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Tag: Arlington

Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: JEFF SHOCKEY

Shockey is lead executive at the Arlington corporate headquarters of the world’s second largest defense contractor, RTX. Formerly Raytheon Technologies, the company announced a reorganization in June. In February, he became the senior official in Arlington upon the retirement of Roy Azevedo, who was president of Raytheon Intelligence & Space, now consolidated with Raytheon Missiles & Defense under the name Raytheon. The other two RTX business units are defense technology supplier Collins Aerospace and aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney.

A former staffer with the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence among other positions, Shockey joined RTX in 2021 after serving as Boeing’s vice president of global sales and marketing for its defense, space and security business.

In 2022, RTX reported more than $67 billion in sales, and officials estimated growth to hit up to $73 billion in 2023. The company employs more than 180,000 people worldwide. It moved its headquarters to Arlington last year from Massachusetts. In June, RTX’s Raytheon subsidiary landed a $1.15 billion missile contract for the Air Force and Navy.

Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: MAX PETERSON

Peterson, who joined AWS in 2012 and started his current role in 2021, has more than 30 years of public sector experience, with stints at Dell and CDW-G. Now he’s guiding the $80.1 billion Amazon.com cloud subsidiary through a variety of high-tech federal projects.

So far, AWS landed a spot (along with Google, Microsoft and Oracle) in December 2022 on the Department of Defense’s $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract. And AWS kicked off 2023 by announcing it plans to invest $35 billion by 2040 to add multiple data center campuses across Virginia, creating 1,000 jobs.

A two-time graduate of the University of Maryland, Peterson serves as co-chair of the Atlantic Council GeoTech Center, a nonpartisan think tank promoting technology and innovation. He also sits on the board of Halcyon, which funds social entrepreneurship ventures.

FIRST JOB: I worked at a pizza shop in high school and was a serial entrepreneur, starting three different businesses during my undergrad studies.

Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: ANEESH CHOPRA

In 2014, Chopra co-founded Arlington-based CareJourney, an open-data analytics platform designed to help physicians and provider networks improve health care delivery at lower cost to Medicare and Medicaid patients by better understanding patient demographics and identifying highest-need populations.

Between 2009 and 2012, Chopra served as the federal government’s first chief technology officer, under President Barack Obama, and he was Virginia’s technology secretary during U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s term as governor.

In addition to starting CareJourney, Chopra also co-founded its parent company, Hunch Analytics, a “hatchery” to incubate ideas that improve the productivity of health and education markets. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Chopra has a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He chairs the George Mason University President’s Innovation Advisory Council and serves on the boards of the Virginia Center for Health Innovation and the Health Care Cost Institute.

FIRST JOB: Bellhop, Ramada Inn outside of Princeton, New Jersey

NEW LIFE EXPERIENCE: Sitting in the passenger seat while my 16-year-old daughter drove

MOST RECENT BOOK READ: “Hack Your Bureaucracy: Get Things Done No Matter What Your Role on Any Team,” by Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai

Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: JOHN GOODMAN

Formerly an associate professor at Harvard Business School and deputy undersecretary for industrial affairs and installations at the Department of Defense, Goodman now leads Accenture subsidiary AFS, a federal contractor offering IT services. He previously held several leadership roles at Accenture before becoming CEO of AFS in 2017.

In May, AFS received a place on a contract worth up to $2.6 billion to modernize systems for the IRS, and in April, AFS launched a Federal Generative AI Center of Excellence, where researchers design artificial intelligence-powered prototypes and scale them for use at federal agencies.

A recipient of Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 Award each year since 2018, Goodman also received several awards for public service during his time at the Department of Defense. He co-chairs the Atlantic Council’s Commission on the Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies and Data and serves on the boards of the Atlantic Council and the Northern Virginia Technology Council.

FAVORITE APPS: PictureThis and Merlin Bird ID

HOW I UNWIND FROM WORK: Going on long walks with my dog, Kaia

Law 2023: KEN RANDALL

As dean and George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Randall continues into his third year at the university’s law school. Previously, Randall served as dean of the University of Alabama School of Law for two decades. During his tenure, UA’s ranking rose from 96th to 21st on U.S. News & World Report’s Best Law Schools list. He also launched the first online Master of Laws degree from an American Bar Association-accredited school, and a prominent law blogger named him one of the nation’s nine most transformative deans of the decade. Randall also served as special counsel to Robert Witt, then UA’s president, from 2006 to 2012.

Randall left UA in 2013 after founding iLaw Distance Education, which partnered with a quarter of the nation’s law schools to provide online legal training. In 2017, Leeds Equity Partners portfolio company Barbri acquired iLaw.

Randall specializes in international law and briefly practiced at New York-based global firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. He earned his law degree from Hofstra University, where he was editor-in-chief of its law review. He went on to receive a Master of Laws degree from Yale University and an additional Master of Laws and a doctorate from Columbia University.

Media 2023: JOSH EASTRIGHT

Eastright began his nearly 25-year career at Bloomberg as a college intern studying political science at Amherst College and then worked for Bloomberg LP, focusing on energy and commodities markets. He later moved to Bloomberg New Energy Finance before shifting to Bloomberg Government. In 2018, Eastright was named CEO of Bloomberg Industry Group, a Bloomberg affiliate company that employs around 1,200 in the D.C. area. It traces its roots back to 1929 and provides proprietary legal, tax, regulatory and business data and news to professionals across multiple industries through its Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax & Accounting and Bloomberg Government services.

Away from work, Eastright is a Washington Nationals fan and Chelsea Football Club supporter who’s also a member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Arts + Industries Building Working Group and serves on the boards of The Phillips Collection and Building Bridges Across the River, which runs a farm, workforce center, theater and playground for Washington, D.C., residents who live east of the Anacostia River.

Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: BRIAN KENNER

When Amazon.com was scouting for potential locations for its East Coast HQ2 headquarters years ago, Kenner was Washington, D.C.’s deputy mayor for planning and economic development, a position in which he worked hard to lure the e-tailer to the district, although ultimately Amazon picked nearby Arlington County. Now, Kenner works for the Fortune 500 goliath as head of HQ2’s economic development policy throughout the D.C. metropolitan area.

HQ2 opened its first new office tower in May, one of two towers in its first phase, and 8,000 employees are expected to be at work in Metropolitan Park by early October. Meanwhile, Kenner is also involved with Amazon’s in-kind and monetary donations, which have grown to $161 million across the metro region since 2018, Amazon announced in June. He also is a major player in the company’s plans for affordable housing, transportation, education and workforce training.

Before becoming D.C.’s deputy mayor, Kenner worked as city manager for Takoma Park, Maryland, and he also held management positions at Fannie Mae and Ernst & Young. An Iowa native, he has degrees from the University of Iowa and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Media 2023: TIMOTHY O’SHAUGHNESSY 

O’Shaughnessy stepped into his role as president and CEO of Graham Holdings in 2015, taking over for his father-in-law, Donald E. Graham. Almost a decade later, O’Shaughnessy oversaw another transition for the Fortune 1000 company as Graham stepped down as chairman of Graham Holdings and Anne Mulcahy, former chair and CEO of Xerox, took over as the board’s new chair in May.

Graham Holdings owns a mix of education, home health and hospice care, broadcasting, news, car dealerships, manufacturing and hospitality companies, including Slate magazine and education services company Kaplan. The company was incorporated as The Washington Post Co. in 1947 and changed its name to Graham Holdings after its 2013 sale of The Washington Post and other publishing businesses to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

A Georgetown University graduate, O’Shaughnessy was CEO of the startup LivingSocial, which he co-founded in 2007. Currently, he serves as a vice president of the board of directors for the Federal City Council, a nonprofit promoting economic development in Washington, D.C. While on Twitter, the Minnesota native described himself as a “Forlorn MN Twins fan.”

Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: DAVID CALHOUN

Boeing encountered some issues this spring in producing its 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner planes, due to manufacturing problems, which has contributed to an industrywide shortage of new jets. In a May Bloomberg interview, Calhoun, who heads the world’s fifth largest defense contractor, said that supply chain disruptions to the aerospace industry could continue “for a very long time,” possibly longer than five years.

A Virginia Tech alum, Calhoun was hired as president and CEO of Boeing in 2020, after serving on its board. He previously held C-suite positions at Blackstone, Nielsen Holdings and General Electric.

In May, Boeing notched a major win, announcing a $40 billion deal to provide Boeing 737 MAX-10 aircraft to Irish carrier Ryanair. But during his short tenure, Calhoun has also dealt with challenges such as the aftermath of two deadly 737 Max crashes that led to the Federal Aviation Administration grounding the aircraft for nearly two years. Boeing paid $2.5 billion in criminal fines in 2021 after settling with the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 2022, Boeing moved its headquarters to Arlington from Chicago. Boeing has about 400 people employed in the county, with 140,000 employees worldwide.

Media 2023: JIM VANDEHEI

VandeHei began his path to media entrepreneur as a reporter in the Washington, D.C., journalism trenches, first as a congressional and White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal from 2000 to 2003, and then for three years at The Washington Post, where he also covered Congress and the executive branch. He left the Post in 2006 to co-found the Politico news site, for which he served as CEO.

The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh graduate and self-described proud Wisconsinite made another entrepreneurial leap in 2016 when he co-founded Axios, which launched in 2017 and has come to be known for its “smart brevity” approach to news. Last year, he and fellow Axios co-founders Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz released a book, “Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less,” which strives to “teach readers how to say more with less in virtually any format.”

Also in 2022, Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises acquired Axios for a reported $525 million. VandeHei remains in charge of Axios. Its communications software business, Axios HQ, became an independent company majority-owned by the founders, with Cox as its sole minority investor.