Tessa Jones

Tessa Jones serves as a key procurement lead within the W6J1 Rccto Redstone under the Department of the Army, responsible for managing acquisitions that advance next-generation defense technologies. She oversees the solicitation, evaluation, and award of contracts for research and development initiatives focused on autonomous systems, directed energy weapons, missile defense architectures, and intelligent command and control platforms. Her role is central to translating strategic military requirements into actionable procurement pathways, ensuring that cutting-edge capabilities are rapidly integrated into land and multidomain operational frameworks. She works closely with technical stakeholders to define performance-based requirements and assess vendor proposals against technical merit, innovation, and mission alignment. Tessa Jones collaborates with a diverse array of defense contractors, including prime systems integrators, advanced R&D firms, and specialized engineering service providers. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she consistently engages with organizations possessing deep expertise in autonomous robotics, sensor fusion, high-energy laser systems, and secure communications infrastructure. Her contracting patterns reflect a preference for performance-based, milestone-driven agreements that incentivize innovation and rapid prototyping. She fosters collaborative relationships with vendors capable of scaling from concept to field-deployable prototypes under tight operational timelines. Tessa Jones’s procurement activity is entirely non-set-aside, with 100% of contracts awarded under full and open competition. This reflects a strategic emphasis on accessing the broadest possible pool of technical expertise to meet urgent national defense priorities. While small business participation is not formally mandated through socioeconomic set-asides, she evaluates all offerors on technical capability and innovation potential, ensuring that qualified small businesses can compete on equal footing based on merit. Her primary procurement focus is under NAICS 541715—Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences—where she procures advanced engineering services, prototype development, systems integration, and test and evaluation support. She specializes in acquisitions for autonomous ground and aerial platforms, directed energy weapon subsystems, AI-enabled decision aids, and resilient communication networks for contested environments.