Paula Hartzell

Paula Hartzell serves as a key procurement lead within the W6QK Acc-apg Cont Ct Software Sector under the Department of the Army, where she oversees the acquisition of mission-critical software systems, secure communications infrastructure, and network resilience platforms essential to Army modernization and battlefield readiness. Her responsibilities include managing end-to-end contracting cycles for complex IT and communications solutions that support command and control, intelligence processing, and distributed operations. She specializes in soliciting and awarding contracts for software-defined networking, encrypted data platforms, and wireless infrastructure, ensuring alignment with DoD cybersecurity standards and operational tempo requirements. Hartzell maintains strategic relationships with a select group of prime contractors, including British Telecommunications Public Limited Company, Liberty Communications, Inc., and Southwest Industrial Contractors & Riggers, Inc., reflecting a mix of large-scale telecommunications and specialized construction vendors. Her contracting patterns emphasize long-term partnerships with firms capable of delivering integrated hardware-software solutions and field-deployable communication systems. She frequently collaborates with contractors possessing ITAR and CMMC compliance credentials, ensuring secure, end-to-end delivery of sensitive military capabilities. Her procurement strategy is heavily oriented toward small business participation, with 95.2% of her awards structured as total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. This reflects a deliberate commitment to fostering innovation and capacity within the small business industrial base, particularly among firms certified under 8(a), HUBZone, and SDVOSB programs. She actively prioritizes socioeconomic contracting vehicles to expand vendor diversity and enhance supply chain resilience. Despite the software-focused mission of her sector, her procurement portfolio is dominated by construction-related NAICS codes—primarily 236220 (commercial and institutional building construction) and 237110 (water and sewer line construction)—indicating a significant focus on physical infrastructure to support hardened communications sites and field-deployed data centers. She also procures 237130 (power and communication line construction) services, underscoring her technical expertise in integrating hardened physical networks with digital mission systems.