Vicky has nearly 20 years of experience as a former Contracting Officer, Technical Industrial Liaison Officer, and Procurement Analyst for the US Army and US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) for the Department of Defense (DOD). She led the solicitation, evaluation, award, and administration of a $1 billion contract for the Special Operations Forces Support Activity (SOFSA). In support of the USSOCOM Small Business Specialist, Vicky evaluated, awarded, and managed the agency’s SBIR Phase I and II contracts for two years.

After leaving the DOD, Vicky managed the Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) in Tampa, Florida, for three years. She provided support to small businesses through one-on-one consulting, developing and conducting seminars and performing outreach to small businesses interested in getting into and growing in federal, state and local government contracting. She managed the Tampa PTAC Annual Small Business Procurement Conference, connecting small businesses with large prime contractors and government agencies at all levels.

Since then, Vicky has worked as a proposal manager/writer in the federal, state, and local government market. She has developed winning proposals worth billions in government contracts. Vicky has 25 years of experience in helping small and large businesses managing and writing successful proposals, including SBIR Phase I and Phase II proposals for variety of DoD and civilian federal agencies, such as US Army, Navy, and USSOCOM; and Civilian agencies such as VA, NASA, GSA, DHS, FEMA, EPA, and USAID.

Paul Schauer is the co-founder and co-host of the Contracting Officer Podcast. The Contracting Officer Podcast was created to help both government and industry acquisition professionals understand how the other side thinks and operates by providing context on the similarities and differences between the roles.

Paul’s 25 years of federal acquisition experience include service as a civilian contracting officer supporting the United States Air Force (USAF), director of contracts and business operations for a small-to-mid size defense contractor, and vice president for a major defense contractor in both contracts and operations (P&L responsible) roles.

He is well versed in all facets of the government acquisition process from both a government and contractor perspective; including acquisition strategy, source selection, bid strategy, proposal pricing, acquisition policy, negotiation, and cradle-to-grave management of complex contracts.

Former DoD and US Navy Contracting Officer

Steve worked for DoD for 32 years as a contracting officer. Steve started out buying the nuts and bolts for DoD systems and at the end of his career was buying the whole system. He retired in 2014 after serving as the Procuring Contracting Officer at Naval Air System Command for major weapon systems procured by Naval aviation for 7 years.

His brings experience in R&D, service, performance-based logistics, and hardware acquisitions.