Elisa VanDevander

Elisa R. VanDevander serves as a Contract Specialist at the Naval Air Warfare Center Air Division, where she plays a critical role in acquiring advanced aviation systems and technical services essential to maintaining air superiority and fleet readiness. She manages the full lifecycle of complex procurements spanning engineering, training, and mission-critical support services, ensuring compliance with federal acquisition regulations and aligning contracts with the Navy’s modernization priorities in avionics, electronic warfare, and airborne sensor integration. Her work directly supports the development and sustainment of next-generation naval aircraft platforms through strategic sourcing and risk-managed contracting practices. VanDevander maintains established relationships with key industry partners 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 balanced approach to leveraging both large prime contractors with deep technical capabilities and specialized firms delivering niche engineering and systems integration services. Her contracting patterns emphasize performance-based outcomes, technical rigor, and long-term sustainment support, fostering collaborative vendor engagement across the defense aerospace ecosystem. While the majority of her acquisitions are conducted under open competition—71.4% with no set-aside—she consistently prioritizes small business participation, with 28.6% of her awards structured as Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5. This reflects a deliberate commitment to expanding opportunities for qualified small businesses in high-demand technical domains, without compromising mission-critical requirements. Her procurement focus is centered on NAICS 541330 (Engineering Services), which constitutes nearly half of her portfolio, alongside significant activity in professional training (611430, 611420), air transportation support (488190), and technical publishing (511210). She specializes in acquiring systems engineering, avionics integration, mission software development, and specialized technical training services that enable the Navy’s evolving air warfare capabilities.