Katelyn O'Connor

Katelyn O’Connor supports the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in procuring mission-critical aviation systems and technologies essential to naval airpower readiness. She manages complex acquisitions for advanced avionics, flight control subsystems, diagnostic instrumentation, and sustainment infrastructure, ensuring alignment with the agency’s RDT&E objectives. Her work directly enables the development and fielding of next-generation naval aircraft by securing high-integrity components and integrated support solutions through competitive and sole-source contracting pathways. She operates within a high-technical, low-set-aside environment where performance, reliability, and systems integration take precedence. O’Connor maintains longstanding relationships with leading defense aerospace contractors including Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, PCI Aviation, Critical Communications, Controls and Instruments, LLC, and Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC. These partnerships reflect a preference for established industry leaders with proven expertise in military-grade avionics, wireless communications, and precision instrumentation. Her contracting approach emphasizes technical rigor, compliance with military specifications, and lifecycle support, often resulting in long-term, performance-based agreements with vendors possessing deep domain knowledge in naval aviation systems. Her procurement portfolio is overwhelmingly dominated by unrestricted acquisitions, with only 3.3% set aside for small businesses under FAR 19.5, indicating a strategic focus on technical capability over socioeconomic preferences. While small business participation is minimal, it is consistently aligned with specialized niches where qualified firms offer unique capabilities in test equipment, signal processing, or aircraft-specific diagnostics. Her primary NAICS focus areas include Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing, Radio and Wireless Communications Equipment Manufacturing, and Instrument Manufacturing for Electrical Signals—reflecting deep expertise in airborne sensor systems, flight data acquisition, and embedded control technologies. She procures mission-critical hardware and engineering services that support the integration, testing, and sustainment of advanced naval aircraft platforms.