Center for Government Contracting News

The House Financial Services Committee’s hearing this week on the reauthorization of the Defense Production Act is timely and important. The DPA is an essential tool for national security that was little known prior to COVID-19. Its use during the pandemic helped the U.S. government mobilize its industrial base to allocate and distribute goods as well as make investments to build industrial capacity in critical areas such as ventilators and personal protective equipment during a time of national crisis. That recent experience, coupled with the daunting national security challenges facing us today, makes it a great time to strengthen the DPA for the future. Jerry McGinn's Opinion in Defense News shares how we can do it:

The focus of this webinar will be Emerging Technologies, CMMC, and Cyber Resilience. How should the government acquire secure technologies without stifling innovation? The discussion provides insights and uncertainties for business to adopt CMMC, including cost, risk awareness and reporting.

Challenges with supply chains during and after COVID, production challenges supporting Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and deterring Chinese aggression have exposed significant challenges in the capacity of the defense industrial base to meet current and potential future operational contingencies.
Significant efforts are underway to address these challenges and DoD recently released the first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy to guide the overall approach to strengthen the defense industrial base. What does the strategy mean for government and industry? The Baroni Center held a discussion on this critical question with the principal author of the strategy, an influential House member with deep industrial base experience, and a CEO of a major defense contractor.

Secretary del Toro captures the essence of the anti-buyback argument, which has been articulated by Pentagon leaders for years: “You can’t be asking the American taxpayer to make even greater public investments while you continue, in some cases, to goose your stock prices through stock buybacks, deferring promised capital investments, and other accounting maneuvers.” Why do defense companies continue to pursue stock buybacks? It is principally the large mature defense primes such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and HII that buy back stock. These firms are profitable, generate significant cash flow, have a relatively low cost of capital and are not highly leveraged.

In their book, Public Procurement for Innovation: Research and Development at the US Federal Level, nationally recognized public procurement experts Dolores Kuchina-Musina and Benjamin McMartin present a comprehensive analysis of the alternative contract vehicles used to promote innovation in the United States (US).

The PPBE Commission Final Report. "Defense Resourcing for the Future," was released on March 6. Moderated by Baroni Center Executive Director Jerry McGinn, the speakers included three Commission members: Chair Bob Hale, Vice Chair Ellen Lord, and Executive Director Ellen Sanger.

The George Mason University Costello College of Business' Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting and the Acquisition Innovation Research Center (AIRC) cordially invite you to participate in a webinar on Agility through Appropriations.

The webinar discussed the equities and tensions between Congress and the Department of Defense (DoD), how those tensions impact the acquisition of weapon systems, and opportunities and challenges of colorless funding and portfolio management of funds.

Jerry McGinn's latest in NIDA's National Defense Magazine on competition in the defense industrial base presents and how to unlock new levels of competition for Defense.

Our Namesake and the Vision Behind It. We are delighted to share our year in-review newsletter. As you will see, we were quite busy in 2023!

Dr. Jerry McGinn, the director of the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, and Steve Grundman of the Atlantic Council and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University — who both lead the Pentagon’s industrial policy office — discuss the Biden administration’s first ever National Defense Industrial Strategy that was unveiled by last week with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian.