Maria Diaz-Sotomayor

Maria Diaz-Sotomayor serves as a key procurement professional within Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport, supporting the Department of the Navy’s mission to advance maritime warfare capabilities through the acquisition of advanced sensor, navigation, and electronic warfare systems. She manages complex contracting actions for mission-critical technologies used in undersea, surface, and aerial domains, with a focus on research, development, testing, and evaluation programs. Her work ensures timely delivery of high-performance systems that enhance naval situational awareness, communication resilience, and tactical dominance in contested environments. She maintains strategic relationships with leading defense and technology contractors including Science Applications International Corporation, Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC, Astronics Test Systems Inc, Serco Inc, and Mikel Inc. These partnerships reflect a preference for established industry leaders with proven expertise in naval systems integration, signal processing, and test instrumentation. Her contracting approach emphasizes technical rigor, performance-based outcomes, and long-term vendor collaboration to support sustained operational readiness. While the majority of her acquisitions are open to full and fair competition—reflecting a 71.4% no set-aside rate—she consistently facilitates meaningful small business participation, with 28.6% of awards designated as total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. This demonstrates a balanced commitment to leveraging innovation from both large primes and agile small firms without compromising mission-critical performance standards. Her procurement focus centers on NAICS 334515 (instrumentation for electrical signal testing), 334511 (navigation and guidance systems), 334417 (electronic connectors), 513210 (software publishing), and 334210 (telephone apparatus manufacturing). These categories underscore her deep technical expertise in procuring high-reliability hardware, embedded software, signal processing modules, and ruggedized communication components essential to modern naval platforms.