Shanta Strickland

Shanta Strickland serves as a Contract Specialist within the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), where she plays a critical role in executing complex acquisitions for national missile defense systems. Her responsibilities encompass the full lifecycle of contract management—from solicitation and evaluation to award and administration—ensuring compliance with federal regulations and mission-critical timelines. She specializes in procuring advanced guided missile systems, sensor technologies, and integrated battle management architectures that support layered defense capabilities across boost, midcourse, and terminal phases of flight. Strickland’s work directly enables MDA’s mission to field survivable, scalable, and technologically superior missile defense solutions for U.S. and allied forces. She maintains longstanding procurement relationships with prime defense contractors including Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, consistently engaging these industry leaders for the design, integration, and testing of high-performance missile interceptors and command-and-control systems. Her contracting patterns reflect deep collaboration with systems integrators possessing Tier 1 defense credentials, often managing multi-year, technically complex contracts requiring rigorous systems engineering oversight and test validation protocols. Jacobs Technology Inc. is also a recurring partner, supporting logistics, modeling, and technical analysis services essential to program sustainment. Strickland’s acquisition portfolio is exclusively classified under No Set-Aside, reflecting the highly specialized, classified, and systems-integration nature of MDA’s mission requirements. While small business participation is not formally prioritized through socioeconomic set-asides, she ensures full and open competition remains the standard, consistent with the technical and security demands of strategic missile defense programs. Her primary procurement focus is centered on NAICS 336414—Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Manufacturing—where she acquires advanced propulsion systems, kinetic kill vehicles, radar seekers, and battle management software. Her technical expertise lies in hypersonic defense, terminal-phase interceptors, and space-based sensor integration, making her a key steward of the nation’s most critical air and missile defense capabilities.