Carlos Mckenzie

Carlos Mckenzie serves as a key procurement lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where he manages complex engineering services acquisitions critical to the agency’s mission of advancing space science and Earth observation. Responsible for the full lifecycle of contract actions, he specializes in securing high-precision engineering support for spacecraft development, sensor integration, and deep-space telecommunications systems. His work directly enables the design, testing, and deployment of cutting-edge scientific instrumentation, aligning procurement strategy with NASA’s strategic priorities in climate monitoring, heliophysics, and astrophysics. Mckenzie typically handles competitive sealed bids and indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts under FAR Part 15, ensuring technical rigor and mission alignment in every acquisition. He maintains sustained relationships with premier technical partners, including Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, leveraging their expertise in systems engineering, payload integration, and advanced communications architecture. These partnerships are characterized by long-term collaboration on mission-critical R&D and prototyping efforts, often involving technical proposals with stringent performance metrics and compliance with NASA’s engineering standards. His procurement approach emphasizes technical evaluation over price alone, fostering innovation through structured source selection processes. Mckenzie’s contracting portfolio reflects a strict focus on open competition, with 100% of awards issued under no set-aside preferences. This reflects a mission-driven prioritization of technical capability and institutional expertise over socioeconomic categorizations, ensuring that the most qualified entities—regardless of size or certification—are selected to meet the unique demands of spaceflight systems. His primary procurement focus is on NAICS 541330 (Engineering Services), encompassing systems engineering, test and evaluation, mission operations support, and specialized instrumentation design. He routinely procures advanced technical services in areas such as radiation-hardened electronics, optical sensor calibration, and space-qualified software development, supporting NASA’s leadership in Earth and space science.