Erica Potthast

Erica Potthast serves as a Contracting Officer within the Telecommunications Division (HC1013) of the Defense Information Systems Agency, where she leads the acquisition of mission-critical satellite telecommunications services to secure and modernize the Department of Defense’s global communications infrastructure. She is responsible for managing full lifecycle procurement activities for complex, high-availability network solutions, including secure virtual private networks, satellite bandwidth procurement, and resilient ground station systems. Her acquisitions directly support DISA’s strategic imperative to ensure interoperable, encrypted, and survivable connectivity for deployed military and federal operations across contested and austere environments. Potthast maintains consistent, long-term relationships with a select group of prime contractors including AT&T Technical Services Company, Inc., Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC, Liberty Communications, Inc., AOC Connect LLC, and Norfolk Fiber, LLC. These partnerships are centered on the delivery of end-to-end satellite telecom solutions, fiber-integrated backbone services, and secure network architecture. Her contracting approach emphasizes performance-based acquisition methods, rigorous technical evaluation, and sustained vendor accountability to meet stringent DoD cybersecurity and reliability standards. Potthast’s procurement portfolio reflects a strict focus on full and open competition, with 100% of her awards issued under no set-aside classifications. She does not routinely utilize 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, or other socioeconomic set-asides, instead prioritizing technical capability, operational readiness, and mission-critical performance over socioeconomic criteria in her decision-making framework. Her primary technical domain is NAICS 517410—Satellite Telecommunications—where she procures geostationary and low-earth-orbit satellite capacity, ground terminal equipment, encrypted transceivers, and associated managed services. She specializes in acquiring bandwidth-on-demand systems, anti-jam and anti-spoofing technologies, and integrated space-ground architectures that enable secure, real-time command and control communications for global defense operations.