William LaPlante, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense, was presented his 2022 Wash100 Award, the most prestigious award in all of government contracting (GovCon), by Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson during a summit hosted by Potomac Officers Club (POC).
Executive Mosaic recognized William LaPlante as a first-time recipient of the Wash100 Award for his visionary leadership and drive for innovation to revamp U.S. weapons systems to protect our national security interests as well as driving the adoption of the latest emerging technologies that are critical to the federal marketplace’s future.
At POC’s Defense Technology Summit: FY2023 Budget and Priorities on Oct. 25, LaPlante was officially presented his Wash100 Award and acted as a keynote speaker for the event to discuss his top priorities that are central to his focus, including the delivery of new capabilities for our warfighters and addressing the challenges of moving prototypes into production.
LaPlante also highlighted the importance of production for our nation’s current defense missions, including the speed of product to predict warfighter needs as they happen in real time, which includes a higher level of awareness for future conflicts as well as high-priority capability areas like hypersonics.
“We’ve never been in production in hypersonics in this country ever. Hypersonics has been in the S&T world for 60 years, whereas the Russians and Chinese are in production. So I’m going to be tuning out when you talk about doing a test. When you go into production, I’m going to start paying attention,” said LaPlante.
President Biden announced William LaPlante as the nominee for his current role with the Department of Defense back in November 2021 before the nomination was officially confirmed in April 2022. In the statement for the news, LaPlante was recognized for his nearly four decades of experience in driving acquisition, technology, sustainment and the defense industrial base.
Most recently, LaPlante emphasized how the U.S. manufacturing ecosystem has been an absolutely critical engine of economic growth, competitiveness and innovation for over 200 years, including its role in the development of technologies that sustain the country’s national security.
“We will need to use all the tools at our disposal to support a scale up of new, advanced manufacturing technologies across a range of critical sectors in the defense industrial base – including bio-manufacturing, renewable energy, batteries and microelectronics,” said LaPlante.
Executive Mosaic recognized DOD and William LaPlante as a first-time recipient of the Wash100 Award for his accomplishments over his extensive and significant career supporting the U.S. government and the GovCon community, which is something he’ll continue to do in his new role with the DoD as its Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.
