WT 360: The market from all angles

By joining Constellis as CEO in February, Dan Gelston took the helm at a company with a vision of moving beyond a reactive security model to a more proactive and tech-enabled one. Gelston joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to provide an update on the rollout of that strategy, which centers around integrating predictive analytics and other artificial intelligence-driven technologies into Const...

The 2026 Washington Technology Top 100 rankings are now live for everyone to use in their own research of the federal market’s largest technology and services contractors, plus the industry’s major overarching themes. For this episode, Nick and Ross huddle up to overview edition number 32 of WT’s flagship project that certainly does have an element of “Who’s Up and Who’s Down” to it. One question...

The second Trump administration has outpaced the first one in terms of executive orders signed by the president, but this current tenure has put more focus on government contracting than before. Stephanie Kostro, president of the Professional Services Council, starts out this episode with Nick and Ross by providing historical context to that statement. Then the discussion turns to President Trump’...

We have taken a deeper dive into the government market’s private investment landscape in recent weeks by hearing the viewpoints of a banker and then a venture capital specialist. Kirk Konert, managing partner at AE Industrial Partners, joins for this episode to continue the conversation by weighing in on private capital trends across the market and explaining what goes into aligning business decis...

If it feels like investors everywhere have some curiosity about the defense tech landscape, then it’s because more of them both want to increase their knowledge and sometimes involvement in the ecosystem. Steve Brotman, founder and managing partner of the growth equity investment firm Alpha Partners, fits into that category as an observer and participant that works with venture capital firms to be...

The window for government contractors, especially those in defense and space technology, to go public is open again as several listings over the past 12 months show and SpaceX’s own offering this year will illustrate. Dave Khalsa, head of mid-cap defense and government technology investment banking at J.P. Morgan, works on transactions of many different types and observes all of them to help compa...

The federal government’s lead agency for domestic cybersecurity and infrastructure protection matters has only completed its first week of being fully back up and running after not being funded for 11 weeks. David DiMolfetta , cyber reporter at NextGov/FCW , has covered how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has operated through a period that followed losses of nearly one-third o...

Once again, the U.S. government is accusing China of being among several foreign entities that are looking to steal proprietary information on artificial intelligence models from American companies. Edward Graham , managing editor and Veterans Affairs Department reporter at NextGov/FCW , discovered a memo the White House sent to federal agencies that warns of distillation campaigns seeking to help...

Decision authority shifts, the government acting like a venture customer and data transparency being the standard mode of operations are examples of how the old formulas of GovCon business success are becoming outdated. Davi Hayes, senior director for federal strategy at The Chertoff Group, fields any questions from industry clients seeking to understand those trends and more about how the buying...

Noblis was stood up in 1996 as a science, technology and strategy organization that works with federal agencies on creating and rolling out solutions for some of their most complex problems. Mile Corrigan, chief executive of Noblis, joins for this episode to go over the firm’s blueprint for its future beyond this milestone year of celebrating its 30th anniversary and how technology transition effo...

While the 20th century’s Space Race was strictly head-to-head, the 21st century variant is much more complex and multipolar as private businesses and nations are looking to lead in this domain. Kevin Kelly, chief executive of Arcfield, joins for this episode to go over how this systems engineering outfit is looking at the landscape through the lens of a company that has both government and private...

Cuts to contract and grant spending, including outright cancellations, were a feature of the Department of Government Efficiency’s activities during the first year of the Trump administration and some lawsuits followed from those impacted. Natalie Alms , senior correspondent at NextGov/FCW , worked with our colleague and fellow senior reporter Eric Katz at Government Executive to watch 23 hours of...

GovCon finds itself in a strange situation where the Homeland Security Department does not have a budget and is in a shutdown, but the three immigration agencies are still operating with some funds. How is that possible? Stephanie Kostro, president of the Professional Services Council, joins Nick and Ross for this episode to lay out how that is and the DHS funding lapse’s myriad impacts on industr...

Science Applications International Corp. can move ahead on their big decision points now that it has a permanent chief executive, which presents at least one element of certainty in a world replete with unknowns. Nick and Ross use this episode as a starting point for looking at SAIC’s next steps under CEO Jim Reagan, and the paths forward for several other key business and policy storylines in the...

The Defense Department and Anthropic are on opposite ends of a nasty disagreement, with government-wide and industry-wide implications, over what the company’s Claude large language model and other offerings can be used for. Alexandra Kelley , our Nextgov/FCW colleague who covers emerging tech, has extensively covered the fallout from that impasse as agencies are working to comply with President T...

Data labeling refers to the practice of tagging and identifying raw data in order to add meaningful context, of which U.S. government agencies openly admit they struggle with and ask industry for help in. Peter Kant, founder and chief executive of Enabled Intelligence, started the company in March 2020 to specialize in data labeling work that also relies on continuous training and retraining of ar...

Humans in the loop are, in theory, supposed to be as much a part of all conversations surrounding the use of generative artificial intelligence tools as a way to safeguard against major mistakes. But as GovCon attorney David Timm has found out, errors showing misuse of the technology are starting to come up in bid protests and other legal rulings that show what can go wrong when relying on the tec...

Consolidation and “common goods and services” dominate the discussion around how the federal government wants to revamp its contracting functions, including moves to put the General Services Administration at the center of it all. Leo Alvarez and Dylan Schreiner, respectively principal and GovCon senior manager at Baker Tilly, are fielding many questions from industry clients on what this landscap...

Pressure points on defense companies from their Pentagon customer to invest more and do business differently than before are coming from multiple levels of leadership, including President Trump himself. Lauren Williams , business editor at our partner publication Defense One, canvasses the perspectives and opinions of industry pros on that matter to help put together the Defense Business Brief new...

Commercial technology is front-and-center of everyone’s mind across the public sector ecosystem these days, but history shows that agencies have moved slow on the acquisition and adoption fronts here. Sheila Duffy, founder and chief executive of Greystones Group, views these efforts as grounded in collaboration as customer and contractor both have to agree on the roadmap for development and implem...

Post-shutdown recovery is one item carrying over from calendar year 2025 into 2026 and the chance of another funding stoppage happening on Jan. 30 is not zero percent. That here-and-now is the starting point of this episode where Stephanie Smith, GovCon industry senior analyst and valuation services director at RSM, takes us through some of the major themes and talking points that will shape the e...

The spring of 2024 was a turning point for Nightwing, when the business separated out of its then-parent RTX to become a standalone company focused on cybersecurity and intelligence solutions. Chris Jones joined Nightwing later that fall as chief technology officer following service as the CIA’s associate deputy director for science and technology. Jones joins for this episode to put into perspect...

Most years of a presidential transition result in some adjustments by the government contracting community as a new administration settles in, but 2025 presented more variables to GovCon than ever before. Stephanie Kostro, president of the Professional Services Council, fields many questions from PSC’s member companies about what is happening across the ecosystem. Kostro joins Nick and Ross for th...

American Systems opened for business in 1975 and transitioned to an employee stock ownership plan 15 years later, a model that makes it one of the market’s largest 100% ESOP companies. CEO John Steckel joins for this episode to help mark American Systems’ 50th anniversary and explains some moves it has made this year to set the company up for the next 50, including its largest-ever acquisition. In...

In his Nov. 7 address to industry, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out what the U.S. military wants from its contractors and wholesale changes the Pentagon is carrying out to make agile acquisitions a reality. Lauren Williams , senior editor at Defense One who covers the industrial base, was there in-person and joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to walk through those structural changes th...