Carla Y. Pinkston

Carla Y. Pinkston serves as a Contracting Officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), where she manages the acquisition of critical geospatial intelligence capabilities essential to national security and defense operations. Her portfolio centers on procuring advanced geospatial analytics, automated mapping systems, and digital terrain modeling services that support precision decision-making across military and intelligence missions. She executes full-cycle contracting actions under the Federal Acquisition Regulation, ensuring compliance with DoD directives while aligning procurements with NGA’s strategic priorities in imagery analysis and geospatial data delivery. Pinkston maintains established relationships with key industry partners including ESRI, L3Harris Technologies, Garmin International, Voyager Search, and Dynamic Gravity Systems LLC. These contractors provide specialized geospatial software, sensor integration, mapping platforms, and analytics tools critical to NGA’s operational mission. Her contracting patterns reflect a preference for established vendors with proven technical expertise in geospatial systems, often resulting in long-term, performance-based agreements that emphasize innovation, scalability, and mission-readiness. Her set-aside preferences show a strong emphasis on open competition, with 88.9% of awards issued without socioeconomic set-asides. The remaining 11.1% are allocated to Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5, indicating a measured but deliberate commitment to small business participation without compromising mission-critical capabilities or technical rigor. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 541370 (Surveying and Mapping Services), which accounts for nearly 70% of her activity, followed by 511210 (Software Publishers), 561210 (Facilities Support Services), and 518210 (Data Processing and Hosting). She specializes in acquiring geospatial data collection, georeferenced analytics, and infrastructure services that enable real-time situational awareness, underscoring her deep technical understanding of the geospatial intelligence lifecycle.