GovCon Edge

Brought to you by Deep Water Point & Associates, GovCon Edge delivers practical insights, strategies, and real-world perspectives to help businesses compete and win in government contracting.
Decisions are happening faster, with less reliance on documentation and greater emphasis on what can be proven clearly and quickly. Teams that still treat capture, proposal, and orals as separate efforts are already misaligned before the evaluation begins. This session breaks down what has changed, how evaluators are making decisions today, and where most teams are quietly losing ground without realizing it. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to strengthen positioning, improve evaluator confidence, and adapt pursuit operations for the evolving federal procurement environment.
Take Aways:
What changed with FAR 2.0 and how it impacts capture, proposal, and orals
Capture is your first live-test environment and how to approach it
How to develop faster, proof-based procurement responses that increase evaluator confidence
How to win over Oral evaluations in the first 750 spoken words
Tips and techniques to improve capture, proposals, and orals in the FAR 2.0 era
Target Audience: CGOs; VPs/Directors of Capture, Proposal Operations, and Orals; Owners and C-Suite Leaders of mid-sized and small contractors.
Connect with the speakers:
Eric Heffernan, SVP, Deep Water Point & Associates, ModeratorTom Howder, Retired Deputy Commissioner, GSA and Principal, Deep Water Point & AssociatesDoug Black, Managing Director, Capture & Proposal, Deep Water Point & AssociatesPhil Rizzi, Managing Director, Solution Architecture, Deep Water Point & AssociatesMichael Schneider, Managing Director, Orals and GSA AAS Program, Deep Water Point & Associates

For GovCon leaders, a successful exit is an exciting milestone in a company’s evolution. But difficult exit paths have re-emerged across an increasingly competitive, complex macroeconomic and geopolitical marketplace. This is forcing GovCon stakeholders to abandon financial engineering and instead focus on positioning their companies as high-quality, resilient businesses with deep, defensible value creation opportunities for buyers.
Brought to you by Deep Water Point & Associates, this live conversation on, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and other transaction-related advisors will open with a recent M&A market update – where deal activity stood in 2025 and how the remainder of 2026 is shaping out – and then will discuss how GovCon leaders can think about exit strategies and value creation in the current environment.
Takeaways:
GovCon M&A market snapshot – 2025 recap and 2026 outlook
Different types of capital partners and funding strategies
The Value Playbook: Actionable ways to show value to buyers
Connect with the speakers:
Mike Mullen, Senior Vice President, Deep Water Point & AssociatesTaylor Edwards, Vice President, Transaction Advisory Services, Deep Water Point & AssociatesCameron Smith, Managing Director, Private Equity Services, Cherry Bekaert Advisory LLCPeter Russo, Managing Director, Investments, Wells Fargo AdvisorsRaj Dugal, Executive Director, Wells Fargo

Brought to you by Deep Water Point & Associates, GovCon Edge delivers practical insights, strategies, and real-world perspectives to help businesses compete and win in government contracting.
Brought to you by Deep Water Point & Associates, GovCon Edge delivers practical insights, strategies, and real-world perspectives to help businesses compete and win in government contracting.
In this episode, Deep Water Point & Associates brings together defense, civilian, and industry perspectives to unpack how AI decisions are actually being made across the federal government and why having a clear, credible AI story is now essential for succeeding in GovCon. Leading organizations are treating AI as a mission enabler and enterprise consideration, not a proposal add-on. Rather than focusing on tools or demos, the discussion centers on the five decisions federal buyers are making right now:
•Mission — where AI measurably improves outcomes
•Platform — how AI fits within existing environments
•Trust — security, transparency, and risk management
•Acquisition — procurement, contracting, and governance realities
•Workforce — ownership, operations, and sustainment
Connect with the speakers:Eric Heffernan, SVP, Deep Water Point & Associates, Moderator
Chase Dalton, Director - National Security, Cognition AI
Sanjay Koyani, Principal, Deep Water Point & Associates and former DOL CTO and HHS Innovation Executive
Jeff Simpson, Principal, Deep Water Point & Associates
Randy Soper, Senior Director AI, Slalom and former IRS Chief AI

Brought to you by Deep Water Point & Associates, GovCon Edge delivers practical insights, strategies, and real-world perspectives to help businesses compete and win in government contracting.
Join Deep Water Point & Associates and other industry experts for an essential power session focused on CMMC 2.0 that will help guide you through the complexities of compliance. The session includes a concise overview of CMMC 2.0, detailing what the program is, the key differences between Level 1 and Level 2, and the essential timeline and enforcement details.
Topics covered include:
Gain background on common pitfalls and readiness tips
Hear real-world examples of success, including how to accelerate readiness
Discuss strategies to help streamline your path to compliance through automation
Understand how a small business effectively navigated the journey, including challenges, solutions, and outcomes
Hear from the following speakers:
DWPA Moderator, Tom Ruff, Principal, Deep Water Point & Associates
Karlton Johnson, Col, USAF, Ret., Principal, Deep Water Point & Associates
Tony Bai, Chief Solutions Officer, RISCPoint
Matt Goodrich, JD, Director, Federal Security Compliance SME, Diligent