Grace Gillespie, Contract Specialist

Grace Gillespie serves as a key procurement professional within the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), supporting the lifecycle acquisition and sustainment of critical naval aviation systems. She manages complex contracting actions for advanced aircraft components, avionics, and communications equipment essential to maintaining air superiority for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Her work directly enables NAVAIR’s mission to modernize carrier-based and expeditionary air platforms, ensuring operational readiness through timely and technically sound contract execution. Gillespie specializes in sole-source and competitive acquisitions for high-priority defense systems, often coordinating across engineering, logistics, and test communities to align contractual deliverables with operational requirements. She maintains longstanding relationships with prime contractors including Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and General Atomics, partnering with industry leaders to deliver cutting-edge aerospace and defense technologies. Her contracting approach emphasizes technical rigor and performance-based outcomes, frequently engaging vendors with proven expertise in mission-critical systems integration. These partnerships are characterized by long-term sustainment contracts, engineering support services, and rapid prototyping initiatives aligned with Navy aviation modernization goals. Gillespie’s procurement portfolio reflects a strong preference for full and open competition, with 100% of her awards issued without socioeconomic set-asides. This pattern indicates a focus on technical capability and mission necessity over socioeconomic criteria, prioritizing performance, scalability, and industrial base readiness. While small business participation is not formally targeted in her portfolio, her contracting decisions remain compliant with all federal acquisition regulations and reflect a strategic alignment with NAVAIR’s enterprise-wide sourcing priorities. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 334290 (Other Communications Equipment Manufacturing) and 336413 (Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing), encompassing secure data links, flight control systems, sensor suites, and embedded avionics. She routinely oversees contracts for ruggedized communications hardware, mission-specific avionics upgrades, and support equipment critical to naval air operations, demonstrating deep technical fluency in aerospace systems integration and electronic warfare domains.