Celeste Baeza-Rios

Celeste Baeza-Rios serves as a key procurement professional within the Department of the Air Force, supporting the acquisition of advanced aerospace and information systems critical to maintaining air superiority and space dominance. She manages complex contracts for next-generation communications and electronic systems, ensuring alignment with the Air Force’s strategic modernization goals. Her work centers on securing cutting-edge technologies that enhance cyber-enabled command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (C5ISRT) capabilities. Baeza-Rios handles high-priority, mission-critical acquisitions involving classified and unclassified systems, often requiring rapid prototyping and agile contracting methodologies to meet urgent operational needs. She maintains consistent, long-term relationships with prime defense contractors including The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation, partnering with these industry leaders to deliver integrated avionics, secure radio frequency systems, and tactical data link solutions. Her contracting approach emphasizes performance-based outcomes, technical compliance, and risk mitigation in high-consequence environments. These partnerships are characterized by deep technical collaboration, iterative requirements development, and adherence to Defense Acquisition Regulation System (DARS) protocols, ensuring seamless integration of systems across air, space, and cyber domains. Baeza-Rios’s procurement portfolio reflects a strict focus on open competition, with 100% of awards issued under no set-aside categories. This indicates a deliberate emphasis on leveraging the full industrial base to meet mission-critical performance thresholds, rather than socioeconomic set-asides. While small business participation is not formally prioritized in her award patterns, her contracts remain accessible to all qualified vendors under full and open competition. Her primary technical focus lies in NAICS 334220, encompassing the procurement of radio and television broadcasting and wireless communications equipment. She specializes in acquiring secure transceivers, software-defined radios, satellite communication terminals, and electronic warfare-compatible systems that support global reach and contested environment operations. Her expertise centers on RF spectrum management, signal integrity, and interoperability standards critical to modern air and space force architectures.