Mellisa Sistare

Mellisa Sistare serves as a key procurement professional within the Department of Defense, supporting the agency’s mission to modernize national defense capabilities through strategic acquisition of mission-critical maritime systems. She specializes in the planning, solicitation, and award of complex contracts for shipbuilding and repair services, aligning with the DoD’s priority to sustain and enhance the U.S. naval fleet. Her work directly supports agile acquisition pathways designed to accelerate the delivery of advanced naval platforms, ensuring operational readiness through technically rigorous and compliant contracting practices. She routinely handles full and open solicitations under the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, managing multi-year procurement cycles for large-scale naval vessels and associated subsystems. Sistare maintains consistent working relationships with the DoD’s primary shipbuilding and defense systems integrators, including Lockheed Martin Corporation, Huntington Ingalls Inc., Electric Boat Corporation, and The Boeing Company. These partnerships reflect a focus on prime contractors with proven expertise in naval architecture, nuclear propulsion systems, and integrated combat platforms. Her contracting patterns emphasize long-term, performance-based agreements that prioritize technical innovation, supply chain resilience, and lifecycle support for complex maritime assets, often involving technical evaluation panels and source selection committees to ensure mission suitability. Sistare’s procurement portfolio is entirely classified as no set-aside, reflecting a strategic emphasis on full and open competition for high-complexity, mission-essential naval systems. This approach prioritizes technical capability and industrial base capacity over socioeconomic preferences, consistent with the Department’s need to leverage the specialized expertise of established defense primes with proven track records in nuclear-powered submarine and surface ship construction. Her primary procurement focus is on NAICS 336611—Ship Building and Repairing—encompassing the design, construction, overhaul, and modernization of naval vessels, including aircraft carriers, submarines, and guided-missile destroyers. She engages deeply with advanced maritime engineering domains such as hull integrity, propulsion integration, combat system interoperability, and stealth technology, ensuring acquisitions meet rigorous naval warfare standards and future operational requirements.