WT 360: The market from all angles

Systems Planning & Analysis touts itself as a technical services provider charged with “helping clients move from strategy to action faster,” a tagline that also helps explain how mission timelines are shrinking fast.

Rich Sawchak, chief executive of Systems Planning & Analysis, joins for this episode to describe how companies like SPA have incorporated those faster timelines into how they support efforts in areas like simulation and countering unmanned aerial systems.

Artificial intelligence is of course entering the equation in those areas and more. In talking with our Ross Wilkers, Sawchak overviews where AI is being implemented full-steam ahead and places where these technologies are still hitting barriers.

One major theme of this conversation: SPA and all technical advisory services providers have to do more than just provide advice and knowledge to their clients on how to solve their problems.

Arlington Capital creates new middle tier player

Systems Planning and Analysis details chief executive transition

SPA makes another acquisition to build simulation and wargaming capabilities

SPA gains Army presence via acquisition

SPA acquires parts of ManTech's technical advisory business

Systems Planning & Analysis moves on another space-focused acquisition

SPA acquires space-focused systems engineering firm

Anduril and the Navy are co-investing in a submarine component production plant that the service branch is hoping can be a boost to the country’s shipbuilding capacity.

Lauren Williams, business editor at Defense One, has extensively covered the Navy’s challenges regarding its efforts to increase shipbuilding throughput and joins for this episode to explain how this new shipyard is a part of that push.

What keeps Navy leaders up at night on the shipbuilding front? In talking with our Ross Wilkers, Lauren goes over the constraints that have built up over time and recommendations government auditors made to address them.

Lauren also takes listeners through a $4 billion Army counterdrone contract that includes a mix of known and lesser-known names, why the Air Force is talking about a large unmanned aerial tanker when that tech is years away, and how the military is looking at quantum.

Lauren authors Defense One’s Business Brief newsletter that goes out every Thursday. Click this link to subscribe.

Point solutions have long dominated the government technology conversations, in part because agencies have focused on solving specific organizational problems instead of looking at them in a multi-functional way.

Mark Lee, chief executive of Entarian, joins for this episode to break down today’s federal market landscape as one where mission integration is where the conversation begins and ends with agencies. Technology still does enter the chat without being the be-all and end-all, as Lee tells our Ross Wilkers.

Lee also overviews the role of Entarian’s solution development team as the company’s engine for making mission integration happen for its customers and provides an update on the integration of Sev1Tech after both companies joined forces back in the spring.

Federal technology integrators spent much of fiscal year 2025 trying to see what a new world order of contracting would look like, then FY 2026 was all about settling into that environment.

John Caucis and James Wichert, public sector analysts at the market intelligence firm Technology Business Research, join for this episode to go over how agencies’ emphasis on outcomes and accountability from contractors are carrying over into the just-started fiscal 2027.

One way integrators are responding to that scrutiny is offering more intellectual property, including reusable software and other products. Caucis and Wichert walk our Ross Wilkers through how integrators are going about IP and which companies are most active in this respect.

Caucis and Wichert also break down the opportunity sets in both defense and civilian markets, plus the evolving tech partnership scene for integrators that they must be involved in. Artificial intelligence and hyperscale cloud computing are merely two examples of that, as Caucis and Wichert explain.

DOGE was government contracting's biggest story of 2025 — and it's not close

Outcome-based strategies must come before outcome-based contracts

Trump executive order pushes fixed-price contracting, but implementation questions loom

Booz Allen puts more emphasis on products in its new fiscal year

How OneGov is changing CACI's contractor role

CACI’s $2.6B Arka buy targets space dominance, agentic AI

With new 'VIA' strategy, General Dynamics IT evolves how it will pursue growth

Peraton wins air traffic control system overhaul contract

In a show-me market, Leidos continues to show up

Maximus hopes its Air Force cyber win is just a starting point

How ICF views its return to federal growth

WT 360: Booz Allen’s roadmap for collaborating with startups after an investment

Leidos sheds security screening unit in agreement with Analogic

All three frontier artificial intelligence companies now have either have new agreements in place or extensions to their current pacts as part of OneGov: the government’s initiative for consolidating its brand name tech purchases.

Christian Robles, who reports on technology policy and service delivery at Nextgov/FCW, joins for this episode to provide the details of who signed with the General Services Administration and for what. Not every agreement is exactly alike regarding the length of time and terms for usage and cost, as Christian told our Ross Wilkers.

Christian also goes over a GSA-Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services partnership that strives to connect states with products via the federal Schedules program, and how license plate reading systems are starting to enter society’s tech regulation chat.

Connect with Christian on Twitter at @crobles8gsa08. If you have a tip you'd like to share, Christian can be securely contacted at crobles808.12 on Signal.

Google extends Gemini OneGov deal into November

Anthropic extends $1 per user OneGov deal by a month

GSA unveils new, token-based OneGov discount with OpenAI

Industry offers government a playbook for handling OneGov expirations

OpenAI CEO exhorts ‘critical’ government AI adoption in DC

OneGov savings balloon to over $1.6B as agencies weigh future of AI in contracting

OPM to continue ChatGPT deployment following reupped OneGov deal

Contractor may have used AI to falsify payment dispute financial documents, appeals board finds

Contractor alleges Army inappropriately used AI to make $450M contract award

GSA memo to set AI-specific acquisition rules

Abridge selected for VA ambient AI enterprise contract

GSA and CMS continue Medicaid tech vendor collaboration, but its impact is likely limited, experts say

Flock camera systems receive bipartisan scrutiny from senators

JPMorgan Chase stood up its $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative in the fall of 2025 with flexibility built into the system because one approach may work for a certain situation, but not for another.

Sara O’Rourke, managing director for SRI solutions at JPMorgan Chase, joins for this episode to go over how the team pursues investment and financing opportunities in industries directly connected to national and economic security and resiliency.

As O’Rourke tells our Ross Wilkers, identifying what the vulnerabilities are is step one before the team can design solutions for addressing choke points in supply chains.

O’Rourke also describes the first-hand experience she gained in facilitating public-private partnerships as Employee No. 5 in the Commerce Department’s CHIPS Investment Office. Semiconductors and energy needs feature in the episode discussion too.

At the time of this episode’s recording, the Small Business Administration had received 66,000 comments in response to its proposed sweeping rewrite of size standards for determining who is in fact a small business.

Stephanie Kostro, president of the Professional Services Council, joins for this episode to explain SBA’s ideas that would base the standards on market size instead of receipts and headcount.

Kostro led off the conversation with Nick and Ross by using the word “seismic,” and for good reason, as this proposal would be a fundamental reordering of the market if SBA goes ahead with it. She goes through why that word reflects what SBA wants to do.

Also on the agenda for this discussion: artificial intelligence’s role in bid protests, the CMMC cyber standard being on pause, the Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul and the looming expiration of many agreements under the OneGov tech procurement initiative.

( NOTE: After we recorded this episode, the FAR Council unveiled the second batch of proposed changes to the regulations. )

SBA’s size standard rewrite draws angry, frustrated comments

SBA proposes sweeping rewrite of small business size standards

WT 360: Generative AI’s pitfalls and potential benefits in GovCon law

Think AI can write your company's bid protest? Think again.

File-naming blunders doomed MAPS protest, not ambiguities

CMMC's Phase 2 suspension locked in with binding regulation

CMMC suspension caught industry off guard, but the reasons did not

A playbook for thriving with OneGov and the FAR Overhaul

DOD suspends CMMC Phase 2, launches 60-day ‘reform’ review

30 days to shape the biggest FAR overhaul in 40 years

Revolutionary FAR Overhaul moves to formal rulemaking with first batch of proposed rules

Industry offers government a playbook for handling OneGov expirations

Digital Infuzion was born in 1999 as a health informatics company with the idea of helping organizations improve clinical research and its first client at the the National Institutes of Health remains a customer.

Hemant Virkar, founder and chief executive of Digital Infuzion, joins for this episode to explain how the company has grown beyond those initial healthcare roots to add new practice areas across the broad umbrella of digital transformation.

The company still leans on that heritage to act as a shepherd for agencies as they travel the path of modernization, as Virkar tells our Ross Wilkers.

Virkar’s keys for making outcome-based efforts work well for the government customer collective and advice for other founders/entrepreneurs also feature in the discussion.

One fundamental change to how the government contracting ecosystem functions centers on technology development and fielding: all of that must happen quicker and on a different cadence than before.

Steve Lefkowitz and Raj Kanodia, co-founders and leaders of Sagewind Capital, join for this episode to shed light on how the private equity firm’s portfolio companies have responded to that government-wide push for quicker and different forms of tech development and fielding.

The handful of contractors owned by Sagewind have made technology core to their strategies and prioritize making decisions on what is often called an “OODA Loop” methodology. By Light, Sabel Systems, Sigma Defense and Tria Federal are in the Sagewind portfolio.

Lefkowitz and Kanodia also provide our Ross Wilkers their perspectives on private capital trends in GovCon, plus homework for business leaders to do before looking for an investment partner like Sagewind.

PSA: We are going on hiatus until mid-September. Keep a lookout for an announcement of our return with new episodes and conversations about the market from all angles.

DOD’s move to ‘wartime footing’ demands new contracting models

The military's acquisition reform push means 85% ready is good enough to start

Shield AI closes $1.5B Series G round and moves on acquisition

Aechelon lands Sagewind's backing

By Light acquires another simulation, training tech outfit

Sigma Defense acquires Aries Defense to boost tactical edge capabilities

Sabel Systems expands space domain work with Centil acquisition

Growth, legal and operations leadership moves across the market

WT 360: Tria Federal and its pair of priority areas

Greg Barbaccia’s impending departure from the federal chief information officer role after 18 months in it is one of a handful of headline topics that got industry’s attention over the past six weeks.

As NextGov/FCW’s executive editor, Jessie Bur captains a team of reporters who cover developments across the government landscape with an eye toward those that overlap with our areas of interest here at WT.

Jessie joins Nick and Ross for this episode to take a tour around the world of Fed Tech news and happenings, starting with Barbaccia’s pending exit from government and ending with the CMMC security standard’s very murky future.

Their discussion agenda also includes the GovExec news team’s sit-down discussion with Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Virginia), whose district includes many federal employees and contractors. Artificial intelligence storylines and the OneGov technology acquisition program enter the chat too.

Greg Barbaccia to leave federal CIO role at end of August

HUD CIO tapped to lead Interior tech shop, people familiar say

Interior CIO Paul McInerny exits position

Transportation’s tech chief Pavan Pidugu to depart in September

Inside the federal CIO’s culture-first approach

Lawmaker warns of administration’s ‘fetishization’ of Silicon Valley startups

Connolly's successor, James Walkinshaw, looks to carry on his IT and workforce legacy

Energy expects $74M in annual savings from new AI and data tools

AI, once relegated to helping hackers with certain tasks, can now power every stage of a cyberattack

7 tech companies commit to protect consumers from rising electricity prices

Anthropic hires Teresa Carlson as public sector lead

Anthropic held cyberthreat briefings with agency CIOs last month

GSA is eyeing OneGov savings beyond software and tech, official says

OneGov’s discounted deals are ‘a first step’ to longer-term contracts, officials say

Nearly 3.4M users across government can use AI through OneGov, GSA official says

CMMC suspension caught industry off guard, but the reasons did not

Not again! CMMC's comprehensive review is déjà vu all over again

DOD suspends CMMC Phase 2, launches 60-day ‘reform’ review

LMI touts itself as a provider of “commercial-grade, mission-ready technology” as a description of its goal to bring fast-moving technology into federal environments with strict requirements on security and other key matters.

But how does LMI define that technology and how do they bring it forward to agencies?

Alex Adamczyk – vice president of sales, engineering and rapid prototyping at Company No. 73 on our 2026 Top 100 – joins for this episode to answer those questions and more about LMI’s approach to innovation and integration.

Culture is everything, to the point that LMI reorganized the company to emphasize that every employee plays a role in innovation. Adamczyk takes our Ross Wilkers through the company’s new structure to achieve that aim.

Adamczyk also explains how the unique, bespoke nature of certain government problems does not necessarily prevent industry and agencies from embracing more commercial-like development and integration approaches.

TOP 100: LMI's commercial tech approach hinges on the business model

LMI promotes Wilson to chief executive

How LMI incubated its own generative AI tool before going to market

WT 360: LMI's logistics heritage also informs its present and future

If 2025 and 2026 have told us anything, it is that the government no longer sees the decades-long status quo of acquisition as acceptable anymore because the world is too different now.

Matt Kasberg, chief executive of Company No. 73 on our 2026 Top 100, joins for this episode to explain how Odyssey Systems works with the defense acquisition community and provides an industry point-of-view on all the changes to that function of government.

In Kasberg’s words, “acquisition is a warfighting function” and that requires a keen understanding of demand signals from operators. The Pentagon’s emphasis on speed and a different setup of decision authorities are part of the equation too, as Kasberg explains to our Ross Wilkers.

How did Odyssey expand from 300 to 1,500 employees over a decade? Kasberg tells the growth story as one that required a mix of moves he calls “Stress and Stretch” and “New Horizons.”

WT 360: Defense One's Lauren Williams on the new world order of acquisition

Unveiling acquisition overhaul, Hegseth tells industry to get with the program

DOD’s move to ‘wartime footing’ demands new contracting models

The military's acquisition reform push means 85% ready is good enough to start

DOD seeks industry feedback on acquisition reform push

By joining Constellis as CEO in February, Dan Gelston took the helm at a company with a vision of moving beyond a reactive security model to a more proactive and tech-enabled one.

Gelston joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to provide an update on the rollout of that strategy, which centers around integrating predictive analytics and other artificial intelligence-driven technologies into Constellis’ core business lines of training and risk management.

“Guards, gates, guns and dogs” have long defined security operations over many decades. But as Gelston explains, that is no longer enough in a more complex world where adversaries also can use high-end tech.

Gelston outlines what he believes the security perimeter can and should look like with technology complementing operators and helping them see more activity.

The 2026 Washington Technology Top 100 rankings are now live for everyone to use in their own research of the federal market’s largest technology and services contractors, plus the industry’s major overarching themes.

For this episode, Nick and Ross huddle up to overview edition number 32 of WT’s flagship project that certainly does have an element of “Who’s Up and Who’s Down” to it.

One question we posed in our breakdown of 2025’s rankings was whether 2026 would look noticeably different in light of the Trump administration’s cuts to contract spending and the federal workforce. The Department of Government Efficiency’s impact to the industry is real, but quantifying it is only part of the discussion about DOGE.

Here are the other items for this episode’s discussion agenda:

• Consulting firms and resellers in today’s market
• Small businesses and their prospects
• True blue newcomers to the ranking, including Amazon
• SpaceX and its new era as a public company

Introducing the 2026 Washington Technology Top 100

The 2026 Top 100 shows a market that bent, but did not break

DOGE was government contracting's biggest story of 2025 — and it's not close

WT 360: All about the paths forward for SAIC, Anthropic, resellers and 8(a) companies

How consulting firms acquire to iterate, and sometimes reinvent themselves

GSA wants answers from resellers about markups and equipment maker relationships

CACI's outlook on the government's commercial acquisition push

SAIC's CEO highlights mission IT, engineering work as priorities

Oracle wins $396M federal HR systems overhaul contract

How DHA plans to end Leidos’ run as the military's health record integrator

GSA drops 'disadvantaged' from small business office name

Small businesses face upheaval under the acquisition overhaul and agency cuts

WT 360: Key points (and questions too) from Trump’s fixed-price contracting and AI orders

Astrion hires former Sierra Space CEO Vice as new leader

OMB seeks details from agencies on their commercial buying, or lack thereof

SpaceX's S-1 lays out its government work and market ambitions

SpaceX’s governance structure is built for one person: Elon Musk

The second Trump administration has outpaced the first one in terms of executive orders signed by the president, but this current tenure has put more focus on government contracting than before.

Stephanie Kostro, president of the Professional Services Council, starts out this episode with Nick and Ross by providing historical context to that statement. Then the discussion turns to President Trump’s newest executive orders that focus on fixed-price contracts and artificial intelligence.

Neither of those topics are new to the GovCon ecosystem, but executive orders bring them to the forefront like few other actions can. Kostro explains what contractors are looking to understand from those orders and how they likely will affect work with their customers.

Also on the agenda: the Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul, small businesses in today’s landscape and the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

We have taken a deeper dive into the government market’s private investment landscape in recent weeks by hearing the viewpoints of a banker and then a venture capital specialist.

Kirk Konert, managing partner at AE Industrial Partners, joins for this episode to continue the conversation by weighing in on private capital trends across the market and explaining what goes into aligning business decisions with the government priorities.

AE Industrial is also at the heart of the investment action, which in recent months has included initial public offerings of two portfolio companies. Konert takes our Ross Wilkers through that process and the reasoning behind listing Firefly Aerospace and York Space Systems on the public markets.

Konert also provides advice for company owners, founders and architects on how to go about their search for external capital partners. Knowing what you want going in is the starting point.

WT 360: Defense tech investing is cool again, but can it stay that way?

WT 360: A pulse check on GovCon’s capital market landscape

AE Industrial Partners unveils its third investment fund

Firefly captures $868M in IPO proceeds

Firefly seeks software, defense growth with $855M SciTec acquisition

York Space Systems raises $629M in public offering

Anduril, X-Bow and York detail their newest space acquisitions

York Space Systems to acquire terminal maker in $355M transaction

York Space Systems to acquire solar cell maker

L3Harris to sell majority ownership of space propulsion unit to AE Industrial

If it feels like investors everywhere have some curiosity about the defense tech landscape, then it’s because more of them both want to increase their knowledge and sometimes involvement in the ecosystem.

Steve Brotman, founder and managing partner of the growth equity investment firm Alpha Partners, fits into that category as an observer and participant that works with venture capital firms to be involved in promising tech companies.

Steve joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to answer the questions laid out in the title, namely how it became cool again for investors to get involved with defense tech companies and markers that indicate how long this boom of interest could last.

SpaceX’s initial public offering and corporate VC funds feature in the chat too. Also listen out for Steve’s tips and suggested homework for business leaders to do before venturing out into VC networks.

US investors warm to Ukrainian defense startups—but export laws slow cooperation

Budget would cut Pentagon research by one-third. Can industry compensate?

Meet the startups trying to build military-specific AI

Venture investing is part of the M&A conversation too

The defense tech ecosystem gives investors many opportunities

Public offerings put GovCon in a new spotlight as SpaceX's listing looms

SpaceX's S-1 lays out its government work and market ambitions

SpaceX’s governance structure is built for one person: Elon Musk

SpaceX’s biggest risk factor might be Elon Musk

Lockheed boosts its venture investment fund to $1B

Booz Allen commits $400M to Andreessen Horowitz's late-stage fund

Booz Allen gives big boost to its venture arm

WT 360: For Lockheed's ventures team, its investments are merely step one

WT 360: RTX Ventures casts its net wide and far across an expanding tech ecosystem

WT 360: Booz Allen’s roadmap for collaborating with startups after an investment

WT 360: SAIC Ventures’ methods for investing in and working with tech startups

The window for government contractors, especially those in defense and space technology, to go public is open again as several listings over the past 12 months show and SpaceX’s own offering this year will illustrate.

Dave Khalsa, head of mid-cap defense and government technology investment banking at J.P. Morgan, works on transactions of many different types and observes all of them to help companies in the market figure it all out.

In starting out this episode, Dave explains what all companies can take away from the handful of initial public offerings over the past 12 months and SpaceX’s listing. This is true of whether they plan to go down the IPO path or not.

The rest of the conversation between Dave and our Ross Wilkers focuses on how government priorities shape merger-and-acquisition activities by companies under different ownership models, including private equity and venture capital.

Public offerings put GovCon in a new spotlight as SpaceX's listing looms

HawkEye 360's public offering hauls in $416M

AEVEX fetches $320M in IPO proceeds

Firefly captures $868M in IPO proceeds

York Space Systems raises $629M in public offering

Merlin Labs’ public offering collects $200M to build an AI autopilot for any aircraft

L3Harris to spin off its rocket motor business with the Pentagon as an anchor investor

AeroVironment's tech and business blueprints with BlueHalo now in the fold

Veritas Capital's ninth fund grows to $15.3B

OceanSound Partners hauls in $3.4B for third fund

Arlington Capital fetches $6B for its seventh fund

Government equity investments open a new frontier for industry

Venture investing is part of the M&A conversation too

Anduril hauls in $5B for Series H round

Shield AI closes $1.5B Series G round and moves on acquisition

Saronic wraps up $600M Series C round

Sierra Space and Vast detail their Series C investment rounds

The federal government’s lead agency for domestic cybersecurity and infrastructure protection matters has only completed its first week of being fully back up and running after not being funded for 11 weeks.

David DiMolfetta, cyber reporter at NextGov/FCW, has covered how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has operated through a period that followed losses of nearly one-third of its workforce under this Trump administration.

David joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to lay out CISA’s path forward with funding in place, plus what the agency’s stakeholders in the private and public sectors should watch out for amid the catchup.

David then breaks down NextGov/FCW’s recent reporting on two major storylines on artificial intelligence policy coming out of the White House that has direct implications for industry.

The second half of their conversation is all about a deep dive article David put together on where industry fits, or may not fit, into the government’s offensive cyber approach.

CISA resources ‘more limited than I would like’ amid shutdown, top official says

IBM security executive emerges as possible contender to lead CISA

Plankey withdraws nomination to lead CISA

Trump admin floats policy language limiting contractor say on agency uses of technology

White House is drafting plans to permit federal Anthropic use

Operational technology providers are feeling ‘annoyance’ at exclusion from Anthropic’s Mythos rollout, sources say

Anthropic’s Glasswing initiative raises questions for US cyber operations

US push to counter hackers draws industry deeper into offensive cyber debate

US lists offensive cyberattacks in counterterrorism strategy

Trump admin will push for ‘long-term’ reauthorization of key cyber data-sharing law

Once again, the U.S. government is accusing China of being among several foreign entities that are looking to steal proprietary information on artificial intelligence models from American companies.

Edward Graham, managing editor and Veterans Affairs Department reporter at NextGov/FCW, discovered a memo the White House sent to federal agencies that warns of distillation campaigns seeking to help create knockoff versions of AI models.

Ed joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to explain how those campaigns work and, more importantly, how they help illuminate the competition between the U.S. and China to lead the world in AI and robotics tech development.

Ed also provides an update on where things stand with VA’s rollout of a new electronic health record, which has had many fits and starts over the years to say the least.

White House accuses China of ‘deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns’ to steal US AI models

US needs to flesh out strategy to counter China’s robotics advances, lawmakers say

AI capabilities are needed to counter drone threats, senator says

House FY27 VA funding bill allocates $3.4B for EHR rollout

VA resumes EHR rollouts at four Michigan medical sites