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McNally Capital adds Tenica to its national security bench

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:43:38 -0400

McNally Capital has acquired the defense and intelligence firm Tenica Global Solutions, which provides integrated engineering and digital modernization solutions to agencies.

Tenica also provides mission operations and cybersecurity support across its national security, intelligence, space and defense markets. Tenica will continue to operate under its current leadership team.

“As we begin this next chapter, we are excited to partner with McNally, a firm that understands what makes Tenica unique and can provide the resources and expertise to help us continue growing,” Tenica's president and CEO Nicholas Scherling said in a release.

Tenica is headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia and was founded in 2008. The company has received about $5.4 million in unclassified prime contract obligations over the trailing 12 months with the Navy as its biggest customer, according to USASpending.gov.

The majority investment fits with McNally’s strategy of finding companies that serve defense and intelligence priorities. Tenica’s systems engineering and mission operations capabilities provide a foundation for more growth, McNally said in its announcement.

McNally's investments also include Quiet Professionals, Orbis Operations, and Xcelerate.

McNally looks to invest in founder-led companies and family-owned businesses, as well as help in management-led investments.

For the Tenica acquisition, McNally worked with Nio Advisors LLC. Ropes & Gray LLP served as legal counsel to McNally Capital and Venable LLP provided government contracting counsel.

The McLean Group served as Tenica’s financial adviser and PilieroMazza served as legal counsel to the company.

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12 firms land spots on DHS's $1.5 billion counter-unmanned aircraft contract

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:18:37 -0400

The Homeland Security Department has awarded 12 companies positions on a potential five-year, $1.5 billion contract covering a broad range of products and services for counter-unmanned aircraft systems.

DHS set up the contract as an avenue for acquiring hardware, software and services in support of a variety of operational use cases and capabilities.

DHS made awards Friday and broke up the contract into two tracks, according to Sam.gov records. One track focuses on hardware/software products and ancillary services, while the second covers on comprehensive services.

Hardware/software and ancillary services winners are as follows:

BAE Systems’ U.S. subsidiary
CACI International
Dedrone Defense
D-Fend Solutions
EMS Defense Technologies
Fortem Technologies
Leidos

Comprehensive services winners are as follows:

Anduril
Astrion
BAE Systems’ U.S. subsidiary
Booz Allen Hamilton
General Dynamics’ IT services unit
Leidos
Parsons Corp.

The department received 57 offers for track one and 47 for track two, Sam.gov records indicate. Bidders could pursue both tracks if they wanted to.

Aptly named C-UAS, the contract is intended to stay current with available market solutions that can support systems through their lifespans.

Solicitation documents released in November describe fixed-location security and mobile response as use cases DHS expects this contract to support.

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DHA picks 12 for $300M product deployment contract

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:16:10 -0400

The Defense Health Agency has awarded 12 companies positions on a potential five-year, $300 million contract for a broad range of professional services to help DHA manage products across the enterprise.

DHA set up the multiple-award contract to support product deployment efforts by the Program Executive Office for Defense Healthcare Management Systems, or PEO DHMS.

DHA received 29 offers for the contract, according to the Pentagon’s Thursday awards digest.

Winners are as follows:

A Square Group
Accenture’s U.S. federal services
CACI International
Deep Mile Networks
Deloitte Consulting
General Dynamics’ IT services unit
Great Hill Solutions
Kearney & Co.
Leidos
Peraton
Planned Systems International
Vista Global Solutions

They will compete for task orders to carry out non-personal services for deployment, training, change management and sustainment activities. Solicitation documents released in April describe how work will support DHA’s health IT environment, which includes the MHS Genesis electronic health record system.

DHA awards this new contract amid its efforts to transition the military’s EHR away from a single lead systems integrator model, and more toward direct contracts with providers of the underlying technologies.

Leidos is the prime contractor for Genesis and its selection for the PEO DHMS Deployment Solutions program means the company is poised to stay involved in the effort.

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CACI lands $500M contract to scale up SkyValor counter-drone system

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:15:59 -0400

CACI International has secured a $500 million task order for its SkyValor counter-drone system.

The contract supports the Defense Department’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401 that was established in 2025 to address unmanned threats in the U.S. and abroad.

SkyValor works find, track and stop hostile drones before they can impact national security operations, the company said in its July 30 announcement. The system is designed to provides an early warning, giving warfighters more time to react.

“Warfighters need a decisive advantage against drone threats that are faster, more accessible, and harder to detect,” said John Mengucci, CACI president and CEO. “SkyValor delivers that advantage through long-range detection, precision defeat, and the ability to adapt as drone threats evolve.”

With the contract award, CACI is moving SkyValor into full-rate production.

SkyValor completed a series of tests by the JIATF-401 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma.

The evaluations assessed SkyValor's ability to detect and defeat a wide range of small UAS threats beyond the line of sight. Based on this performance, JIATF-401 approved SkyValor for deployment to critical sites.

The new contract also follows a separate award through JIATF-401’s Commercial Solutions Opening to deliver four SkyValor variants units to JIATF-401. CACI will mount SkyValor on a heavy-duty truck to create a mobile drone defense capability.

CACI executive Erik Grant will be a featured speaker at Washington Technology's Aug. 14 Power Breakfast on unmanned systems, where he will talk about the company's counter-drone systems.

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HII’s sea drone business is growing, but revenue is ‘modest,’ CEO says

Lauren C. Williams — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0400

The nation’s largest military shipbuilder sees maritime drones producing “modest” revenue now, but expects that to grow as the Navy builds its unmanned fleet, HII’s chief executive said during Thursday’s earnings call.

“We know it’s going to become more of the Navy fleet because [unmanned systems] can do excess missions and expand the fleet size such that they can do things that large capital ships can’t do and take the place of large capital ships in some of the missions,” said Chris Kastner, HII’s CEO and president. “From a revenue standpoint right now, it’s pretty modest.”

Kastner went on to say that HII’s unmanned business, which is part of the Mission Technologies division, is growing quickly. Earlier this month, the Navy extended its Lionfish unmanned undersea contract that was originally awarded in 2023 for nearly $350 million. The contract is for five years with options, and the first units were delivered in 2025.

“I don’t really want to comment on how large it’s going to be, but I’ll tell you one thing—it’s the fastest-growing business unit we have,” Kastner said, adding that the company is competing for the Navy’s medium unmanned surface vehicle program.

“The international and domestic pipeline is strong, we’re going to pursue those…It’s a good business unit. It’s a growing business unit. The profitability should be solid because it’s firm fixed-price contracts. We think we’re very competitive, and we’re going to continue to invest in it and watch it grow. Now, is it going to be a billion-dollar battleship? No. We think it’s going to grow. We think there’s significant opportunity, and we think it’s going to be a greater part of the fleet.”

Sea drones have become increasingly visible on the battlefield as navies use them for surveillance, rescues, and kinetic strikes. And more companies have entered the sector as the Navy boosts its unmanned systems budget and homes in on how it wants to integrate them into its fleet—while pushing companies to grow the capacity to build them quickly.

HII has emphasized its tech business more in recent years, often stressing the segment’s poised growth. Mission Technologies had $760 million in second-quarter revenue this year, an approximate $31 million and nearly 4 percent drop compared to last year.

That’s “primarily due to lower volumes in all domain operations in global security, partially offset by higher volumes in warfare systems and unmanned systems,” Tom Stiehle, HII’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, said during Thursday’s call.

The Mission Technologies business is expected to grow about 5 percent in the next five years and generate up to $3.2 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2026, according to the company’s earnings update.

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WT 360: Sagewind Capital’s thesis for adaptation and fast decisions

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 06:00:00 -0400

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.

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K2 Space fetches $500M for its move to mass production

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:26:17 -0400

K2 Space, a maker of large satellites for communications and defense usage, has collected $500 million in Series D capital to expand its workforce and manufacturing capacity for fulfilling orders.

When K2 announced its $250 million Series C in December, the company touted a backlog of $500 million in signed government and commercial contracts. The Series D round announced Thursday puts that figure at $1 billion as K2 pushes to build as many as 100 satellites per year.

Kleiner Perkins and ICONIQ led the Series D round, which pushes K2’s touted valuation to $6.8 billion. Additional participants included CapitalG, Lightspeed, Altimeter, Spark Capital, Sands Capital, ARK Invest, T. Rowe Price Associates and other existing investors.

Founded in 2022, K2 is now moving from demonstrations of its satellites to efforts in manufacturing them in larger quantities for longer-term programs in both government and commercial markets.

“Our supply chain is 85 percent vertically integrated, which allows us to build our large satellites quickly and at low cost,” K2 co-founder and chief executive Karan Kunjur said in a release.

The company is at work in developing its Giga-class satellite for introduction in the second half of 2028. Giga will be positioned as “the foundational platform for deploying massive amounts of compute on orbit,” added Neel Kunjur, co-founder and chief technology officer.

In essence, K2 sees Giga as core to making space-based data centers a reality.

K2 is also working toward its Trinity mission in the second quarter of 2027, when the company plans to launch multiple satellites. Anduril is acquiring K2’s satellites as part of a space-based interceptor contract for Golden Dome, the future nationwide missile defense system.

K2 is also the bus provider for Space Force’s Protected Tactical Satcom-Global program, which uses commercial satellites in geostationary orbit to provide operators jam-resistant tactical communications. This is K2’s first program of record.

Below is a CNBC interview with Kunjur posted Thursday.

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Space Force picks 15 for $981M test, evaluation support contract

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:21:41 -0400

Space Force has awarded 15 companies positions on a six-year, $981 million contract for engineering services to help the service branch in carrying out test, evaluation and training operations.

The Pentagon’s Thursday awards digest said 20 companies submitted proposals for the contract that goes by this convoluted name -- National Space Test and Training Complex Innovative Technology and Engineering - Space Test and Range Capability Development.

NSTTC is a network of test and training range services across multiple environments and geographic locations, with the primary headquarters operating out of Schriever Space Force Base near Colorado Springs.

Winners are as follows:

Amentum
BAE Systems
Boeing
CACI International
Firefly Aerospace
L3Harris Technologies
Lockheed Martin
Northrop Grumman
Pacific Crest Alliance, a joint venture of La Jolla Logic and Sierra Nevada Corp.
Parsons Corp.
Redwire
Rocket Lab
Sierra Space
Viasat
York Space Systems

Also known by the acronym NSTTC NITE-STAR, this contract focuses on Space Force’s efforts to provide operators an environment of live/physical and synthetic/digital ranges for their test and training work.

Solicitation documents released in March break out the categories of work as software development, hardware development, modeling and simulation, and infrastructure.

Space Force set up the contract to support its System Delta 81 organization, plus the Operational Test and Training Infrastructure team.

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DCS loses protest over Army's $237M soldier gear contract redo

Nick Wakeman — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:41:00 -0400

The Army agreed for a second time in March to re-evaluate proposals for a $237 million contract to improve the protective equipment worn by soldiers.

But the corrective action did not go far enough for DCS Corp., one of two protesters who objected to an award that went to Amentum. The second protester was MAG Aerospace, which did not raise objections to the corrective action.

DCS challenged the Army’s corrective action because it focused primarily on how small business participation, pricing and a few other factors would be evaluated. Bidders could only submit revisions that addressed those factors.

DCS argued that the corrective action failed to address other issues with the evaluation.

But GAO sided with the Army and denied the protest on Wednesday. The GAO decision has not been publicly released.

The Army can now implement its corrective action that includes discussions with the bidders, revised proposals and a new award decision.

The winner will provide engineering, quality assurance and test support, acquisition support, business management support, logistics and fielding support, operations support and administrative support.

Equipment includes boots, combat uniforms and the Ghillie suit accessory kit — camouflage snipers wear that can include netting, straps, face paint and hardware for customizing to different environments.

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The Army wants one voice, but acquisition may get silenced

Allison Gregory — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:00:00 -0400

If your LinkedIn feed has filled up with black-and-yellow graphics announcing that someone’s favorite Army page is shutting down, you’re not alone.

By July 30, what appears to be hundreds of official accounts will go dark under Army Directive 2026-17, “Optimizing Digital Media.” The directive says the change will reduce risk while allowing the Army to speak with “a clear, unified voice.”

Looking at it through an acquisition lens, that raises an obvious question: Which acquisition organizations are included in that unified voice?

The answer, more or less, is none of them.

Army Materiel Command and Army Transformation and Training Command retain their pages. The organizations underneath them that actually buy things do not.

Closure announcements have come from Army Contracting Command, the Mission and Installation Contracting Command, Portfolio Acquisition Executive and Capability Portfolio Executive pages, Army research organizations, and even the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.

These weren’t stale accounts posting a flag graphic twice a year. Right up to the deadline, they were still sharing industry-day announcements, program updates, and upcoming opportunities. They clearly still saw value in the channel.

ACC-APG offered a fairly perfect example in its final week. One day after announcing that its page would close, the center used that same page to promote a call for solutions and virtual industry day for Next Generation Command and Control software applications.

The post gave more than 13,000 followers a direct link to the SAM.gov notice and invited commercial partners to attend a session explaining the Army’s architecture goals, technical expectations, and evaluation process.

The same call for solutions was posted by CPE C2IN, which has almost 18,000 LinkedIn followers.

There is undoubtedly significant overlap between the two audiences, but that is also part of the point. These organizations had built targeted communities around the same acquisition portfolio and could reinforce each other’s outreach.

That timing is especially odd given the broader acquisition reform conversation.

Both the Army and the Department of Defense are pushing for greater use of commercial technology, more participation from nontraditional companies, and closer collaboration with industry to deliver capabilities at the “speed of relevance.”

Those goals require the Army to reach beyond the companies already embedded in the defense market. Two weeks before announcing its closure, ACC-APG had encouraged companies to bring forward ideas the government had not considered.

Reaching those companies becomes considerably harder once the organizations buying the technology can no longer speak to them directly.

The remaining high-level accounts are not a one-for-one replacement.

Army acquisition is not one market. Companies following tactical radio programs want information from the people buying tactical radios, not more general “Army news.”

An ACC-APG update that once went directly to its audience may now have to compete for space on Army Materiel Command’s much broader account, with someone outside the center deciding whether it is important enough to post.

That creates a risk that useful information will be filtered out before reaching the audience that needs it. Individual employees cannot fill that gap. They can share released information, but they cannot speak for the organization. Once the organizational page disappears, so does its ability to speak directly to that audience.

The information itself isn’t disappearing. SAM.gov, DVIDS, and the organizations’ official websites will still be there, and the large defense contractors will adjust because they have capture teams, paid tools, consultants, and established relationships.

The companies most likely to miss something are new entrants that don’t yet know what they should be looking for. A company has to know what to search for on SAM.gov and make a point of looking.

Social media puts an industry-day announcement in front of someone who may not have known to look. Then someone shares it, someone else comments, and it reaches well beyond the contracting office’s existing audience.

Reach is only part of the loss. The Army is also giving up control of the framing. The information will still make its way onto social media. I’ll probably share some of it myself, and plenty of other consultants, companies, and industry commentators will do the same.

But whoever shares it will decide what to emphasize, what it means, and why anyone should care. Sometimes we’ll get it right. Sometimes we’ll be confidently wrong. Either way, the Army will no longer be framing its own message.

The goal was one unified voice. For much of the acquisition community, the Army has simply removed its own.

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Sole-source awards are down, but their share of the pie is not

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:24:11 -0400

The Trump administration has made increasing competition a centerpiece of their procurement strategy, but the reality is somewhat different and more complex.

According to an analysis of federal procurement data, the total number of non-competitive awards from Jan. 1 through July 29 is 20% down from the prior year period in 2025. But non-competitive awards did not experience the same drop as all contract awards, which fell 32%.

But when looked at as a percentage of all awards, the number of non-competitive awards grew from 12.6% in the first seven months of 2025 to 14.8% for the same period in 2026.

We looked at procurement data by using our sibling organization GovTribe with an assist by Claude, Anthropic’s artificial intelligence tool.

The aggregate value of the non-competitive awards fell from 25.3% of total obligations in the first seven months of 2025 to 23.3% for the same period in 2026.

This is not a story of runaway dollars flowing to non-competitive awards, but the data does point to a growing share of individual contracting actions bypassing competition.

When diving into individual agencies and buyers, the Defense Department dominates the Top 10 with the Army Materiel Command capturing the top spot in 2025 so far at $5.72 billion in non-competitive obligations, compared to $7.21 billion in 2026.

The aggregate value of the top 10 fell from 2025 to 2026, going from $28 billion to $21 billion 2026.

All of the top 10 in 2025 were defense entities. The only non-defense entity in 2026 is the Coast Guard.

Given the trailing nature of defense reports, we likely have yet to see the full impact of spending on the Iran War in this data, but that will be a factor to track going forward.

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L3Harris presses pause on Missile Solutions IPO plan

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:20:27 -0400

L3Harris Technologies is postponing the planned initial public offering of its missile solutions segment after deciding that investors are undervaluing the business.

In L3Harris’ second quarter financial report released Wednesday, the company said it now will look to try again at an IPO in mid-2027 versus the original plan for the second half of this year. L3Harris first laid out its intended timeline for the IPO in January after the Defense Department agreed to invest $1 billion in Missile Solutions.

The framework for the IPO remains unchanged. L3Harris will continue as the majority owner and controller of this new company, in which the U.S. government will hold an equity stake. DOD’s initial investment is in the form of convertible preferred securities that will convert into common equity in the new company.

During an earnings conference call with investors Thursday, L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik cited the IPO landscape’s overall conditions as the main reason why the company has decided to pull back for now.

“We have land, we have operating factories, backlog, great financials, a great workforce, and we're actually making money,” Kubasik said. “A lot of the recent IPOs are obviously missing some or all of those key elements to a business, and the market is adjusting to valuation.

“I think we're kind of caught in that process a little bit, so I want to let everything settle down. We'll re-evaluate it,” Kubasik added.

As L3Harris sees the situation, the new path forward centers around efforts to grow Missile Solutions’ backlog and revenue profile before taking the business public. Kubasik said the company is currently negotiating $20 billion in new contracts that would triple the backlog.

Capacity expansion is also a core part of the IPO’s new timeline as L3Harris is working to build factories, assembly lines and production capacity for solid rocket motors and propulsion systems.

L3Harris does not believe it will need a bulk of the IPO’s proceeds until the 2027-to-2029 timeframe, Kubasik added.

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Inside the World Cup security operation

Chris Teale — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:00:00 -0400

The end of the FIFA World Cup earlier this month marked not only the culmination of years of hard work for the 48 teams, but also thousands of security professionals who worked behind the scenes to keep the tournament safe.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said 12 of its constituent agencies were involved in the effort to protect the World Cup that was hosted in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. That included inspecting vehicles, making arrests on human trafficking charges and flying air missions, as well as seizing unauthorized drones.

Combined, DHS and the Federal Bureau of Investigations said they seized more than 700 unauthorized drones, with the Federal Aviation Administration establishing no-drone zones to help with that effort.

“In one of the most complex security environments we’ve faced, DHS and our components helped deliver a safe and secure tournament while showcasing American exceptionalism. I want to thank the state and local law enforcement agencies across the country, as well as our federal partners, who worked around the clock to help keep millions of fans and visitors safe,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement. “Watching this tournament unfold and seeing the coordination behind the scenes has been extraordinary.”

Keeping the skies safe has been just one facet of World Cup security. Another major aspect was ensuring the venues, host cities and other activations like fan viewing areas did not suffer from cyberattacks. Alongside federal, state and local agencies — as well as private-sector partners, fusion centers and others — the Center for Internet Security joined with FIFA at its security operations center to monitor and mitigate the numerous threats the tournament faced.

John Cohen, executive director of CIS’ Office of Strategic Programs & Initiatives, said the worst-case scenario for organizers of any major event is not one specific event, like a cyberattack or an attack on physical infrastructure by a terrorist organization. Instead, he said organizers prepared for an attack that combines cyber and kinetic strikes, as well as the potential for public misinformation and first-responder communications being impacted to further scramble the response.

“What we were really concerned about is an integrated attack vector that integrated a physical attack, a mass casualty attack, whether it was a vehicle ramming or a mass shooting, simultaneously with a cyberattack, disrupting law enforcement's and first responders' ability to communicate,” Cohen said. “Then at the same time there was an information operation taking video from that attack and blasting it out all over the world. Those were the types of scenarios we focused on."

Planning for the World Cup took a great deal of coordination between the various agencies, something Cohen said FIFA handled well as a convening body. FIFA was also “smart,” Cohen said, in identifying those who had already worked in law enforcement at various levels of government who could be brought in and use their pre-existing relationships to “hit the ground running.”

Last year’s FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S. was seen as something of a dress rehearsal for the security operations effort, which Cohen said also involved building relationships across regions where games would be held, mapping critical infrastructure, holding tabletop exercises and training officials at every level on how to respond if there was any kind of attack.

And Cohen said it wasn’t like the World Cup this summer did not face threats; far from it. Instead, an “all hands on deck” approach helped mitigate those threats, he said.

“It wasn't that there weren't any threats, and it wasn't that nothing happened,” Cohen said. “In fact, we saw a considerable amount of threat-related activity. There were disruptions that took place by law enforcement to prevent attacks from occurring. There were cyber incidents that were in facilitation of criminal activity and other efforts. There was actual criminal activity, illegal ticketing, credentialing. They were just prepared for it, and it was handled really well.”

Combatting fraud was a crucial part of various security efforts during the World Cup, especially as fans looked to secure hard-to-come-by match tickets, as well as merchandise and other items. DHS said Customs and Border Protection seized more than 473,000 counterfeit merchandise items with a genuine retail value estimated to be $33 million. And the U.S. Department of Justice said it seized more than 1,000 internet domains that were used to illegally stream matches during the tournament. CIS had previously warned of illicit betting, fraud and athlete safety risks during the World Cup.

Meanwhile, identity verification and protection company Socure found fraud related to the World Cup originating in all manner of countries, including several that were not participating in the tournament itself. Socure said the fraud took various forms, including fraudsters creating multiple accounts to claim various bonuses or incentives; abusing referral programs and abusing synthetic identities to increase their return on investment in various scams.

The relentless nature of international sporting events means the world will once again descend on the United States — primarily Los Angeles — in two years for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Planning is already well underway, especially at the local level, with state and federal partners alongside the private sector.

Officials at all levels need to balance the safety of all those involved in an age of heightened threats with the desire to host major events. Cohen said it is always possible, but challenging at the same time.

“We can't live in our basements,” he said. “We have to be able to experience and enjoy life. For many people, it's through these types of sporting events. Unfortunately, they're happening at a time where the threat environment is pretty volatile and dangerous. That's the challenge facing law enforcement and security professionals in this day and age.”

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New documentary recounts ‘free-for-all attitude of cruelty’ toward axed federal employees

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 01:00:00 -0400

When the documentary first features Katie Sandlin, a former employee at the National Institutes of Health, she apologizes that her car is making a “weird noise” but promises that it’ll stop once she gets on the road.

Sandlin — who was fired last year during the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal workforce, after serving in her job for only a month — shared with the filmmakers some of the comments she had received online since posting about her job loss.

“You’re an oversized, unhealthy, bloated, fat f***, and thank God you’ve been fired,” she reads from her laptop. “Hopefully, soon at least you’ll not have the money to keep eating like a pig.”

Sandlin is one of several fired, laid off or otherwise pushed out civil servants featured in “Heist,” an Emmy-nominated short documentary that chronicles the personal and political impacts of federal job losses during the first half of 2025.

“We really felt we had to archive this no matter what happened,” said Ilene Kristen, one of the film’s producers. “No matter whether we could make this into a film — or not a film — we knew that we had to to capture this.”

The filmmakers, for instance, recorded newly unemployed federal employees trying to meet with lawmakers in the halls of Congress, asking them to push back on the administration’s agency job cuts and expressing concerns about the continued effectiveness of the programs they worked on. Several Capitol Hill offices called the police to remove the individuals.

There’s also many clips of axed civil servants exiting their former headquarters with the contents of desks and offices. At the U.S. Agency for International Development, workers were each assigned a 15-minute time slot to clear out.

“This happened because of a minority of people with agendas that are very destructive and greed-oriented,” said Rebecca Cammisa, the film’s director and a two-time Oscar nominee. “It was a free-for-all attitude of cruelty.”

The Trump administration argues that its agency staff cuts and reorganizations — including at USAID, which lost nearly all of its workforce after it was folded into the State Department — will enhance efficiency and slash spending.

The filmmakers behind “Heist,” however, contend that the downsizing of the civil service is benefiting individuals allied with the president. For example, the documentary highlights that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one of the top agencies targeted for job cuts by the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency, had been set to regulate one of Musk’s companies.

“We can't even have real debates about policy and what we think is right when government is no longer honest and the levers of power are quietly being pulled by the people who pay for that access,” said David Cowan, one of the producers.

The producing team is continuing the focus on civil servants; their next planned documentary will be about former feds running for office.

“Federal workers aren't people who are just purged and are down,” Cammisa said. “They've created organizations to help feed people. They've created organizations to help each other. Federal workers have created all kinds of things now that they're free to do it — and run for office because they're trying to reclaim government for the people.”

Still, the filmmakers are worried that the federal firings and layoffs could leave lasting damage to public services. With this in mind, they began and ended the documentary at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial on the National Mall.

“I think it was a good framework because these are the policies that are being screwed around with [by the Trump administration] that were part of [FDR’s] New Deal to put people back to work and to give people certain protections,” Kristen said.

The documentary’s closing shot features a young person taking a picture of statues in the FDR Memorial representing an unemployed couple during the Great Depression. The tourist puts her “Make America Great Again” baseball cap on them, remarking, “They became Trump supporters,” with a laugh.

“After the young lady left, Rebecca sat and cried,” Kristen recalled. “This is our country, folks. Like it or not, this is our country.”

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Leidos books $717M ISR support award with Air Combat Command

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:45:05 -0400

Leidos has secured a $717 million task order to continue its support for the Air Force’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations.

The Top 100 company has been supporting the Air Combat Command since 2019. The order includes a one-year base period and four individual option years, Leidos said Tuesday.

Work covers 35 locations in the U.S. and overseas. Leidos employees are embedded with the Air Force supporting day-to-day mission execution.

Leidos will provide subject matter expertise, intelligence analysis, threat mitigation, ISR operations support, training, and mission support services for ACC headquarters, subordinate numbered Air Forces, centers, and wings.

“Airmen operate in an environment where decisions often depend on the speed, quality and clarity of intelligence,” Jason McCarthy, Leidos' senior vice president of airborne and mission solutions, said in a release. “This next phase of work builds on that foundation with the insight and operational expertise needed to help airmen assess threats, prepare for missions and support operations around the world.”

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Leidos saving money, employee time through expanded ServiceNow partnership

Frank Konkel — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:28:30 -0400

Leidos this week announced an expansion of the ServiceNow AI Platform across its enterprise, providing autonomous, AI-driven workflows expected to reduce costs and ultimately improve the experience of its 50,000 global employees.

The expansion of ServiceNow’s suite of agentic AI capabilities builds on a fruitful, decade-long partnership between the two companies, according to Leidos SVP & Chief Information Officer Alexandra Guenther.

“The length of the partnership is not as important as the ethos of the two companies involved in that partnership,” Guenther said in an interview. “Leidos’ success with AI transformation, building efficiencies and improving business value requires partners to seek continuous modernization. [With ServiceNow], we’re infusing new capabilities that extend the platform’s value further.”

Guenther said ServiceNow’s deployment enhances productivity without sacrificing security—the company’s ServiceNow deployment runs across all FedRAMP environments—which is critical for a company with so many national security-focused customers.

"When you're managing national security workflows, you can't move fast without visibility and governance," said Paul Fipps, president of global customer operations at ServiceNow. "By unifying HR, IT, and shared services on the ServiceNow AI Platform, with AI Control Tower governing the deployment, Leidos can identify workflows and scale AI-enabled operations without adding complexity."

According to Guenther, Leidos expects major returns on its ServiceNow investment. The company expects ServiceNow’s AI-driven IT desk to save $3 million annually, with Level 1 incident resolution time shaved from days down to minutes. In addition, Leidos says ServiceNow’s AI agents will resolve up to 60% of IT tickets autonomously—without human intervention—with the potential to eliminate as many as 80,000 IT tickets each year.

For many Leidos’ employees, automation isn’t new. The company was an early adopter of what became ServiceNow EmployeeWorks, a “unified front door” for employees to use a single conversational AI interface “to search through and interact with Leidos’ data.” In natural language, employees can query an app on their device for numerous requests, “freeing up time for employees with proactive IT issue resolution.”

Early reviews have been positive, Guenther said, and because the vast majority of Leidos’ employees are customer-facing, improved employee performance translates to improved customer outcomes, too.

“By connecting employees with the right information when they need it, we’re enabling our employees to stay focused on solving our customers’ toughest challenges and turning technology into advantage,” she said.

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Parsons moves to divest advisory, remote location contracts

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:13:39 -0400

Parsons Corp. has completed the sale of two advisory contracts and entered into an agreement to sell a pair of others in order to readjust the company’s federal solutions portfolio.

During Parsons’ second quarter earnings call Wednesday, chief executive Carey Smith took investors through the rationale behind these decisions and how the company views its future after closing these agreements.

The SETA contract divestitures are intended to avoid an organizational conflict-of-interest with an intelligence community customer, Smith said. Many contractors have done the same over the years as the government has sought to draw clear lines between advisory and development work.

“When you look at the opportunity that we have in the development side, it's over 8-to-10 times the opportunity we had on the SETA side, so we needed to make a decision which side we were going to play on,” Smith said. “Particularly with the acquisition of Altamira, this reinforces the strategic logic because of their very strong position with that intelligence community customer.”

Parsons closed its $330 million cash purchase of Altamira in January as part of the buyer’s efforts to increase its technology prototyping portfolio.

While Parsons does try to minimize its SETA work, the Missile Defense Agency remains an exception to the rule given the company’s four-decade relationship with MDA. Smith said Parsons made “a conscious decision that we are going to stay on the SETA side of the house” at MDA.

MDA awarded Parsons a two-year, $514 million option during the quarter on the contract Parsons captured in 2021 for broad systems engineering work. That contract is part of MDA’s portfolio of administrative and acquisition support contracts known as TEAMS -- Technical, Engineering, Advisory and Management Support.

“It's a critical diver for Golden Dome, both the work we're doing on systems engineering, as well as our facilities life cycle management work and our test work,” Smith said.

Golden Dome is the Trump administration’s plan for a nationwide, multilayered missile defense system. Smith said some funds are starting to flow for that effort and Parsons’ technical support services contract with the Federal Aviation Administration, but added it is not “some huge flush yet.”

“Part of the challenge they've got with some of the contracting offices is the backlog that they're facing and the workforce constraints that they're up against,” Smith said. “That remains to be seen how strong that's going to be over the next couple of months.”

Parsons has also entered into a letter of intent with an unnamed buyer that will acquire two federal programs in remote locations, which Smith described as facing numerous issues that would have required “extensive subcontracting and a disproportion of management attention” to address.

“We thought that we could execute through self-performance. But over time, the operating environment got more challenging, particularly around staffing and supply chain and we ran into some recent challenges with the (Strait of Hormuz’s) closure. The work is in a very remote location and a difficult one to perform work,” Smith said.

“The right decision was to pursue an exit and the party that's assuming the work already has an established presence at the location, as well as resources and assets,” Smith added.

Second quarter revenue of $1.6 billion was down 1% from the prior year period and 5% lower on an organic basis, while profit of $42 million showed a 72% year-over-year decrease in adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).

The bottom-line figure includes $118 million in charges related to the remote contracts being held for sale and a joint venture program change in its critical infrastructure segment. Excluding those charges, Parsons reported $161 million in adjusted EBITDA to show an 8% increase from the prior year period.

Parsons lowered both key metrics in its new guidance for 2026, which puts revenue in the $6.2 billion-to-$6.5 billion range on adjusted EBITDA of $500 million-to-$560 million. The company’s prior outlook put revenue in the $6.5 billion-to-$6.8 billion range on adjusted EBITDA of $615 million-to-$675 million.

In 2025, Parsons reported revenue of $6.3 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $609 million.

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Disclosure for thee but not for me

David P.J. Timm — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:55:59 -0400

Federal agencies using generative artificial intelligence to evaluate contractor bids are required to study, manage, and disclose their use of GenAI tools.

However, watchdog reports show agencies are shirking these obligations and incentivizing “Shadow AI” use by government employees. In 2025, the Office of Management and Budget issued memoranda, M-25-21 and M-25-22, requiring agencies to identify their GenAI use cases and determine whether they were “high-impact.”

High-impact means an AI output serving “as a principal basis for decisions or actions that have a legal, material, binding, or significant effects on rights or safety.” If a use case is high impact, the memos require civilian agencies to say so in the solicitation and implement minimum risk management practices.^{^[1]} The memos also require agencies to publish an AI use case inventory annually. Civilian agencies aren’t complying with these requirements.

There is no doubt that the evaluation of bids with GenAI tools fits the definition of a “high-impact AI” use case. Evaluators may rely in whole or in part on a GenAI tool to disqualify a contractor’s bid for non-compliance with solicitation requirements. GenAI tools might also help rank proposals, assign strengths, weaknesses, or risks.

Any of these would be high-impact use cases because they directly affect whether a contractor is awarded a contract, i.e., they form the principal basis for decisions that have legal, material, binding, and significant effects on contractors and government spending.

Despite this, more than a year after the memos were created, only a handful of solicitations warn that GenAI tools might be used to evaluate bids and these are all DoD procurements, which are exempted from OMB’s requirements.^{^[2]}

In other words, defense agencies that are not required to report GenAI use are occasionally reporting such use anyway, whereas civilian agencies that are required to report GenAI use are not. In 2026, civilian agencies published hundreds of AI use cases, more than 50 of which involved procurement processes or administrative functions and GenAI, agentic AI, or natural language processing.^{^[3]} Only one of these was labeled high-impact.^{^[4]}

Downgrading procurement use cases is a self-serving tactic that allows agencies to trade transparency for administrative convenience. For instance, the VA boasts that its AI procurement tools enable “automated compliance checks” and “automated drafting and analysis of procurement documents.” But because the VA did not label this as a “high-impact” use case, the VA has not conducted an independent review, had no ongoing monitoring process in place, and did not provide “training for operators of the AI.”

This general approach was criticized in a June 2026 VA inspector general report, which said the agency failed to designate “VA GPT" as a high-impact use case because VA leaders inaccurately “equated use of AI chat tools to using a search engine.”^{^[5]}

The IG report said “this analogy is flawed.” Whether intentionally or not, the VA mislabeled its procurement GenAI use cases allowing it to avoid the OMB requirements for oversight.

This problem is not limited to the VA. In May 2026, the Department of Agriculture’s IG released a scathing report explaining that the agency failed to implement adequate governance controls for approved AI use cases and warned that there was an increased risk of shadow AI use due to poor inventory controls.^{^[6]} In early July 2026, HHS announced its own IG investigation into its AI governance was underway.^{^[7]} Others are bound to follow.

It is one thing to incorrectly label GenAI use cases to avoid administrative hassle. In those cases, at least the use case is publicly disclosed, and the tool itself is running on vetted government systems.

But in other cases, as the USDA report suggests, lax reporting requirements “contribute to instances of Shadow AI” meaning the agency is vulnerable to data leakage through unsanctioned GenAI tools. An environment like this does not inspire confidence that contractor proprietary data will be protected.

The government’s lack of transparency about its own use of GenAI coincides with a push for new, costly, and burdensome disclosure rules for contractors, while agencies are concurrently demanding AI solutions and displaying preference for contractors using GenAI. The government’s mismanagement of GenAI in procurement is undermining trust and is likely to lead to a flurry of unnecessary bid protests.

As agencies shirk their own GenAI-related duties, they are aggressively seeking to impose rules on contractors while simultaneously demanding more AI-related solutions. In June 2026, GSA released a second version of its proposed AI clause, GSAR 552.239-7001, which would create costly and complicated disclosure requirements for contractors using GenAI to perform contracts.^{^[8]} The proposed language does not include reciprocal rules for GSA to disclose its own use of GenAI tools.

It is not as if the government is uninterested in GenAI. In fact, civilian agencies are aggressively seeking GenAI solutions from contractors. In June, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the VA’s Office of Information and Technology told contractors at an industry-day event that “AI is becoming an expectation for use of the VA.”^{^[9]}

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently defended a bid protest challenging award to a contractor whose offer included a 15% price premium.^{^[10]} The awardee said it would use Gemini AI to keep documents up to date. The agency said “AI and cloud management are major. . . mission goals” that justified “paying a price premium.”

The protester complained that the evaluation criteria did not mention AI at all. Nevertheless, GAO found a “nexus between the evaluation criteria and NOAA’s consideration of [the awardee’s] intended use of an AI tool.” Contractors competing for awards are thus incentivized to implement GenAI tools into their proposed scopes of work whether they were inclined to do so or not.

On the evaluation side, the Federal Acquisition Regulation requires independent and documented judgment from human evaluators.[11] In early 2026, a protester alleged, but later abandoned, an argument that an agency “improperly relied upon [GenAI], rather than agency evaluators, to conduct the evaluation.”^{^[12]}

If evaluators use Shadow AI, there would be no records for the contractor to make this argument. In the January protest, the AI evaluation argument was discarded due to lack of evidence. More bid protests are likely to come as the ungoverned and undisclosed use of GenAI tools results in errors throughout the procurement process, but if agencies do not comply with the OMB rules it will complicate how contractors prove their allegations.

While no bid protest has gone to the merits on this issue, agencies are playing with fire every time evaluators use GenAI procurement tools without adequate controls and oversight. The government should follow its own rules and correctly label GenAI procurement tools as “high-impact.” Agencies should test their GenAI use cases, train their employees, and manage negative potential impacts. Contractors should demand the bare minimum from the Government.

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David P.J. Timm is a partner in Burr & Forman’s Washington, D.C. office where he litigates bid protests and claims for contractors. David is the Chair of the Federal Bar Association’s Bid Protest Committee and the Co-Chair of Burr’s AI Committee.

[1] Likewise, M-25-22, Section 4(d) says that “When evaluating proposals agencies must, to the greatest extent practicable, test proposed solutions to understand capabilities and limitations of any offered AI system or service.”

[2] OMB M-25-21 and -22 apply to all agencies “except for the Department of Defense. . .”

[3] Based on an independent review of publicly available civilian AI use case inventories. Some notable “not high-impact” procurement related use cases include the Department of Agriculture’s “Procuresight,” the Department of Energy’s “AI for Vendor Compliance,” the General Services Administration’s “Leveraging retrieval augmented generation AI to power outcome-based contracting,” The Department of Health and Human Service’s “Assisting reviews and co-drafting technical evaluation documents,” the Department of Justice’s “Acquisition Support Tool,” the Department of the Treasury’s “AI-assisted POC,” and the Department of Veterans Affairs “VA GPT.”

[4] Department of Veterans Affairs Use Case ID No. VA-25-3573 (claims adjudication and financial decision-making).

[5] Review of Generative Artificial Intelligence Chat Tools for Clinical Use, Report No. 2600182-140, June 11, 2026.

[6] Cybersecurity of Artificial Intelligence Technology at USDA, Report No. 50801-0018-12, May 12, 2026.

[7] https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/work-plan/browse-work-plan-projects/audit-of-hhs-governance-of-artificial-intelligence/

[8] See https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/17/2026-12205/general-services-acquisition-regulation-acquisition-of-information-and-communication-technology

[9] https://fedscoop.com/veterans-affairs-ai-it-zack-schwartz/

[10] TechGlobal, Inc., B-424287, B-424287.2 (June 1, 2026).

[11] FAR 15.308.

[12] Salient CRGT, Inc., B-423640.2, B-423640.4 (January 5, 2026).

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FCC blocks approval of new foreign-made robots, power inverters

David DiMolfetta — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday blocked new models of foreign-made mobile robots and connected power inverters from entering the U.S. market, citing national security findings that the devices could create supply-chain vulnerabilities and be exploited to threaten critical infrastructure.

The commission added foreign-produced mobile robots and connected power inverters to its Covered List, which outlines those products deemed too high a risk for national security. The agency defines the covered robots as “advanced robotic devices,” including humanoids and quadrupeds.

The designation prevents new models from receiving the FCC authorization generally required before electronic devices can be imported, marketed or sold in the United States. It applies to products made in any foreign country.

The findings were issued by a White House-convened interagency body that the FCC said included national security agencies. The commission did not identify the body or disclose which agencies and officials participated.

The action marks a notable expansion of the FCC’s national security role into technology markets far beyond traditional telecommunications equipment. The agency’s Covered List initially focused largely on products and services supplied by specific Chinese companies, including Huawei and ZTE, but the commission has increasingly used its equipment authorization powers to block entire categories of foreign-produced devices. The FCC previously took similar steps involving foreign-made drones, drone components and consumer routers.

Asked about the specific nature of the national security assessments, an FCC official, who spoke with reporters Tuesday, cited the publicly posted determinations that informed the decision. The remote connectivity capabilities built into many of the devices create inherent security vulnerabilities, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity per ground rules of the discussion.

As inverter-based resources proliferate across the U.S. electric grid, their remote connections introduce vulnerabilities that could be exploited in several ways, according to the respective finding. Foreign companies could potentially use that access to turn off inverters, collect and remove data, conduct surveillance on behalf of foreign governments or carry out cyberattacks, the determination said.

The separate determination covering robots cited risks arising from the devices’ networked capabilities, which can affect both the information they collect and their physical operation.

Those connections can create vulnerabilities and vectors for attacks that can manipulate the data and physical operation of the advanced robotic system, the determination said.

Manufacturers can seek exemptions by obtaining “Conditional Approval” after the government determines that a device or class of devices does not pose an unacceptable risk. The Department of Defense will make those findings for advanced robotic devices. For power inverters, either DOD or the Department of Homeland Security can grant approval.

The action applies only to new device models. Foreign-made robots and inverters previously approved through the FCC’s equipment-authorization process can continue to be imported, marketed, sold and used in the United States. The designation also does not restrict the federal government or federal agencies from purchasing or operating the devices.

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Antares fetches $470M to move on military base reactor push

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:07:41 -0400

Antares, a nuclear power startup that designs small modular reactors, has completed a $470 million Series C capital raise to move ahead on efforts to build those systems for U.S. military bases.

For Antares, this new financing round announced Tuesday comes a mere seven months after the three-year-old company closed a $96 million Series B raise ahead of a key demonstration for the Idaho National Laboratory.

Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital led the Series C round with participation from Industrias Ventures, Point72 Ventures and Shine Capital.

Nuclear power is of keen interest to government agencies and commercial enterprises, as well as investors, amid rising electricity demand from data center operators and others that run artificial intelligence workloads.

Antares’ Mark-0 reactor achieved criticality on June 4 at INL in what the company touts as the first time in four decades that a privately-developed, non-light-water reactor achieved such a designation.

Antares is also one of three finalists in a Defense Department initiative for testing small modular reactors at Air Force bases in Colorado and Montana.

Radiant Industries and Westinghouse are competing with Antares for selection under the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installation program. The winner will work with the Air Force to have advanced nuclear reactor operating on at least one of the service branch’s installation by 2030 or sooner.

"On June 4th, we won the race to criticality, and now we’ve shifted to the race to commercialization," Jordan Bramble, CEO and co-founder of Antares, said in a release. "The military has been a partner to us every step of the way. We’ve secured firm contracts to build reactors.”

Antares describes its government customer network as including the Air Force, Space Force, Defense Innovation Unit and NASA.

“Our deep customer relationships and committed orderbook allow us to focus our engineering roadmap on one simple thing from here on out - reactors that operate reliably and safely for 6+ years deployed to military installations as soon as 2028,” Bramble added.

The $470 million Series C figure breaks out to $370 million in equity and $100 million in debt, which Antares will use to accelerate its path from demonstrating its reactor to fielding by 2028.

Sept. 30, 2028 also represents a deadline set forth by President Trump’s Executive Order 14299 for DOD to begin operating a reactor at a domestic military installation.

Antares is eyeing 2027 as the year for the Mark-1 reactor to begin producing electricity.

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DISA launches market research for combatant command migration

Nick Wakeman — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:06:50 -0400

The Defense Information Systems Agency has kicked off the market research portion of the corrective action it took in response to General Dynamics IT's protest against DISA's plan to expand the $11 billion Enclave contract.

In a sources sought notice posted Monday, DISA addresses the market research shortcomings GDIT tagged in its protest of the agency’s plan to add combatant commands to the Enclave IT environment.

DISA awarded Leidos the contract in 2022 to migrate administrative and support agencies to the DODNet. The expansion would have added the commands as well.

Inadequate market research was one of several complaints GDIT raised in its protest. DISA's corrective action means it will conduct new market research, make a new acquisition approach decision and create a new acquisition plan.

While Monday’s notice makes no mention of the corrective action or GDIT's protest, the notice effectively implements the market research portion and acquisition planning of the corrective action.

Instead of the protest, DISA cites a May 22 memo from Pentagon Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies ordering DISA to consolidate the combatant commands into single network as the reason for conducting the market research.

DISA also used the May 22 memo to justify expanding the Enclave contract when it posted the justification document in June.

The new sources sought notice says that DISA wants to consolidate the 11 combatant commands (with 231,000 users at 200 global sites) onto DODNet. DISA wants a single contract for all migration activities.

DISA's goal is to complete the migration by the end of the government's fiscal year 2028.

The winning contractor needs to demonstrate several capabilities such as identity and access management, zero trust architecture, infrastructure as code, and established migration methodologies.

Having a secret level facility security clearance is another minimum requirement.

DISA expects to award a contract within 220 days of releasing the final solicitation.

Responses to the sources sought notice are due Aug. 4.

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Carlyle Group buys data protection tech maker

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:57:21 -0400

The Carlyle Group has acquired a hardware encryption maker in a move that represents the global investment firm’s first such via its new platform focused on medium-sized companies.

Secturion Systems opened for business in 2012 to develop cybersecurity and data protection technologies for defense and intelligence systems. Secturion’s products are certified by the National Security Agency to transmit classified data across government systems.

As part of the transaction announced Tuesday, former Everfox CEO Sean Berg will join Secturion as chief executive to lead this new iteration of the strategy. Josh Falslev and Derek Owens will continue in their respective roles of chief operating officer and chief technology officer.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“As quantum computing advances and AI-enabled threats grow more sophisticated, the need for hardware-based, high-assurance encryption has never been greater, and Secturion is uniquely positioned to address those needs,” Berg said in a release.

Berg previously led the Everfox business for eight years, including when it operated as the federal arm of Forcepoint. Everfox was carved out of Forcepoint in 2023, then Berg worked in the CEO role for two-and-a-half years.

Carlyle first unveiled its middle-market play in May and said it would explore investment opportunities in both the U.S. and Europe.

D.A. Davidson & Co. acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Secturion. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati acted as legal advisor to Secturion. Latham & Watkins LLP acted as legal adviser to Carlyle.

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A playbook for thriving with OneGov and the FAR Overhaul

Nick Wakeman — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 12:24:26 -0400

The rules of the procurement game are being written as we speak, but government contractors should not wait for the dust to settle.

Executives speaking at the GovExec Government Efficiency Summit on July 16 offered concrete examples of what companies should be doing as initiatives like the General Services Administration's OneGov tech acquisition program and the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul move forward.

“I tell my team that in chaos there’s opportunity,” said Rocky Thurston, CEO of DMI. His fellow panelists were Stephanie Kostro, president of the Professional Services Council; and Anirudh Kulkarni, CEO of CVP Corp.

Companies focused on providing labor will be less successful moving forward.

“If your value proposition was I know how to get great people, I think that value proposition is eroding very quickly,” Kulkarni said.

The mission is what should lead your sales pitch, not code and not labor hours. This is particularly true with agencies that have been early adopters of the class deviations that kicked off the overhaul of federal acquisition regulations, Thurston said.

“We are seeing this with a number of agencies that we support. They are moving toward the intent of the overhaul,” he said.

DMI has one customer that came to them to convert a contract from time-and-material to outcome-based.

“We’ve had a T&M contract for five years, but we came together and suggested that we make it firm-fixed unit price, outcome delivery contract and we are trying to get to pure outcomes,” he said. “They saw the writing on the wall.”

To make the conversion, DMI wrapped its existing agile delivery teams into a fixed-price unit. The customer now pays for a sprint rather than paying by labor hour.

The keys to making these conversions a possibility is education and supporting the government workforce, Kulkarni said.

“Everybody intellectually understands this where things are going but I would say we are very much in the early stages,” Kulkarni said. “A big issue is we have an overworked, understaffed, and in some cases, not a terribly knowledgeable contracting workforce.”

The Trump administration has focused on efficiency and speed with the Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul, OneGov, the Defense Department’s Tradewinds program and other initiatives.

Contractors have to focus on efficiency and speed too, the panelists said.

"If you can demonstrate efficiency and prove it, you have an opportunity to distinguish yourself from a very large population of suppliers,” Kulkarni said.

It is also very important for contractors to explain to the customer how to buy from them, Kulkarni said.

Companies cannot do that via PowerPoint presentations, according to Thurston.

“The days of that are over,” Thurston said. “If you don’t come in with a demonstration of value add of a mission outcome, then you might as well not even get in the door.”

But even the panelists cautioned that speed and efficiency have limits if the government does not also fix how it defines what the needs are in the first place.

Kulkarni said it is too optimistic to expect substantive change over the next 18 months.

"Making the processes more efficient is going to take some time, but we also need to make the requirements process more straightforward," Kostro said. "If you only change the way in which you procure things and not the way in which you identify what you need, the timelines are going to be long."

Kostro pointed to a GAO report published July 2 that found the Defense Department still needs 12 years to go from concept to fielding a program despite multiple reform efforts over the years.

“Unacceptable. Twelve years," Kostro said.

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Leonardo DRS to acquire Raft for $450M

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 12:22:24 -0400

Leonardo DRS has agreed to acquire defense software integrator Raft for $450 million in cash as part of a push to incorporate data fusion and artificial intelligence into military systems.

Raft CEO Shubhi Mishra started the company in 2018 to build open architecture software with AI and data integration functions built into the product. The idea is to give operators a single, common operating picture and reduce cognitive burdens on users by automating much of the data collection and fusion work.

In its Tuesday announcement, Leonardo DRS said it is looking to build out its advanced sensing and network computing product portfolio with the addition of Raft. All parties involved expect the transaction to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Our customers increasingly require integrated hardware, software, data and autonomy to support mission outcomes. The acquisition of Raft will build on and accelerate the organic investment that DRS has made in that evolution,” Leonardo DRS CEO John Baylouny said in a release. “Raft adds proven software talent and open-architecture technology that complement our existing sensing and computing capabilities and strengthen our ability to deliver AI-enabled mission solutions at the speed our customers demand.”

Leonardo DRS’ advisers for the transaction are Morgan Stanley, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP. Raft’s advisers are J.P. Morgan Securities and Greenberg Traurig LLP.

Executives at Leonardo DRS plan to detail the rationale behind this transaction during the company’s second quarter earnings conference call with investors on Thursday.

Raft has been backed by the investment firm Washington Harbour Partners for the past two years, during which the company has pushed to further scale out its research-and-development efforts.

Mishra has appeared twice on our WT 360 podcast, first in 2022 and then again in 2024 following the agreement with Washington Harbour Partners.

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GSA strikes new OneGov deal with CORAS

Christian Robles — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400

The General Services Administration has struck an agreement with CORAS, an enterprise decision management platform company, to provide federal agencies with discounted access to its agentic artificial intelligence platform through Sept. 30, 2027, the agency announced Tuesday.

CORAS will offer agencies discounted access to Gary, an agentic AI orchestrator that can turn a plain language request into a “decision-ready work product” for tradeoff analysis, acquisition artifacts, secure workflows, reporting and forecasting, GSA said.

Agencies can use Gary to turn an idea into a working application in days, rather than a traditional software development timeline of six to twelve months, reducing effort by up to 50% for decision-bound work, GSA said.

“Gary runs a governed digital workforce that takes the manual analysis, reporting, and paperwork off people’s desks and executes it under human-authored rules, with a person approving every result and a full audit trail behind it,” said Dan Naselius, president and chief technology officer of CORAS.

CORAS will specifically offer agencies an 80% discount for Gary Insight and a 40% discount for Gary Execute through the OneGov agreement, GSA said.

Gary Insight includes agentic reporting and ETL capabilities, advanced analytics, dashboard generation and access to the CORAS agent catalog. Gary Execute includes agentic workflows, orchestration, enterprise decision-support capabilities and AI configuration support.

The CORAS agreement includes an optional 90-day pilot allowing federal agencies to evaluate mission-specific use cases before enabling broader deployment, a GSA spokesperson told Nextgov/FCW.

The CORAS agreement is the latest made under GSA’s OneGov strategy, which aims to give federal agencies low-cost access to software by treating the government as one centralized buyer. Over a dozen tech firms — including Broadcom, Snowflake, Microsoft and OpenAI — have signed agreements with the GSA since OneGov launched in April 2025.

GSA leadership has signaled they want OneGov agreements to offer discounts for products beyond software. They also want companies to extend temporary OneGov discounts while they continue discussing the possibility for companies to become direct contractors through the Multiple Award Schedule.

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