Arnita Waters

Arnita Waters serves as a key procurement professional within the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), supporting the agency’s mission to deliver high-quality K-12 education to military-connected students worldwide. She manages a diverse portfolio of acquisitions focused on educational infrastructure, operational support, and student services, ensuring compliance with federal contracting regulations and DoDEA’s strategic priorities. Her work directly enables the delivery of safe, effective learning environments across global installations by overseeing contracts for facilities, transportation, and auxiliary educational services. Waters maintains consistent working relationships with a select group of contractors, including AMD International Technologies LLC, CoreTech Consulting Inc., Effective Communication Strategies LLC, Residential Enhancements, Inc., and FGI Solutions LLC. These partnerships reflect a preference for vendors with proven expertise in educational support, facility modernization, and logistical services tailored to military community needs. Her procurement approach emphasizes reliability, regulatory compliance, and performance-based outcomes, fostering long-term vendor collaboration grounded in clear deliverables and accountability. A strong advocate for small business participation, Waters consistently prioritizes Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5, with approximately 60% of her acquisitions reserved for small businesses. This pattern underscores a deliberate commitment to socioeconomic contracting goals, ensuring equitable access to DoDEA opportunities for small, disadvantaged, and veteran-owned firms. Her contracting strategy aligns with federal mandates to promote economic inclusion while maintaining high standards of service delivery. Her primary procurement focus centers on NAICS codes 485410 (school transportation), 611710 (educational support services), 332311 (prefabricated metal buildings), 711211 (sports and club operations), and 621910 (ambulance services). These categories reflect a broad operational scope, encompassing student mobility, curriculum support infrastructure, facility construction, extracurricular programming, and emergency medical readiness—all critical to sustaining DoDEA’s mission in geographically dispersed and high-demand environments.