Project 38: The Future Of Federal Contracting

ICF sees its move to a new corporate headquarters in Reston, Virginia after nearly three decades at its former hub in Fairfax as helping tell the larger story of the company's evolution.Chairman and CEO John Wasson has a unique vantage point given his career at ICF coincides with its time at the Fairfax headquarters campus.That relocation is the launchpad for our Ross Wilkers' interview with Wasson in this episode of WT 360, which also goes over how ICF has added technology implementation to its offerings on top of the company's longstanding work in an advisory role at federal agencies.The overall direction of federal technology and infrastructure spending was also a focal point of this discussion.

Episode number one for 2023 means the covers are off regarding a new name for our podcast, but with the same kinds of conversations as they have always been.What is now WT 360 remains all about the business of government contracting and all about the technologies involved in it, from the perspectives of leaders across the public sector ecosystem and others who observe the happenings.This premiere episode also introduces a new regular feature called the Info Session that brings together our reporters and others across our GovExec partner publications Defense One, FCW, Government Executive and Nextgov.WT's own Nick Wakeman and Ross Wilkers, Frank Konkel of Nextgov and Carten Cordell of FCW go over the storylines they are watching in 2023 and reflect on the Defense Department (finally) awarding its big-ticket commercial cloud contract back in December.For more on the mission of WT 360, click here to read Nick's article that introduces the new name and the kinds of conversations we look to steer through our podca

Few observers in the federal market have the vantage point that David Berteau has in his role as CEO of the Professional Services Council, one of the main trade associations representing government contractors. He hears about the experiences of contractors of all sizes.Berteau joins this episode of Project 38 to wrap up 2022 that was for GovCon and look ahead to what 2023 is shaping up to be for the industry.Inflation, cyber and supply chain priorities, COVID vaccine mandates, and the connection between contracting and policy goals made the conversation led by our Ross Wilkers and Courtney Bublé of WT's sibling publication, Government Executive. Bublé is a staff correspondent who covers government management, which includes procurement matters.NOTE: We just so happened to have recorded this episode on the very morning that lawmakers released the text for an omnibus bill to fund federal agencies  More homework for everyone involved in this discussion, it seems.

Data is a huge challenge for government customers. It is also a missed opportunity.This episode of our podcast has Editor Nick Wakeman talk with Dominic Delmolino, vice president of field technology and engineering for Amazon Web Services' public sector business, about advances in cloud computing technology.Delmolino explains how those advances can enable agencies to get better use out of the massive amounts of information they generate each day.

The government and commercial technology ecosystem is full of venture capital investors searching for companies with promising futures and to help them grow.In this episode, our Ross Wilkers speaks with two leaders at one of the market's most active venture investment firms that has been busy in putting its third fund at $340 million in capital to work after completing the raise in the fall.Mark Spoto and Matt Robinson, respectively a managing partner and vice president, explain the Razor's Edge investment thesis and the kinds of companies they look for when determining who they should back.Financial criteria is a significant component of their strategy, but so is the U.S. national defense strategy that was unveiled in the fall. Spoto and Robinson also detail how Razor's Edge uses that document to inform the firm's own strategy and decision-making on what to do with the capital.

Much has changed at ManTech over recent months, namely a new owner and new chief executive. The company is now privately-held after 20 years as a public company.But there is also stability with the transition to new CEO Matt Tait, formerly its chief operating officer. Tait shares his priorities with editor Nick Wakeman in this episode along with the marching orders he has from The Carlyle Group, the private equity group that acquired ManTech.Put simply, Carlyle wants ManTech to be ManTech. That means focusing on the national security missions of its customers and delivering innovation. In turn, Tait’s focus is on the company’s people and differentiation from competitors.He sees plenty of opportunities ahead for the company, both organically and with acquisitions.

Walter Barnes III, founder of PM Consulting, shares his small business journey with Editor Nick Wakeman in this episode and offers advice on overcoming the hurdles and challenges he’s faced in the federal market.Many small businesses share the same challenges in achieving growth and success. Barnes shares his experiences and why he made some of the choices he made, including recently teaming with private equity firm Enlightenment Capital to fuel his company's next stage of growth.All companies have to eventually decide if they want to race with stronger and faster runners, or stay in their comfort zone. Barnes has definitely chosen the former. He also knows big decisions lie ahead -- strategic hires, acquisitions and winning bigger contracts.

Both a lawyer and data scientist by training, Shubhi Mishra started Raft four years ago as a digital engineering company focused on solving problems with high degrees of difficulty.Raft's method for doing just that is "innovation theater" -- a concept Mishra explained earlier this year at an entrepreneurs forum focused on defense and does so again in this episode with our Ross Wilkers.Mishra concedes some may not view innovation theater in a positive light at first glance, but sees that model as necessary to breaking the status quo and finding solutions to federal agencies' hard challenges.She also gives an alternative view on today's talent challenge in the public sector ecosystem and why that problem also requires different thinking than many of the oft-spoken perspectives.

Plenty of hype and skepticism surrounds the metaverse, but the substance is there to be found underneath the surface.This episode of Project 38 sees Chris Copeland and Kyle Michl, respectively chief technology and chief innovation officer at Accenture's federal subsidiary, introduce our Editor Nick Wakeman metaverse and explain how the physical and digital worlds are converging.As they see it, everyone is already in the metaverse to a certain degree. The metaverse is merely new way of interacting with data and making use of it. It’s a new way of working that will touch nearly every aspect of government operations and how contractors deliver solutions to clients.Companies and agencies are already adopting the principles of the metaverse into solutions for training, modeling and simulation, and other areas. Even if they call it something else other than the metaverse.

The U.S. government goes right to the top of the food chain regarding enterprises and the amounts of data they take in and distribute.Which naturally leads to the problem of data generation outpacing the technology needed to make sense of the volume.For this episode of Project 38, Babel Street CEO Michael Southworth takes our Ross Wilkers through what dual-use technology companies such as the one he leads are up to in working with agencies on solving that data challenge.Some of the data volume statistics Southworth cited are overwhelming but illustrate the point of what problems need solving.

Companies in the government technology landscape are familiar with turbulence in the market, but that has gone to a whole new level in recent times.What they are navigating and how they are going about it is the umbrella topic of this episode that sees our Ross Wilkers exchange notes and takeaways with John Caucis and James Wichert, public sector IT analysts at the market intelligence firm Technology Business Research.Just like us: the coverage area of Caucis and Wichert encompasses federal IT integrators and the mission systems businesses at large defense companies, but with a heavy influence of how companies and technologies from other verticals are shaping the government market.The agenda for this episode includes discussion of how contractors are prioritizing their investments, headwinds such as supply chain and talent, and the evolving dynamic between integrators and cloud computing infrastructure providers. 

President Biden's customer experience executive order signed in December 2021 puts technology at the center of efforts to improve how citizens obtain services from federal agencies.Which brings up these questions that are the focus of this Project 38 episode: What tech tools are best for certain efforts? How do agencies apply those tools? How do agencies go about buying them?Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers got some answers to those questions and more from Greg Gershman, co-founder and CEO of a digital services company looking to be a part of the citizen experience transformation.Gershman was one of the core team members responsible for fixing HealthCare.gov after its troubled launch and helped start Ad Hoc with the idea of using some of those lessons learned to improve government service delivery.

Mike King will quickly answer the question of whether the multiple billions of dollars spent to make Peraton, Northrop Grumman’s IT business and Perspecta into a single company were worth the money and energy.King can rattle off a series of wins as Peraton's chief growth officer. But as you will hear in this interview with Editor Nick Wakeman, King also quickly turns to subjects such as integration and the new culture Peraton has created.Peraton is working hard to make the most out of those acquisitions and position itself for future opportunities around customer missions involving cloud computing, digital transformation and cybersecurity.Throughout the conversation, King also shares what it takes to be successful in today’s market environment.

Debbie Opiekun can rattle off a list of big wins for Leidos as the company's chief business development officer, a job that carries the responsibility of feeding growth for the federal technology market's largest contractor.In this Project 38 episode with Editor Nick Wakeman, Opiekun explains Leidos' philosophy for pursuing contracts and what they mean to the missions of federal customers.Opiekun also provides insights on how Leidos decides to bid for a business opportunity, including those times where the company decides not to go for it.

Booz Allen Hamilton wants to show the startup community it is serious about helping take their technologies into the U.S. public sector ecosystem.So much so that Booz Allen has stood up a venture capital organization to invest in emerging tech firms and given that team an initial $100 million in funding to start out with.Why formalize it after having already made three such investments? Here to explain why and the gameplan for Booz Allen Ventures is Brian MacCarthy, vice president of tech scouting and ventures.MacCarthy explains the goals of Booz Allen Ventures as including finding dual-use technologies that can be scaled for government missions, letting product development companies remain such and keeping customers at the forefront of tech adoption.

Seven months ago, government market veterans George Batsakis and Jerad Speigel launched their partnership with a vision to create a middle-tier company that fills what they see as a gap in the landscape.Their creation of Groundswell through three acquisitions and a rebranding presents a company whose services center around low-code/no-code application development and digital transformation, among others.Groundswell's specific focus right now is on the Appian enterprise software offering but there is more to come, as Batsakis and Spiegel explain to Editor Nick Wakeman.

Amentum certainly has been a fast-moving consolidator since its launch as an independent government services company in 2020 with two large acquisitions since then.So what's next on Amentum's agenda? CEO John Heller updates our Ross Wilkers on the integration of PAE into Amentum, which wrapped up the integration of DynCorp International when Heller became CEO in March.Company no. 12 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings is a nearly $9 billion-annual revenue business with close to 50,000 employees around the world supporting U.S. and allied government programs.Heller explains Amentum's rationale for scale and capability as both being interconnected and in-line with what the customer wants its contractors to have: broad offerings on the procurement cycle's end-to-end timeline that includes everything from technology infusion and development, to the operations-and-maintenance aspects of platforms.

Maximus is just getting started on its new strategy for the next three to five years after a series of large acquisitions to reposition the company for new opportunities.Those have taken place as the pandemic exposed multiple weaknesses in how services are delivered to citizens, but company no. 19 on our 2022 Top 100 sees those gaps as space to grow.For this episode, CEO Bruce Caswell and federal business leader Teresa Weipert talked with Editor Nick Wakeman about the changes at the company and how Maximus is melding its old culture with new ones.

Accenture Federal Services has used acquisitions to transform itself and sees its purchase of Novetta as yet another opportunity to reimagine the way it operates.This episode of Project 38 is a deep dive into the journey company no. 13 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings is now on as told by Tiffanny Gates, former Novetta CEO and now AFS' national security portfolio leader; and Ira Entis, growth and strategy leader.They update WT Editor Nick Wakeman on how the integration has gone, what's changed about the combined business, and the opportunities and challenges they see ahead.Some market trends are driven by technology and others by evolving customer missions. Government customers want to make better and faster decisions. That desire drives decisions around data, technology and processes.

Company no. 10 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings views its embrace of disruption both within itself and from the outside looking in as necessary for the business and Defense Department customer equally.L3Harris Technologies' move in that direction is the focus of this episode featuring our Ross Wilkers with Sean Stackley, president of the company's integrated mission systems segment and a former assistant navy secretary for research, development and acquisition.Stackley explains what L3Harris means in talking about itself as the "Trusted Disruptor" and how these two moves by the company earlier this year are part of that identity: a new agile development group, and a partnership with investment firm Shield Capital to work with startup technology firms.Embracing those dual-use technologies made in commercial markets but scalable for the government is key to L3Harris' vision of being the "Trusted Disruptor" and shows how the shape of innovation has changed, as Stackley explains.