Chelsea A. Isherwood

Chelsea A. Isherwood serves as a key procurement professional within Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport, supporting the Department of the Navy’s mission to advance naval warfare capabilities through the acquisition of advanced maritime systems. She manages complex contracts for sensor, navigation, electronic warfare, and integrated communication technologies critical to undersea, surface, and aerial domain superiority. Her work centers on technical acquisitions that bridge research and operational deployment, ensuring the fleet receives cutting-edge capabilities through rigorous testing and evaluation cycles. She routinely handles sole-source, competitive, and performance-based contracts aligned with Navy modernization priorities. Isherwood maintains strategic relationships with leading defense technology providers including Science Applications International Corporation, Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC, Astronics Test Systems Inc, Serco Inc, and Mikel Inc. These partnerships reflect a focus on high-performance systems integration, test equipment, and specialized engineering services. Her contracting approach emphasizes technical rigor, lifecycle support, and mission-critical reliability, often requiring vendor collaboration on prototype development, field validation, and rapid iteration cycles. She fosters long-term vendor engagement to ensure continuity in delivering next-generation naval systems. Her procurement patterns show a strong preference for open competition, with 77.4% of awards issued without set-aside designations, reflecting the specialized nature of the technologies procured. However, she consistently supports small business participation, with 22.6% of awards directed toward Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5, demonstrating a balanced commitment to innovation and socioeconomic goals without compromising technical requirements. Her primary NAICS focus includes 334511 for search, detection, and navigation systems, 541330 for engineering services, and 511210 for software publishing, underscoring expertise in sensor design, embedded systems, and mission-critical software development. She procures advanced sonar arrays, electronic countermeasure components, ruggedized communication modules, and fluid power subsystems essential for naval platform integration and operational readiness.