Sandra Castanaro

Sandra Castanaro serves as a key procurement professional within the Naval Surface Warfare Center, supporting the agency’s mission to advance naval warfare capabilities through the acquisition of advanced electronic, sensing, and maritime systems. She manages a diverse portfolio of contracts focused on the development, integration, and sustainment of sonar, radar, navigation, and signal processing technologies critical to fleet readiness and undersea dominance. Her acquisitions span engineering services, specialized equipment maintenance, and mission-critical system upgrades, ensuring alignment with DoD modernization priorities and operational requirements for surface ships and maritime platforms. Castanaro maintains consistent working relationships with a core group of specialized contractors, including ISPA TECHNOLOGY LLC and FIVE RIVERS ANALYTICS, LLC, which provide advanced analytics and electronic systems support, as well as BAUER COMPRESSORS, INC. and COUNTERTRADE PRODUCTS, INC. for mission-enabling hardware and niche industrial solutions. Her contracting patterns reflect a preference for established vendors with proven technical expertise in defense electronics and precision instrumentation, fostering long-term partnerships that ensure reliability and interoperability across naval platforms. Her procurement strategy equally prioritizes small business participation, with approximately half of her awards structured as Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5, demonstrating a deliberate commitment to fostering innovation and capacity within the small business industrial base. She does not rely on specific socioeconomic set-asides like 8(a) or HUBZone but maintains balanced engagement across the small business spectrum to ensure competitive, agile sourcing. Castanaro’s primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 238990 (specialty trade contracting) and 561621 (security systems services), reflecting her work on installation, integration, and maintenance of electronic defense systems. She also regularly procures under 334511 for search, detection, and navigation system manufacturing and 811210 for precision equipment repair, underscoring her technical expertise in sustaining complex naval electronic architectures.