemic future of work.

Often coverage of mergers and acquisitions focuses on the buyer and what it means to them, but in this episode of Project 38 Brandee Daly tells Editor Nick Wakeman why she decided the time was right to sell her company to Smartronix.Daly isn’t retiring, but the sale of D2S Consulting Group means she can continue to focus on her customers’ missions as a new executive at Smartronix. She describes the acquisition as more of a partnership and that’s just the kind of deal that CEO Peter LaMontagne likes to make.They explain the opportunities ahead, why sometimes selling your company is the best thing to do and for other instances the bravest thing is to not sell at all.

ManTech’s shift to the government technology company it is today has been in the making for several years. More signs of that show in its climb of two spots to No. 26 on this year’s Top 100.But how does ManTech go about the tagline in its logo of “Bringing Digital to the Mission?” In this episode of Project 38, Chief Operating Officer Matt Tait tells Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers about how that mantra explains both today’s work for customers and ManTech’s longer-term direction.Acquisitions, talent and technology focus areas all feed into that overall approach for ManTech. Tait breaks all of those aspects down and explains how ManTech seeks to ensure the links between them stay connected.

Even with its status as the No. 1 company on the 2021 Washington Technology Top 100, Leidos is focused on what's changing in the market and the priorities and needs of its customers. On the cusp of his retirement, Chief Financial Officer James Reagan talks with Editor Nick Wakeman about what a change culture means at Leidos and why that is a critical element of growth strategy. That outlook drives its decisions around acquisitions, divestitures and where it invests its research-and-development dollars.The result has been a track record of organic growth in the double digits.

Booz Allen Hamilton is now at No. 6 on the 2021 Washington Technology Top 100 and the company is coming off of its Vision 2020 strategy that transformed it from a management consulting firm to a technology company. For this episode, Editor Nick Wakeman shares excerpts from his interview with Booz Allen Executive Vice President Karen Dahut. They talk about the strategy that will drive Booz Allen for the next decade as well as the value the company places in diversity and inclusion. They also talk about what it will take for Booz Allen Hamilton, now 107 years old, to make it to the firm's 200th birthday in 2114.

How much stress on the system is created by the so-called “need for speed” with regard to advanced technology adoption and deployment in federal agencies?In this episode of Project 38, we pick up on the second half of Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers’ discussion with a pair of chief technology officers at federal systems integrators on the right methodologies to help government customers wanting to shrink timelines from years to months and sometimes weeks.Peder Jungck of BAE Systems Inc.’s intelligence and security sector and Cameron Chehreh of Dell Federal conceded that the shift does create stress on the system, but also explain ways to work through it.Wilkers closed the conversation by asking Jungck and Chehreh for their views on the global computer chip shortage that has disrupted substantially the entire economy, plus what that could mean for the federal technology landscape and the future global supply chain.

Eighteen months ago, Sagewind Capital began a series of deals that have led to the creation of the newest mid-tier company in the market – Axient. Led by CEO Patrick Murphy the company is poised for more deals as it pursues opportunities that require systems integration, digital engineering, software development and the development of complex systems.Murphy explains to Editor Nick Wakeman the strategy behind the acquisitions as well as the kind of contracts and customers the company will pursue going forward. The growth will come from more acquisitions as well as expanding the work it does with the Army, Air Force, NASA and Missile Defense Agency.As larger entity, Axient will now be chasing larger contracts as it also looks to close more acquisitions. Murphy predicts the next deal could come before the end of the years.

Whether in government or the commercial world, technology investments don't happens without having the right financial model in place and the right policy tools to manage those resources.This two-part episode of Project 38 has a pair of chief technology officers at federal systems integrators lend their insight and perspective to Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers on those matters and how they see a new budget environment impacting how agencies decide on their priorities.Peder Jungck of BAE Systems Inc.’s intelligence and security sector and Cameron Chehreh of Dell Federal see how those dynamics play out first-hand in their work with customers and also each other given their companies are industry partners.For part one, Jungck and Chehreh emphasized that key word of “partnership” and how the current situation of work remaining of a different cadence during the pandemic has put more emphasis on collaboration by everyone.

Federal contractors have long touted their need and desire to embrace new methods of working with customers and employees, some of which have been accelerated during the pandemic and only becoming clearer just as the end appears near.This episode of Project 38 focuses on some of those changes that are here to stay as seen by Kevin Greer and Kyle Tuberson, respectively vice president of consulting services at CGI Federal and public sector chief technology officer at ICF.At the core of this discussion was the relationship between technology and consulting, which challenges companies to offer agencies a blend of both the digital skills themselves and knowledge of how the tools have worked across multiple markets.None of that can happen without success on the workforce construction and development front, which Greer and Tuberson believe will and must look different in future to keep talented employees in the industry.

The last two years have seen a significant increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions taking place in the government market. Editor Nick Wakeman and Jean Stack of the investment bank Baird discuss what’s driving the deals and why the rampant pace is likely to continue.Stack is the co-manager of Baird's government and defense practice. She has a long history of helping buyers and sellers make their deals happen, and has an understanding what those transactions mean.In this episode, she says why the strong volume of activity will continue and how not everyone should be a seller.

It goes without saying that data is a buzzword all on its own even when disregarding other popular catchphrases that surround it these days.For this episode of Project 38, Qlik Federal’s leader Andrew Churchill describes to our Ross Wilkers how the conversation across the public sector ecosystem stretches beyond just knowing there’s too much data in the world to work with.That especially holds true for the federal government, which has specific methods that many of its agencies are legally required to use in storing their data. Churchill explains that data literacy and other new practices related to talent development are just as important in that equation as the technologies, namely cloud hosting.

Steve Kelman, who led the Office of Federal Procurement Policy during the Clinton Administration and is a current professor at the Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, has a reputation as a big thinker about management and government and why things work the way they do.In this conversation with Editor Nick Wakeman, Kelman shares his thoughts about Black Swans and Gray Rhinos -- those often traumatic events that we either didn’t see coming or we knew could happen but we failed to prepare for.​Critical to that preparation is cultivating the ability to break away from your standard ways of thinking and not falling into the trap of doing things in certain ways because that is how they have always been done. Status quo thinking is often what leaves us vulnerable when disaster inevitably strikes.

Washington Technology and FCW staffers offer their early views on President Biden’s address to Congress where he proposed trillions in spending to create jobs and address myriad issues around climate change, national security and the nation’s infrastructure.That wasn’t the only big news to hit this week. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that Amazon’s challenge of the JEDI cloud award to rival Microsoft can continue. FCW also published a special report highlighting the trends driving activity at the Defense Information Systems Agency, one of the larger IT buyers in the federal market.Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers are joined by FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian and Senior Editor Lauren Williams discuss what these events mean and what’s coming next, including some topics that aren’t getting as much attention.

COVID-19 vaccinations are rolling out across the country and as that happens, federal agencies and many of their contractors are encouraging their employees to get inoculated.But can agencies require contractor employees to get vaccinated and how can they formalize that requirement? We get some answers in this episode from Al Krachman and Brooke Iley, partners at law firm Blank Rome who specialize in government contracts and labor who wrote this article on what such a requirement could look like.Much is still TBD, but Krachman and Iley told Washington Technology Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers that there is some precedence for such a requirement and an emerging view across industry that it will happen for COVID-19 vaccinations. Their advice is to both not be surprised and to start preparing for such requirements.

In a crowded mergers and acquisitions environment, Bluestone Investment Partners has carved out its own niche by focusing on companies in the $15 million-to-$50 million revenue range. They often are just emerging from the small business set-aside arena and seek more resources to compete for full and open opportunities.John Allen, co-founder and managing partner of Bluestone Investment Partners, shares in this episode the philosophy and strategy that drives how the firm made its deals in recent years.Large and mid-size companies typically dominate M&A activity, but Allen explains to WT Editor Nick Wakeman there is no reason that a small business can participate as well -- with the right partner.

FCW Senior Editor Lauren Williams, our resident expert on the emerging new cybersecurity standards for contractors, stops by Project 38 to talk with Editor Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers about the latest developments.The Defense Department is making steady progress on the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification despite ups and downs and potential delays. Williams also fills us in on the latest with the CMMC Accreditation Body, the industry group chartered by DOD to run the training and certification program. There has been some turnover with the all-volunteer board, but the chairman is vowing to accelerate the process of getting the system up and running.There also is news that the 15 pilot contracts that will be the first to require teams to have CMMC certification. The solicitations were supposed to already be out in the market, but now the expectation is later this year or early next.Williams, Wakeman and Wilkers share what they know and what might be next on the horizon for CMMC.(NOTE: This podcast was recorded and published prior to March 29's news that the CMMC AB hired a new chief executive)

Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers see little slowing the pace of mergers and acquisitions in the federal market with buyers of all types continuing to make big deals. In this episode, they discuss several reasons for the strong M&A activity including the availability of credit and other financial resources, a customer who favors larger and more consolidated contract vehicles and ever-bigger task orders, and the continuing demand for capabilities that support digital transformation efforts. Wakeman and Wilkers review some of the major deals of 2020 and the big deals so far this year. Their prediction -- more is to come in 2021.

This episode of Project 38 brings together two minds that have different ways of looking at the government contracting landscape but they both represent a critical stakeholder: the investor. Representing investors that mainly focus on public companies is Jon Raviv, an equity research analyst for Citigroup. The private investor’s point-of-view comes courtesy of Mark Frantz, co-founder and general partner at growth stage investment firm Blue Delta Capital Partners. On the agenda of the discussion moderated by Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers: just how optimistic (or realistic) should we be about the market’s overall health amid renewed budget and deficit chatter whilst the pandemic continues, macroeconomic factors that must be considered in gauging how the sector is fairing, and of course the overall M&A deal landscape. (NOTE: This episode was recorded March 4. Since then, the latest stimulus package has been signed into law and extends the current CARES Act reimbursements for contractors through Sept. 30. And yes, more M&A deals have been announced.)

BlueHalo hit the market hard with six acquisitions in 2020 and as CEO Jonathan Moneymaker explains to Editor Nick Wakeman, this latest platform out of Arlington Capital Partners is pursuing opportunities around the transformation of modern warfare. BlueHalo's acquisition strategy has focused on capabilities around space superiority, directed energy, missile defense, C4ISR, cybersecurity and intelligence solutions. The goal is to create a mid-tier player that can have an impact on how the U.S. and its allies engage and deter near-peer adversaries. As Moneymaker explains, the strategy is multi-faceted and one to watch in the years ahead.

It’s been a year since Science Applications International Corp. made one of the biggest acquisitions of 2020 and this conversation between Editor Nick Wakeman and Bob Genter, SAIC's defense and civilian president, starts with the question: Was the Unisys Federal acquisition worth it? ​Then they dive deeper into market opportunities, impacts of COVID-19 and lessons learned how to prepare for and execute an acquisition. Whether or not you are in a pandemic. Genter shares how he sees the $1.2 billion Unisys Federal acquisition paying off for SAIC, how it has shaped the kind of work it can pursue and what might be next on the company’s target list for acquisitions.

Whether 2021 is the “Year Of The GWAC” remains to be seen, but government-wide acquisition contract vehicles will be high on the agenda for the companies pursuing them and the agencies that will be using them. In this episode of Project 38, Senior Staff Ross Wilkers goes to three leading market research and proposal specialists to get their views and insight into the overall GWAC landscape and what companies must take into account when pursuing them. For Part 1, Amber Hart and Lisa Shea Mundt from The Pulse of GovCon break down one hotly-anticipated vehicle in CIO-SP4 that will be ready for industry to bid on any day now and deliver some hard-hitting truths on how not all vehicles are created alike. Part 2 begins at 26:03 with Martin Hicks of Global Services and the focus of that conversation is on how the General Services Administration is proceeding with its own GWAC portfolio, and in one case making a second attempt at bringing small business IT companies into the fold.

Today’s market stands on the brink of great change and as SAIC's chief technology officer Charles Onstott explains to WT Editor Nick Wakeman, there are four mega-trends shaping those changes that companies need to embrace. These trends are driven by people and processes, but enabled by technology. Onstott says you have to weigh several items in order to take advantage of these mega-trends, including the outcomes your customer is looking for and the kind of skills you already have. You also have to be willing to change and adapt. As Onstott explains, looking in the mirror and understanding where you and then mapping that against where your customer is headed should be a regular part of the way you do business.

What if the whole exercise of making sense out of all the data in existence on the government contracting market is a matter of tradecraft? In this episode of Project 38, Brian Lindholm of FedSavvy Strategies answers that question and explains the idea of turning that exercise into a tradecraft. Lindholm and his colleagues at FedSavvy Strategies work with other contractors on just that: making sense of everything that is out there on themselves, their competitors and the market at-large. Competitive intelligence is a key cog in that machine of both growing and keeping their business. Knowing what is out there is only part of the battle, as Lindholm explains in this conversation. He also shares his views on how to build this skill set of knowing and acting into a company’s infrastructure for the long term. Item number two in this discussion is how to keep the business, or avoiding what he calls “incumbentitis.”

The impacts of COVID-19 coupled with emerging technologies translates to government customers having different expectations and being more open to new ways of addressing challenges. John Goodman, chief executive of Accenture Federal Services explains in this conversation with WT Editor Nick Wakeman what those challenges mean to his company and where he sees the market moving forward. Goodman's perspective is largely optimistic because while the customer needs are great, he sees the technology being there to address those needs. COVID-19 has also opened government agencies to new ways of doing business and pulled them away from traditional approaches that have slowed progress. You will hear Goodman share Accenture Federal’s strategy and what he sees as challenges and opportunities ahead.

The long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will include changed workplaces and government customers adjusting how they do business and their priorities. In this episode, Deloitte public sector leader Mike Canning shares his views on these trends with Editor Nick Wakeman. He expects the future will have a hybrid workforce, where location will no longer dictate who companies hire and how they serve the government customer. There also is a need for agencies to evolve the way they do business. As the nation recovers new priorities are emerging. According to Canning, one in particular is around public health and he sees that as a national security issue.

2021 has gotten off to a fast start with the new Biden Administration coming in and there has been plenty of business activity as well. In this episode of Project 38, the editorial teams from Washington Technology and FCW talk with WT Editor Nick Wakeman about the news so far. WT Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers shares his insights on what's behind the proposed merger of Peraton, Perspecta and Northrop Grumman's IT business, a mega deal that will create an $8 billion-annual revenue business. FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian talks about the early days of Biden Administration, particularly where the early political appointees are sailing through confirmation and where some of the trouble spots are appearing. President Biden has been very active with executive orders, particularly with his equity agenda, and FCW Staff Writer Natalie Alms shares her reporting about what is in these orders and how they might impact government contractors. Also top of mind for many contractors and especially defense firms is the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. So we brought in Lauren Williams, senior editor of FCW and Defense Systems, to bring us up to date on CMMC and what's on the horizon.

In November, Telos Corp. became the latest government technology and cybersecurity company to tell its story to Wall Street and bring in public investors for its next phase of growth. For this episode of Project 38, Telos CEO John Wood takes us inside the five-decade-old firm’s initial public offering and why that path makes sense for them. Much of Telos’ growth leading up to the IPO has been “bootstrapped” in the words of Wood, who also shares how he and other company leaders thought through what next step would be best for Telos. This conversation with Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers also includes much discussion on the trends driving today’s cybersecurity landscape, such as takeaways and implications arising from the SolarWinds hack late last year.

In this episode of Project 38, Smartronix CEO Peter LaMontagne explains a new concept called “More’s Law” that sees agencies demand more data, more often, from more sources, in more formats and with more self-service tools to drive insights. As he tells Editor Nick Wakeman, none of that can happen without a robust cloud infrastructure. Smartronix was an early cloud pioneer in the federal market and with LaMontagne now at the helm, Smartronix is focused on steadily moving up the stack as seen with its recent acquisition of Data Strong. LaMontagne sees the entire industry at an inflexion point because customer needs are rapidly evolving, which means companies need to adapt and ideally get ahead of the curve. There’s never been a more important time to think strategically.

We can finally turn the page to 2021 but any look to the future requires some looking back at 2020. In this episode of Project 38, PM Consulting Group’s founder Walter Barnes gives Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers the ground-floor perspective on both what drove the federal market in 2020 and factors to shape it in 2021. The pandemic remains absolutely central to activity in just about every corner of work and life. But some trends such as the move to “best-in-class” contract vehicles and increases in teaming arrangements between large and small businesses would have remained in play even without COVID-19 in the picture. Barnes sees these drivers first-hand as the leader of a small business himself and brings words of wisdom from his company’s experience to help others down a similar path. He also shares how PM Consulting Group has sought to get creative in keeping employees connected as they are physically separated, plus why 2022 is the year he is really waiting for.

2020 was a year like no other. The pandemic kicked it off in March and continues. The year came to a close with a massive hack of government systems and with a contentious presidential transition underway. In the final 2020 episode of Project 38, Editor Nick Wakeman gathered reporters from Washington Technology, FCW and Defense Systems to review their top stories of the year. Lauren Williams, senior editor of FCW and Defense Systems, brings her views from the defense beat, while FCW’s Mark Rockwell shares important procurement trends. And WT Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers talks the business of government. What’s remarkable is the amount of overlap they see in their respective beats. Much is driven by COVID-19 and the profound changes it has brought to the market. But nothing in government happens in a vacuum and their discussion reinforces that point.

Amentum is a new name to the government market but its people are no strangers given its past history as the former AECOM management services business. In this episode of Project 38, Amentum CEO John Vollmer brings us up to speed on how the new(ish) company navigated 2020 and is integrating its recent acquisition of DynCorp. Nine months after its launch, Amentum closed its deal for DynCorp International, a transaction that was negotiated and agreed upon in almost exclusively virtual fashion given the coronavirus pandemic. A select group of leaders are meeting in-person to spearhead the integration that still has a large digital component to it. Vollmer and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers both found agreement in this discussion that the world is not going back to the way it was before COVID-19, though many have different opinions on what that world will look like. How to up one’s digital game for success in the future is a question on Amentum’s mind, which Vollmer gives us a glimpse into.

Megan Metzger of Dcode, the organization built to bring commercial technology firms into the federal market, and Editor Nick Wakeman talk about opportunities sparked by the incoming Biden administration. But many of those opportunities have more to do with a changing market than with politics. Dcode's CEO describes in this episode how government buyers are looking for more commercial technologies, while systems integrators are slowly turning in that direction as well and want more direct relationships with emerging tech firms. She sees a shakeup ahead that will favor the companies that embrace commercial ways of doing business as that is what customers are demanding. To succeed, traditional government contractors need to undergo a mindset shift away from putting butts in seats and toward partnership and collaboration with commercial tech providers.

The coronavirus pandemic is one of those situations where collaborations between the public and private sector entities had to accelerate given the situation. In this episode of Project 38, Guidehouse’s two lead executives share their views with Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers on what those partnerships looked like in 2020 and how change going forward. CEO Scott McIntyre and Chief Operating Officer Charles Beard have also have led the company (once PwC’s U.S. public sector shop) through its launch as an independent business in 2018 and acquisition of Navigant Consulting in 2019 to gain equal government and commercial footings. They update us on how that deal has changed Guidehouse and why it was important for them to be present with the regulators and those who are regulated. Also on the agenda: questions to answer in thinking about the future of work and what the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines mean for future teaming between government agencies and companies like Guidehouse.

Many people see little change from the Trump administration to the Biden administration as far as tech priorities are concerned. But in this conversation with Editor Nick Wakeman, 18F co-founder Greg Godbout describes what he sees as an opportunity to accelerate the evolution toward a digital transformation of government. In addition to 18F, Godbout also led digital services efforts at the Environmental Protection Agency. His advocacy for digital transformation continues as part of the executive team leading Fearless. Godbout says the Biden administration needs to focus on delivery and outcomes and that focus will accelerate the transformation of how government agencies provide services to their constituents. He sees an opportunity to supercharge an ongoing evolution.

We are always told that government contracting is a people business at its core even as technology and connectivity loom large. In this episode of Project 38, we hear from the GovCon market’s leading human capital specialists on how COVID-19 has wrought permanent changes to the way companies recruit and develop their work force. Jon Barney and Sam Dinte, respectively of Odgers Berndston and Dinte Executive Search, work with contractors on building their leadership teams and help shape their overall human resources strategies. Their first-person anecdotes shared here illustrate both how companies had to shift and are thinking through the long-term implications. They see the human factor as continuing to be at the core of how GovCon companies operate, but certainly the underlying mechanics will look very different going forward.

From her perch as president of Microsoft’s U.S. regulated industries group, Toni Townes-Whitley looks across both the legacy of the software giant as well as its future. In this episode of Project 38, she speaks with Editor Nick Wakeman about what that future entails and how it is reflected in major wins such as the CIA’s Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract. Whitley also talks about social justice, the incoming Biden administration and how computing at the edge will be a game changer across the public sector. An overarching theme of the discussion with Whitley is the importance of mission resiliency, something the ongoing pandemic has been teaching the entire marketplace.

Even in normal election year, the transition from one administration to the next create uncertainty in the market. In this episode of Project 38, Editor Nick Wakeman speaks with business development and capture management expert Bob Lohfeld on what companies should be doing to successfully move through these next few months. His biggest piece of advice is to realize many IT priorities will not change. Some flavors might be adjusted, but agencies will still rely heavily on contractors. That doesn’t mean standing still however. As Lohfeld explains, you still have work to do and that means taking care of your customers like never before.

A Nov. 30 deadline looms for compliance with the CMMC cyber standard's interim rule, so Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman checks in with FCW and Defense Systems Senior Editor Lauren Williams to get her take on what industry should be doing. Williams and Wakeman talk about what compliance with the Defense Department's new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification means, the challenges ahead, and what kind of impact the transition to a Biden administration might have. Williams is an experienced defense reporter who has closely tracked the development of CMMC. Here she offers her insights on what has happened so far and where she is going to focus her reporting going forward.

The presidential transition is underway, sort of, and other issues are weighing on the market. In this episode of Project 38, Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman leads a discussion with his colleagues from WT and FCW about what the transition means as well as other issues having an impact on the government contracting market. FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian talks transition, while WT Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers shares the perspective of publicly traded contractors on the upcoming budget as well as what’s behind the increase in merger and acquisition activity. FCW Staff Writer Natalie Alms dives into President Trump’s executive order banning certain anti-bias training, and while it’ll likely be pulled back by the Biden administration, the extraction might not be as simple as the stroke of a pen.

For this episode of Project 38, Katie Bilek and Stephanie Alexander, the founders and matchmakers at Govmates, return (with a Zoom assist) to Project 38 to help us turn a closer lens on small business and non-traditional government contracting amid the pandemic. The Govmates duo say that GovCon has mostly fared well so far through the pandemic. But they are also here to caution that some agencies have a lot on their plate and may not be as vocal, which can be a barrier for small businesses and non-traditional firms seeking more of a government footprint. Bilek and Alexander offer their advice on how to climb that barrier of silence in this conversation with Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers. Also on the agenda: changes to GovCon made permanent by COVID-19 and how companies are getting in tune with the Pentagon’s new CMMC cyber certification program.

Discussions around unconscious or implicit bias have become more common in the months since the killing of George Floyd, and President Trump’s recent executive order banning certain kinds of bias and discrimination training are a pushback against the notion that unconscious bias even exists. In this episode of Project 38, diversity and inclusion expert Minal Bopaiah tells Editor Nick Wakeman what exactly is implicit bias and how impacts businesses and decision making. There are no easy answers. But as Bopaiah explains, our biases shape our behaviors and our technology in ways we might not imagine. So too there are ways to mitigate the impact.

Fiscal year 2020 just wrapped up and that presents an opportunity to both look back upon those 12 months and look ahead to the next. In this episode of Project 38, Bloomberg Government’s senior defense analyst Rob Levinson helps us do just that as we review how civilian agencies put their contracting dollars to work in fiscal 2020. The coronavirus pandemic response led to a 17 percent spike in contract spending by those agencies last year and the final number came out to $228 billion in obligations. Looking under the hood of those numbers also helps reveal the different methods agencies have used to award those contracts and what they have prioritized during the pandemic. Levinson also sheds light on other trends he and his BGOV colleagues are looking at to better understand what the federal contracting environment looks like today and what they are watching for in fiscal 2021, now just in its third week.

Don't sell small town America short. In this episode, Brendan Walsh from 1901 Group talks about how today's tech revolution is creating an opportunity to build a successful business in rural America. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic became a large-scale technology and business disrupter, the Fourth Industrial Revolution was underway with growing adoption of technologies around the Internet of Things and cloud computing. What COVID-19 did was throw gasoline on a fire that was just starting to burn. Walsh, 1901 Group's senior vice president of partner relations, explains to Editor Nick Wakeman how the pandemic has accelerated this revolution and how a great business opportunity awaits in small towns and rural areas across the country.

The COVID-19 crisis has forced agencies and companies to field a dispersed workforce that relies on technology to stay productive and connected. In this episode of Project 38, Gary Hix of Hitachi Vantara Federal discusses how much those change could be permanent. As the company’s chief technology officer, Hix keeps a close eye on the IT challenges government agencies face now and the emerging challenges they'll face in the future. Hix also wears the hat of a solution architect to help customer visions become a reality. In his view remote work does not mean easier work and particularly when it comes to company culture, as he shares with Washington Technology Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers. Different skills and cadences are needed when employees are dispersed -- one of many lessons agencies and contractors need to learn about today’s environment to be successful in tomorrow’s.