Mary Watters

Mary Watters serves as a key procurement lead within the Naval Air Warfare Center Air Division, overseeing the acquisition of advanced engineering services critical to the development and sustainment of next-generation naval aviation systems. She manages complex contracts focused on avionics integration, electronic warfare upgrades, and mission-critical aircraft subsystems, ensuring alignment with the agency’s mission to maintain air superiority and operational readiness. Her work directly supports the modernization of airborne sensor suites and communications architectures, coordinating with technical stakeholders to translate operational requirements into technically sound, competitively awarded contracts. Watters maintains enduring relationships with top-tier defense contractors including SABRE SYSTEMS, LLC, THE BOEING COMPANY, SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, SYSTEMS PLANNING AND ANALYSIS, INC., and ONTIC ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING, INC. These partnerships are centered on high-integrity engineering solutions for classified and unclassified aviation platforms, with a consistent emphasis on systems integration, test and evaluation, and lifecycle sustainment. Her procurement approach favors established industry leaders with proven technical capabilities in aerospace systems engineering, often leveraging indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) and cost-reimbursement contract vehicles. Watters’ portfolio reflects a 100% non-set-aside contracting strategy, with no use of 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, or other socioeconomic preferences. Her focus remains squarely on technical excellence and mission-critical performance, prioritizing capability over socioeconomic categorization in award decisions. Her procurement activities are exclusively aligned with NAICS 541330 (Engineering Services), encompassing systems engineering, avionics design, signal processing, and embedded software development. She consistently sources specialized engineering talent to support the integration of radar, electronic attack, navigation, and data-link systems into naval aircraft, demonstrating deep expertise in the technical domains of airborne mission systems and defense aerospace engineering.