Big mergers that essentially create new companies require a lot of work to harmonize all of the people, processes and resources into something more cohesive across the organization.

Jeremy Wensinger joined V2X as chief executive in June to lead this new phase of what he calls “optimization” now that all the integration activities stemming from the 2022 merger that made the company are done.

In this episode, Wensinger explains to our Ross Wilkers how V2X is working to optimize the broader portfolio it now has in the name of growth and expansion across the government market. 

Wensinger also describes where he sees V2X residing in the still-very fragmented federal services landscape, how it approaches technology insertion and what this new chapter means for the company’s 16,000 employees.

One of the government market’s most-anticipated transactions closed on Sept. 30 when what we can call “Old Amentum” joined forces with Jacobs’ federal-facing units.

This episode sees Steve Arnette, chief operating officer at what we can now call “New Amentum,” take our Ross Wilkers through all that went into putting this larger company together and where everyone wants to go from here.

Underpinning this new version of Amentum’s vision and goals is what it calls a “technology-enabled growth strategy.” Arnette walks through that very strategy, how it applies to the company’s priority markets and what all of this means for Amentum’s 53,000 employees around the world.

Many of the ingredients for creating more connective tissues between business, government and society are already in place even with so much commentary and conversation around what may be lacking on that front.

NobleReach Foundation launched in 2022 to be at the forefront of making more of those links happen. In this episode, NobleReach’s chief executive Arun Gupta describes how the nonprofit looks to do just that by taking others with them along the way.

Entrepreneurs out there who want to be part of solving big problems are both a core constituency of NobleReach and agencies that want greater access into that part of the innovation ecosystem, as Gupta explains to our Ross Wilkers.

Gupta co-authored the book “Venture Meets Mission” alongside his colleagues Gerard George and Thomas Fewer to lay out a roadmap and guiding principles for better alignment.

Parsons Corp. was born an engineering company in 1944 and remains such today in a world vastly different than the one it started in.

Company number 39 on our 2022 Top 100 rankings is also equally a software business in both its government and infrastructure markets as told to us by Peter Torrellas, president of the company's connected communities business.

Our senior reporter Ross Wilkers spoke to Torrellas in conjunction with Parsons' official unveiling of a new solution set and delivery model, which helps explain where the company is going and how it sees markets as becoming converged.

Regarding that word "converged" -- do any lines exist anymore between what is digital and what is physical? Wilkers asks that question too and Torrellas answered.

Change is a prevalent theme among Top 100 companies as they constantly adapt to customer needs, technology trends and competitive pressures.

The focus of this Project 38 episode is NCI Information Systems' rebrand and relaunch as Empower AI 33 years after its founding -- a story that should resonate across the market.

CEO Paul Dillahay explains to Editor Nick Wakeman how that change was years in the making and is much more than just swapping out one name for another. It’s also not just about picking a strategy and sticking to it, but letting all of that transform a company.

Hot technologies come and go, but building person-to-person relationships is ultimately what drives success.

Marketing experts Mark Amtower and Sheri Ascencio share the story of their mentor-protégé relationship with Editor Nick Wakeman. While Amtower is the mentor, they describe a relationship where the value flows in both directions.

Their bottom-line advice is that everyone needs a mentor and everyone eventually should look to be a mentor. No one succeeds alone.

Private equity in the government market is a two-way street in that many companies are looking for a investment partner to resource them, the latter of which also is looking for a business opportunity.

For this episode of Project 38, Sagewind Capital's founding partner Steve Lefkowitz and managing partner Raj Kanodia take our Ross Wilkers behind the scenes of how their private equity firm works with contractors to build and grow.

The conversation naturally turns to how the search for acquisitions goes for Sagewind's portfolio companies: Axient, By Light, Federal Advisory Partners, Gcom and Sigma Defense Systems.

But in a portfolio company is also step one in many ways, so Lefkowitz and Kanodia also explain how Sagewind works with businesses on organic growth and infrastructure they need to succeed.

DeEtte Gray, president of CACI International’s business and information technology solutions sector, counts herself lucky because she had role models ahead of her. But more work remains to be done even though female leaders have come a long way.

For this episode of Project 38, Gray explains to Editor Nick Wakeman how she acts as role model and coach to others . She shares her best advice for future female executives -- take on challenges, be courageous, be confident and be prepared.

As president of CACI International’s business and information technology solutions segment, DeEtte Gray is responsible for delivering enterprise expertise and enterprise technology to CACI's customers. Her sector will account for about 45 percent of the company’s $6.2 billion in expected 2022 revenue.

That’s a huge piece of business to keep on a growth trajectory and in this episode of Project 38, she describes to Editor Nick Wakeman her strategy and how she keeps the business focused and pushing forward.

This includes her philosophy for picking contracts to pursue and building the capabilities that will differentiate CACI from competitors. The last thing she wants is to be in price shoot-out. Instead, she focuses on timing, competition, and CACI’s discriminators. And of course, you have to have the right answer to the question, “Why hire us?”

A shortlist of today's stressors on the federal technology ecosystem include not enough high-quality computer chips to go around and other supply chain shortages, which are taking place amid the digital transformation push inside government.

But as part of this Project 38 episode, World Wide Technology's public sector leader Bryan Thomas tells our Ross Wilkers that commercial enterprises are going through much of the same dynamics as government agencies.

The main difference is found in the tools and methods businesses have to navigate those challenges, which Thomas points to as a matter mostly of policy and buying practices within government.

He also triangulates how technology, talent and investments relate to one another with the goal of both bringing government IT systems into the modern age and bringing more workers into the public sector ecosystem.

Finding one’s niche in the vast and sometimes opaque world of artificial intelligence is a daunting task for many businesses amid the ongoing AI hype cycle.

In this episode of Project 38, SparkCognition’s government leader Logan Jones explains to our Ross Wilkers the company’s self-touted “full-spectrum AI” strategy and how they are working to map it with what the Defense Department is trying to achieve in AI.

AI is a means to the end as Jones sees it, rather than being the end, so the conversation gets into technologies intended to feed into the larger solution.

Check out these articles from WT and its partner publications for more background:

SparkCognition's government shop names lead exec

DOD Debuts Office to Help It 'Move Faster' on Artificial Intelligence

Pentagon adds new top AI role

DOD's AI portfolio skews toward research, GAO reports

Putting widely held beliefs to the test and challenging each other is a necessary exercise for any team to succeed and stay on that path of success.

For this episode of Project 38, FedSavvy Strategies’ leader Bring Lindholm breaks down to our Ross Wilkers how he sees businesses in the government market repeatedly falling into the same patterns of decision-making when it comes to their pursuits.

Lindholm and his FedSavvy teammates recently dove deep into some common misconceptions they run into with their Deadly Sins in Proposals series and this opinion article written for us -- Can you spot your Achilles' heel in your next pursuit?

As Lindholm sees it, arming one’s company with information and deeper understanding translates to being smarter in how they spend their dollars. This episode is intended as a roadmap for how to get there.

Maggie Hallbach was nearly 18 months into her time at Verizon’s federal unit when she got the call to lead the telecommunications giant’s entire public sector portfolio.

For this episode of Project 38, Hallbach describes to our Ross Wilkers how she leans on experienced gained in a previous role at Verizon’s state and local government business and other key agenda items since her promotion in February.

One of Hallbach’s main priorities will be Verizon’s growth and execution on the so-called “EIS” contract vehicle for network modernization solutions. Where agencies are on their modernization path is a mixed bag however and Hallbach sheds light into Verizon’s conversations with customers on that front.

Taking what Verizon does on the 5G front in consumer markets into the federal environment is always top of mind for whomever leads public sector, so Hallbach shares her perspective on that leg of the company's continued strategy focused on being the "indispensable partner."

Next to satellite imagery, drones have been the major technological focal point for the war in Ukraine and U.S. Army leaders have been looking to learn quickly from how the systems are being used there.

Sam Skove, who covers the Army and Marine Corps for our partner publication Defense One, has seen much of this action first-hand from visits to bases in the U.S. where the drones are tested and in Eastern Europe where they are fielded.

In this episode, Sam takes our Ross Wilkers through his reporting on how the Army's desire to bring more small drones into its fold does not necessarily match up with the U.S.' industrial capacity to make them in large quantities.

The reasons for that disconnect are myriad as Sam explains, as are some of the solutions he has heard from informed observers on how to bridge that gap.

Wartime need for drones would outstrip US production. There’s a way to fix that

Army puts new unit loaded with cutting-edge tech to the test

US shouldn't learn the wrong lessons about Ukraine’s drones, expert says

What Estonian drone companies are learning from Ukraine

Across the Army, units lean into drone experimentation

Army brass opposes drone branch

FPVs, tethered drones could become formal Army programs in 2025

Several factors are driving today’s record-setting pace of merger-and-acquisition pace such as access to capital, highly valued public companies, and increasing numbers of private equity firms.

But Kate Troendle and Marc Marlin of the investment bank KippsDeSanto also see the government market as maturing and getting more sophisticated, as they explain in this interview with editor Nick Wakeman.

Today’s environment sees a broader range of transactions beyond the traditional one company buying another variety. Small companies are buying others just like them, while other deals just focus on specific contract vehicle positions. Larger companies are divesting so they can shape and hone their portfolios.

Troendle and Marlin also see the momentum continuing in 2022 and even if the volume pulls back a bit, they believe the M&A landscape will remain substantial and robust.

One power of mergers and acquisitions is the way they can transform business and suddenly give a presence with added customers and capabilities.

For Gunnison Consulting, closing three transactions over less than 18 months has pushed the company from its status as a small business to solidly in the middle tier. 

In this conversation between Gunnison CEO Gil Dussek and Editor Nick Wakeman, we hear about that journey and how it is just a beginning for the company.

Gunnison nearly doubled in size through its most recent purchase of Centerpoint, which brought the acquirer more full-and-open business and a new governmentwide contract vehicle.

Dussek shares the company’s strategy and how he sees the federal market changing.

The reality of operating in the government market is that organic growth is both hard to achieve and sustain, which explains much of the merger-and-acquisition activity that never ends.

But why is it so hard to begin with? That is the launch pad of this latest episode on federal market M&A that sees our Ross Wilkers interview Stephanie Johnson, government contracting senior analyst and valuation services director at RSM.

Johnson’s dual-hatted role at the professional services firm positions her as both an informed watcher of the overall market and practitioner who deciphers what drives true value in a government contractor.

Much of this conversation between Wilkers and Johnson sees her illuminate some myths about valuation that have a degree of truth to them but are not always what they seem on the surface, as well as how companies should think about the notion of their future scale and not just today’s.

With two acquisitions in 2021 and another already in the works for 2022, Booz Allen Hamilton has shed its reputation as a reluctant buyer.

In fact, the company has closed eight of them since 2014. But in the recent years, the transactions have become larger and more frequent.

But don’t call Booz Allen consolidator. Chief Strategy Officer Matt Calderone explains to Editor Nick Wakeman in this episode of Project 38 how the company's activity isn't about adding scale, but is focused more on bringing in businesses that bring new capabilities and customers to accelerate growth.

Cracking the code of the federal market is a dual exercise of first learning the extensive rules of the road and then finding what works in achieving business success.

In this episode of Project 38, Mike Sanders, founder and CEO of small business contractor Interactive Government Holdings shares his roadmap and playbook with our Ross Wilkers.

It is true that some of the challenges to success in the federal market are unique for small businesses, but Sanders sees the sector’s biggest challenge as one that companies of all shapes and sizes share in along with their agency customers.

Some of the are the same as well as Sanders sees a common goal: the market’s tent becoming more open and wider.

Predicting how the future will play out is a next-to-impossible art becoming even harder, but knowing the landscape and what is important in that landscape helps you prepared for the future.

This episode of Project 38 looks at the megatrends in technology and talent that are poised to shape the public sector ecosystem in 2022 as outlined to our Ross Wilkers by Mike Canning, leader of Deloitte’s government and public services practice.

At the end of each year, the entire Deloitte team contributes to the firm’s annual “Tech Trends” report that is their outlook on the most important technology areas and events to watch in the coming year.

Both tech and talent are of course intertwined and it is people that is very front-of-mind for Canning, who also provided Wilkers some updates on an acquisition Deloitte closed near the end of 2021.

In this episode of Project 38, Maximus Federal President Teresa Weipert shares what is driving the business forward as it integrates two critical acquisitions and brings new solutions to customers.

She discusses with Editor Nick Wakeman how a focus on better outcomes leads her strategy and that can mean improving technologies, processes or systems. Most often: it is some combination of all three.

Amy Gilliland runs a multibillion-dollar enterprise as president of General Dynamics IT and believes listening, mentorship and trust are all critical elements for GDIT's success.

For this second in a two-part episode, Gilliland shares more with Editor Nick Wakeman on her approach expands on how the people part of the business is as important as any technology or service that a government contractor can provide to its customers.

Gilliland talks about how she makes connections throughout her business and how what seem like small decisions add up to major impacts. She believes both professional and personal mentors are crucial no matter where anyone sits in an organization.

As president of General Dynamics IT, Amy Gilliland runs one of the federal market's largest technology services businesses. She also oversaw one of the biggest integration efforts when GD doubled its portfolio through the acquisition of CSRA in 2018.

In this interview with Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman, she overviews the mechanisms put in place to combine the two businesses and how they laid the foundation for how the company responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Chief among those is a focus on people. They were important for the integration post-merger, but will be even more crucial for the long-term success of GDIT.

Understanding technology and customer priorities are just “table stakes,” according to Gilliland. People are what differentiates a company from the field.

The Justice Department is showing more intent to hold companies that do business with federal agencies accountable for not disclosing data breaches and following cybersecurity standards to prevent them.

How does Justice plan to do that? Via existing authorities under the False Claims Act that imposes financial liability on businesses and people found to have defrauded governmental programs.

So what should contractors take heed of and act on? This episode of Project 38 aims to answer that question with the help of Susan Cassidy and Ashden Fein: partners at the law firm Covington who specialize in government contracting, cyber and national security.

As Cassidy and Fein tell our Ross Wilkers, what companies that work with the government should do today is more of a fine-tuning internal processes than developing new ones. But DOJ’s comments on what it plans to do are putting industry on notice given all the various cyber breaches of federal networks and critical infrastructure, and when considering the U.S. government is the largest collector of data anywhere.

Dennis Kelly's public sector career journey began in the Navy and has continued as a senior executive for multiple contractors, which he led through periods of growth to be acquired by larger companies.

Now as CEO of Tyto Athene, Kelly brings that experience of building and scaling multiple businesses in a dynamic market.

In this episode, Kelly describes his approach for doing that in a conversation with WT's Editor Nick Wakeman and lays out Tyto Athene's path for growth.

Kelly also provides candid reflections on his journey from Navy veteran to federal tech CEO and shows his passion for supporting critical national security missions.

Tyto Athene hires Kelly as chief executive

BlueHalo to combine with Eqlipse Technologies

CIS Secure Computing acquires intelligence community IT firm

The drivers behind KBR's 'largest to date' & 'most transformational' acquisition

PAE closes A-T Solutions acquisition

Stephanie Mango did not join CGI Federal as its new leader to fix a problem, but she also told Editor Nick Wakeman “nothing was broken but everything can be better.”

In this episode, Mango explains what that mantra means for the CGI Federal Team and her leadership approach since she became president earlier this year.

CGI Federal’s strategy continues to evolve as customers ask for greater modernization and improved security.

Organic growth will be key to how CGI Federal pursues that strategy, but inorganic growth is always an option too as evidenced by the recent acquisition of Array Information Technologies. 

Mango sees growing opportunities for CGI Federal’s approach that melds technical expertise, innovation and global commercial best practices as the company develops partnerships with customers. She also keeps a focus on her employees, many of whom also are shareholders in CGI.

Information technology has long been both an enabler of and disruption to business operations, plus a target for cyber breaches by people and organizations trying to do some disrupting of their own.

But what of the world of operational technology that controls industrial equipment and processes? In this episode of Project 38, Forescout public sector executive Tim Jones takes our Ross Wilkers through the intersection of cyber and OT.

Part of that conversation also means learning how IT and OT are becoming increasingly converged, or sometimes one-and-the-same. As a regional vice president of systems engineering, Jones sees that first-hand not just with federal agencies but many of the systems integrators that Forescout partners with on large technology programs.

Jones explains what the Biden administration’s cyber executive order and series of sprints means for the entire government OT ecosystem and the kind of starting point it could be.

Digital Management Inc. believes it has done just fine on its own for the last 19 years. Founder and CEO Sunny Bajaj set a course that included being an early entrant to digital modernization and a mobile-first approach to solutions.

The company found success in both the commercial and public sector markets, which right now represent a 60-40 split of the business mix. They’ve also completed nine acquisitions over the last decade.

But Bajaj sees the federal market's appetite growing for the digital transformation that DMI can deliver. To strike while the iron is hot, he turned to the private equity group OceanSound Partners for an infusion of resources to fuel organic growth and support more acquisitions.

In this episode of Project 38, Bajaj explains to Editor Nick Wakeman why he picked a private equity partner over a strategic buyer and why that puts the company toward bigger and better things.

Infrastructure becoming increasingly digitized and federal agencies showing a willingness to try new ways to buy goods and services are two trends that Siemens' federal leader Tina Dolph lives and works with everyday. In this episode of Project 38, the CEO of Siemens Government Technologies explains to our Ross Wilkers how those topics are changing conversations with customers.

One line of discussion gaining increasing prominence that Dolph sheds light on is how cybersecurity is no longer just an information technology problem, but one that also poses a threat to operational technology.

Digitization of doing business kept things running during the pandemic. And Dolph also shares how she, the SGT team and their clients want to incorporate all they have learned from that experience.

In another of our Reporter Roundtables, Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman leads a discussion with FCW editors and reporters on today's hot topics and there have been plenty.

FCW Executive Editor Adam Mazmanian talks about challenges the Veterans Affairs Department is facing with the rollout of the Cerner electronic health record.

Senior Editor and Defense Reporter Lauren Williams gives her take on CMMC 2.0 -- the Defense Department's reboot of its standard for contractors to certify their cybersecurity practices and posture.

Natalie Alms covers the federal workforce: she talks about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and some of the confusion around deadlines for government employees and contractors to be fully vaccinated.

Newer and faster phones on a specific band of spectrum that work based on certain protocols and standards: that is the most frequently-cited aspect of the ongoing 5G revolution.

But in this episode of Project 38, Viasat’s government business president Craig Miller says there is a much bigger picture that everyone should consider amid this transition to the next generation of mobile networks.

Miller explains to our Ross Wilkers how 5G also is a foundational architecture by which different networks can be stitched together into a single construct, all in the name of them working together. Interoperability of devices and networks already in the field is crucial to making the 5G revolution work for government agencies and help them move to the next generation of communications.

Fair warning: this discussion waves back-and-forth between happenings in government and commercial markets. That is by design however, given how the 5G technology standard and its predecessors have been developed and iterated over time.
This discussion of network interoperability surrounds all future government networking initiatives like the Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control construct, known as JADC2.

Every company has its own journey and in this episode, Sumeet Shrivastava shares with Editor Nick Wakeman the path Array Information Technologies followed from when he joined as CEO in 2008 to its just-completed sale CGI Federal.

Shrivastava describes the risks Array took such as focusing their efforts on a smaller part of the business as they positioned themselves for future growth. After an initial contraction, the company doubled in size to 300 employees and shifted from 85 percent of its revenue in small business set-aside work to 90 percent from full-and-open contracts. 

Then it came a time for Array to find a buyer. Shrivastava details that part of Array's journey and how they came to pick CGI Federal.

Every small business faces the inflection points that Array has faced, so this first-hand account offers lessons learned and plenty of advice as companies navigate today’s market. Shrivastava shares some of the important questions businesses should ask themselves as they move from one phase to the next.

Mergers, acquisitions and private equity are important engines for innovation in the defense market as retired Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle sees it.

For this episode of Project 38, the National Defense Industrial Association's CEO explains to our Nick Wakeman how the lure of a return on investment needs to be a consideration as the government regulates M&A activity.

Carlisle believes domestic investors should be attracted to fund young innovative companies, which after some development and nurturing are then sold to larger U.S. defense firms. That type of investment scenario thrives in the commercial world.

But today’s defense environment is still structured around a 1960s-era system for planning, programming, budgeting, and execution that Carlisle says needs to change.

Peraton’s transformation into a $7 billion-annual revenue business by integrating three big pieces -- itself, Northrop Grumman’s IT services business and Perspecta -- includes an applied research organization that can claim lineage to Bell Labs.

In this episode of Project 38, Peraton Labs President Petros Mouchtaris speaks with our Ross Wilkers about the three-decade history of the team he leads and how fits within the parent company.

Getting a head start on the federal government’s hardest problems is a paramount focus for Peraton Labs and this conversation goes over three big areas: cybersecurity, 5G and networks, and everything under the umbrella of automation including artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Mouchtaris also explains how Peraton Labs works on this existential idea: figuring out how with a little customization and refactoring, federal agencies can use many of the same technologies that the commercial sectors do.

Merger-and-acquisition activity in the government market has maintained a stunning pace this year with transactions getting done fast and furious. Washington Technology Editor Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers review some of the deals that stand out and what they say about trends driving today's market.

This includes a discussion about the different investment patterns by public companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton as well as large privately-backed players like Guidehouse, with plenty of smaller acquirers in between.

Raft's first six years of being in business are a lot like what many startups encounter, in that much of the growth has been bootstrapped and in very select corners of the market landscape it works in.

Now Raft is in a place where Shubhi Mishra, who started the software engineering company in 2018, believes there is much more greenfield in front of it. That led her to start looking for an investor in the company.

In this episode, Mishra tells our Ross Wilkers all about how she went against the advice of many other founders that told her to not go down that path and why she chose Washington Harbour Partners to back this phase of Raft's strategy.

Also on their agenda: the so-called "digital battlefield" concept and a significant paradigm shift Mishra wants to see in the prime-subcontractor relationship in the interest of advancing innovation.

The final phase of one of the federal government’s largest contract restructurings is on the horizon, but the consolidation of GSA's Multiple Award Schedule will take time and effort.

So ahead of an upcoming key deadline in mid-September, this episode of Project 38 goes over everything companies need to know at this juncture of the schedule consolidation with the help of Global Services President and CEO Courtney Fairchild.

All 24 Multiple Award Schedule contracts are becoming one as the General Services Administration pushes to simplify the program so industry and government alike have fewer burdens.

But phase three of this effort is the most complex and is more than just an administrative action, as noted GSA Schedule watcher Fairchild points out in this conversation with our Ross Wilkers. 

Fairchild and her company work with clients pursuing these very contracts, so Wilkers went over some of the most common questions she is asked about the consolidation, frequent misconceptions over what it means for companies and what it will portend for the future of government contracting.

Huntington Ingalls Industries just completed its largest-ever acquisition, the $1.65 billion deal for Alion Science & Technology, and is now at work integrating that big piece into the shipbuilder’s technical solutions segment.

This episode of Project 38 both functions as an update on that integration and a big-picture explanation of HII’s strategy for its technical solutions segment from its president Andy Green.

Much change and portfolio shaping has taken place since HII stood up the technical solutions segment in late 2016 to house its government services work, of which our Ross Wilkers has discussed with Green a few times since.

This latest conversation between Green and Wilkers includes a discussion on where HII looks to make sure its shipbuilding and solutions sides contribute to what the other is doing and the company at-large, plus some of the technical challenges they work on together and particularly in the emerging unmanned maritime domain.

The market has rarely seen the level of merger-and-acquisition activity that we see today with a plethora of large and small buyers.

To breakdown what’s driving the deals, Editor Nick Wakeman spoke with Bob Kipps of the investment bank KippsDeSanto. 

Kipps shares his views on why the market has been so good to buyers and sellers as well as the critical role being played by private equity firms, who drive nearly half of the transactions.

The expectation is that the pace of mergers and acquisitions will continue and Kipps explains why.

Noblis has found itself writing more code than papers these days amid the nonprofit organization’s continued push to be at the nexus of science and technology for federal agencies.

This episode of Project 38 takes you inside that multiple-year reinvention and how that plays out today as our Ross Wilkers pays a visit to Noblis CEO Amr ElSawy and Mile Corrigan, senior vice president of federal civilian solutions.

In finding that imbalance between code and papers, Noblis is also making an initial foray into the world of solutions and products with launch number one focusing on cybersecurity: which in the past year has found itself top of mind for many agencies again given the many high-profile breaches.

A second part of Noblis’ journey means integrating the acquisition of McKean Defense and that business now helps form the backbone of a new organization to serve defense clients. ElSawy and Corrigan provide an update on that integration and how Noblis is looking to spread the people and resources of McKean across the entire enterprise.

Even amid big changes above it, AT&T's public sector and public safety businesses have the same main three pillars for long-term growth and a mandate to bring the company's commercial offerings into the government space.

Get the inside view here in this second part of our Ross Wilkers' interview with two AT&T executives in charge of both aspects of that strategy -- Jason Porter, president of public sector and FirstNet; and Jill Singer, vice president of defense and national security.

AT&T counts the governmentwide EIS network modernization contract and FirstNet national public safety network as two franchise programs for agencies, while the 5G revolution has implications for every individual and institutions.

Porter and Singer explain how AT&T looks for synergy and applicability across its consumer and public sector businesses, plus offer updates on both the EIS and FirstNet initiatives.

What does AT&T’s broad strategic reset to focus on technology and connectivity mean for its public sector and public safety businesses?

Part one of Project 38 gets some answers to that question from two AT&T executives responsible for carrying out that vision in the government market -- Jason Porter, president of public sector and FirstNet; and Jill Singer, vice president of defense and national security.

Two particular threads help illustrate AT&T’s re-casted vision: the sales of the media businesses (which we did not go over) and divestiture of the defense IT professional services business (which we went over in detail).

Porter and Singer explain to our Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers how they see AT&T’s return to its connectivity core as making more room to invest in the public sector and FirstNet public safety network businesses. They also lift the curtain on AT&T’s vision for the post-pandemic future of work.

Verizon’s mantra both for its public sector business and the corporation as a whole is to be the indispensable partner alongside customers for modernizing their networks.

In this episode of Project 38, Verizon’s public sector leader Jennifer Chronis explains to our Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers how that approach as part of the overall “Verizon 2.0” vision informs the telecommunications giant’s federal market strategy.

Chronis also overviews how Verizon ties these common technology threads between both the commercial and public sector sides of Verizon: 5G adoption, cloud computing, software-defined networks and pretty much everything under the umbrella of modernization.

For many federal agencies that means leveraging the government-wide EIS contract for next-generation telecom services. EIS and Verizon’s future of work strategy were additional topics of discussion.

Raytheon Technologies as the world knows it today has only just begun its second year since the megamerger to create the No. 2 company on this year’s Top 100 rankings.

The aerospace-and-defense giant’s intelligence and space segment is headquartered in our region: Arlington, Virginia to be exact. For this episode of Project 38, that segment’s president in Roy Azevedo takes Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers inside the mega-integration at the operational level and the technology synergies Raytheon is looking to capture.

Also on the agenda for this discussion: how Raytheon Intelligence and Space is undertaking its own digital transformation alongside federal customers, that business’ acquisition of a small satellite maker in late 2020 and the overall company’s thinking with respect to the post-pandemic future of work.

Often coverage of mergers and acquisitions focuses on the buyer and what it means to them, but in this episode of Project 38 Brandee Daly tells Editor Nick Wakeman why she decided the time was right to sell her company to Smartronix.

Daly isn’t retiring, but the sale of D2S Consulting Group means she can continue to focus on her customers’ missions as a new executive at Smartronix. She describes the acquisition as more of a partnership and that’s just the kind of deal that CEO Peter LaMontagne likes to make.

They explain the opportunities ahead, why sometimes selling your company is the best thing to do and for other instances the bravest thing is to not sell at all.

ManTech’s shift to the government technology company it is today has been in the making for several years. More signs of that show in its climb of two spots to No. 26 on this year’s Top 100.

But how does ManTech go about the tagline in its logo of “Bringing Digital to the Mission?” In this episode of Project 38, Chief Operating Officer Matt Tait tells Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers about how that mantra explains both today’s work for customers and ManTech’s longer-term direction.

Acquisitions, talent and technology focus areas all feed into that overall approach for ManTech. Tait breaks all of those aspects down and explains how ManTech seeks to ensure the links between them stay connected.

Much of the world shut down on July 19 after cybersecurity company CrowdStrike distributed a faulty software update that essentially rendered 8.5 million Microsoft Windows computers useless.

David DiMolfetta, who covers cybersecurity at our partner publication NextGovFCW, led the bulk of GovExec's coverage of the aftermath even though the outage was not technically a cyber situation. But all that happened does bring up questions about network vulnerabilities and resilience.

In this episode, David tells our Ross Wilkers all about how federal agencies are working to recover and learn from an event that was truly historic in scale.

Blue screens of death were everywhere on July 19 and the entire situation was weird. As David explains, the scale of the outage is leading agencies to re-examine how they approach cyber and keeping tech assets healthy.

Summer-only sessions helped blunt CrowdStrike outage impact on US schools

Crowdstrike IT outage linked to update using new threat detection system

How the CrowdStrike outage carved out new opportunities for hackers

Biden briefed on CrowdStrike IT outage as multiple federal systems impacted

Even with its status as the No. 1 company on the 2021 Washington Technology Top 100, Leidos is focused on what's changing in the market and the priorities and needs of its customers. 

On the cusp of his retirement, Chief Financial Officer James Reagan talks with Editor Nick Wakeman about what a change culture means at Leidos and why that is a critical element of growth strategy. That outlook drives its decisions around acquisitions, divestitures and where it invests its research-and-development dollars.

The result has been a track record of organic growth in the double digits.

Booz Allen Hamilton is now at No. 6 on the 2021 Washington Technology Top 100 and the company is coming off of its Vision 2020 strategy that transformed it from a management consulting firm to a technology company. 

For this episode, Editor Nick Wakeman shares excerpts from his interview with Booz Allen Executive Vice President Karen  Dahut. They talk about the strategy that will drive Booz Allen for the next decade as well as the value the company places in diversity and inclusion. 

They also talk about what it will take for Booz Allen Hamilton, now 107 years old, to make it to the firm's 200th birthday in 2114.

How much stress on the system is created by the so-called “need for speed” with regard to advanced technology adoption and deployment in federal agencies?

In this episode of Project 38, we pick up on the second half of Senior Staff Writer Ross Wilkers’ discussion with a pair of chief technology officers at federal systems integrators on the right methodologies to help government customers wanting to shrink timelines from years to months and sometimes weeks.

Peder Jungck of BAE Systems Inc.’s intelligence and security sector and Cameron Chehreh of Dell Federal conceded that the shift does create stress on the system, but also explain ways to work through it.

Wilkers closed the conversation by asking Jungck and Chehreh for their views on the global computer chip shortage that has disrupted substantially the entire economy, plus what that could mean for the federal technology landscape and the future global supply chain.