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The Federal Funding Hotwire
Expert analysis from a global defense and federal funding expert.
The Oregon Trail Never Ended
Taylor Sheridan may have unintentionally created one of the better leadership case studies of our time as he explored the Yellowstone series. His stories span more than 150 years of American history. 1883 follows settlers moving west in search of opportunity. 1923 chronicles a family fighting to survive economic hardship and social change. Yellowstone centers on
The New Gold Rush
Every gold rush creates real winners. That is what makes gold rushes so dangerous. A few people strike gold early. Capital floods in. Success stories multiply. Outsiders rush to imitate what appears to be a permanently rewritten market. But eventually, reality reasserts itself. Infrastructure matters. Institutions matter. Enduring
The Budget Isn’t The Story Anymore
Signals From the FY26/FY27 Defense Market Over the past several months, I’ve run a series of LinkedIn polls focused on the FY26/FY27 defense environment, congressional engagement, execution risk, and contractor strategy. Individually, they looked like quick pulse checks from the GovCon community. Taken together, they tell a more
The Decision You Already Know You Need to Make
At my recent Meet the Ringmasters gathering, we spent two days in a room with CEOs, founders, and operators comparing notes. Not just on strategy, but on what actually moves a business forward. It wasn’t a room lacking ideas or experience. If anything, there was an overabundance of
Participate in Your Own Rescue
At the end of each semester, I read every course evaluation of the undergraduate courses I teach. Not because I’m looking for praise, but because I’m looking for patterns. Across several years and hundreds of students, the pattern has been remarkably consistent. Students tell me: And yet, there’s
Backlog: Signal of Failure—or Symptom of a Broken System?
At Sea-Air-Space 2026, something unusual happened. For the first time, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, took the stage. That alone is worth noting. OMB doesn’t typically show up in industry forums like this unless there’s intent behind it. Credit likely goes, at
