Defense Business Brief: 1:1 with Gabe Camarillo; Tariff ripple effects?, and more

Peraton wants to bring AI-fueled project management to the Pentagon and beyond—while also changing the perception that it’s just an IT company.

It’s true the company has “a rich history of doing IT services and IT modernization across

government customers,” Gabe Camarillo, the company’s new defense sector president, told Defense One. 

But Peraton is also big on defense prototyping and engineering: “We do Tomahawk theater mission planning support for the Navy,” he said, plus “modeling and simulation for Aegis. Also, sonar analysis and acoustic analysis for the Navy at Carderock. And then we also provide engineering support to some Army programs, like, for example, those that do aircraft survivability equipment.”

And those are areas ripe for growth, he said.

“We're looking to expand that footprint across the department, particularly at a time where new capabilities allow you to reduce risk in modernization programs, identify technical risks on system designs…achieve test and evaluation much more quickly. And bring that experience to bear to our customers to help them modernize at the pace they want to,” Camarillo said.

The former Army undersecretary stepped into the role this summer and said his overall vision is for Peraton to become the “go-to provider to manage and modernize enterprise IT across the department” which includes using AI to manage networks effectively. 

And part of the vision is to bring what Peraton’s been doing with the $1.5 billion contract to overhaul the Federal Aviation Administration’s aging air traffic control system to other government customers. 

“One of the key aspects of that work that we're doing for the FAA is introducing AI-enabled program management, where it gives the leadership of the agency much better insight into how the program can be executed,” Camarillo said, adding that AI can spot cyber risks and map out an organization’s modernization plan. 

“That kind of applied AI usage…[can] enable not just an end user to ask queries of an AI tool, but to really allow an enterprise to use the tool effectively for its own modernization. That’s where I think there's some secret sauce that Peraton has brought to the table, and we're looking to expand that across all of our customer sets, whether it's defense and non-defense.” 

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On a waterfront near Baltimore during a shipbuilding announcement Tuesday, President Donald Trump brought up tariffs, which he now calls his “fourth” or “fifth favorite word.” The comments weren’t new, but they were a reminder of simmering concerns about how U.S. trade relations, particularly with close allies, could affect national security. 

• “Our drug industry is coming back. Our car industry is coming back. They're leaving Canada. They're leaving Mexico. They're leaving Japan, Germany, South Korea. We're building car plants,” he said. “It's all because of my favorite word, my fourth favorite…tariff,” the president said. (Context: There are multiple reports that U.S. tariffs on imported goods, such as automobiles from Canada, create uncertainty and the U.S. trade deficit is worsening.)
• The president’s comments reminded me of exchanges last week during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Golden Dome, in which lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raised concerns that the escalating U.S. trade war with Canada could spill into defense. 
• “They're a good ally. They're a good neighbor. They are modernizing NORAD right now…It's my understanding, though, that an agreement hasn't been reached with Canada yet on Golden Dome,” Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said during the hearing last week. “I think as we progress along there, my hope would be that we can continue to have a good working relationship there to really protect both of our countries.” 

• Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., agreed, saying tensions between the neighboring allies have necessitated multiple “peacekeeping visits to Ottawa” and that it’s “unrealistic to expect that you can treat an ally badly in one domain, on the economy, but expect…to work cooperatively in terms of our defense.”
• Some background: The senators’ concerns echo those circulating since last year when the White House issued hefty tariffs on Canada and threatened to make the sovereign nation the 51st state. Those qualms have resurfaced as U.S.-Canada trade talks faltered in August and as a new batch of tariffs—and retaliatory tariffs—took hold this week. On the defense side, Canada has been reviewing its decision to buy 16 F-35As for months. And even if the trade war is resolved, there’s concern about an overall cooling in U.S.-Canada relations.

Making moves + other news

• General Dynamics President Danny Deep will take over as the company’s next CEO in 2027. CEO Phebe Novakovic will become executive chairman of the company’s board of directors. 
• Peraton hired two more former Army officials as vice presidents: Jennifer Swanson and Danielle Moyer.
• The Army inked a $9.5 million deal to expand use of Reveal Technology’s intelligence platform Farsight with the service’s Nett Warrior system. 
• Ursa Major added ex-Pentagon official David Rader as its chief strategy officer.
• ACMI, which builds defense production hubs, added Limitless Aeronautics to its Indiana campus. 
• Kaizen, the company that helped build the Pentagon’s counterdrone marketplace, landed a $49 million IDIQ deal for $43 million of classified work for the Army. 
• Auterion debuted a universal UAS launcher.
• Tiberius Aerospace snagged a $500 million deal to build and distribute its Sceptre precision-guided missile as part of a U.S.-U.K. collaboration.