Taylor Souza

Taylor Souza serves as a key procurement professional within Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport, supporting the Department of the Navy’s mission to advance maritime warfare capabilities through the acquisition of advanced sensor, navigation, and electronic warfare systems. Responsible for managing complex technical contracts, Souza specializes in procuring mission-critical hardware and integrated systems for undersea, surface, and aerial domains, with a focus on rapid prototyping and field-deployable technologies. Their work directly enables the testing and evaluation of next-generation naval platforms, ensuring operational readiness through timely and compliant acquisition pathways. Souza maintains consistent partnerships with leading defense and aerospace contractors including Science Applications International Corporation, Aerospace & Commercial Technologies, LLC, Astronics Test Systems Inc, Serco Inc, and Mikel Inc. These relationships reflect a preference for vendors with proven expertise in electronic assembly, test instrumentation, and specialized machine shop capabilities. The contracting approach emphasizes long-term collaboration with firms capable of delivering high-reliability components under stringent military specifications, often requiring ITAR compliance and secure supply chain controls. A balanced approach to socioeconomic contracting is evident, with equal allocation between total small business set-asides and open competitions. This reflects a deliberate strategy to foster innovation through small business engagement while maintaining access to specialized large-capacity vendors. The consistent use of FAR 19.5 small business set-asides underscores a strong commitment to expanding opportunities for disadvantaged and service-disabled veteran-owned firms within the defense industrial base. Souza’s procurement portfolio is heavily concentrated in NAICS 332710 (Machine Shops), 334418 (Printed Circuit Assembly), 333914 (Pumping Equipment Manufacturing), and 511210 (Software Publishers), indicating deep technical specialization in precision-machined components, embedded electronics, and mission-critical software systems. Their expertise spans the full lifecycle of naval sensor integration, from analog signal conditioning to digital signal processing, supporting systems critical to sonar, electronic attack, and secure communications architectures.