Denise Ashton

Denise Ashton serves as a Contract Specialist at the Naval Air Warfare Center Air Division, where she plays a critical role in executing complex acquisitions for advanced naval aviation systems. Her responsibilities encompass the full lifecycle of contract management—from requirements definition and source selection to award administration and performance oversight—for mission-critical avionics, communications, navigation, and electronic warfare subsystems. She supports the agency’s strategic priorities by ensuring timely delivery of next-generation airborne capabilities that sustain air superiority and fleet readiness. Her portfolio primarily includes sole-source and competitive procurements for high-technology aircraft components and integration services, often involving classified or controlled technical data under FAR and DFARS compliance frameworks. Denise maintains long-standing working relationships with industry leaders including SABRE SYSTEMS, LLC, THE BOEING COMPANY, SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, SYSTEMS PLANNING AND ANALYSIS, INC., and ONTIC ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING, INC. These partnerships reflect a focus on established defense contractors with proven expertise in aerospace systems engineering, sensor integration, and sustainment of legacy platforms. Her procurement approach emphasizes technical rigor, risk mitigation, and performance-based contracting, often leveraging Indefinite-Delivery/Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) vehicles and Other Transaction Authority (OTA) mechanisms to accelerate innovation and responsiveness. Denise’s contracting activity is exclusively non-set-aside, with 100% of awards issued under full and open competition. While she does not utilize socioeconomic set-asides such as 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB programs, her focus remains on securing the highest technical capability and mission-critical performance, prioritizing proven industry partners with the scale and security clearance infrastructure required for naval aviation programs. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 336413 (Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing), encompassing avionics modules, mission computer hardware, and electronic warfare countermeasures, with NAICS 336411 (Aircraft Manufacturing) supporting full-system integration efforts. She specializes in procuring high-reliability, MIL-STD-compliant components for manned and unmanned aerial platforms, demonstrating deep technical fluency in airborne systems architecture and defense aerospace supply chain dynamics.