This week reminded us that change is always a constant in the government contracting arena as we learned of an impending relocation by a large defense contractor and the return of a veteran GovCon executive to the scene.

Boeing confirmed to GovCon Wire and other media outlets this week it plans to move the headquarters of its defense segment from the St. Louis metropolitan region after almost two decades there to the Washington, D.C. area at an office in the proximity of the Pentagon.

As of the turn of the New Year, Boeing™s defense CEO Leanne Caret and a dozen other senior leaders will be based out of the company™s Arlington, Va. facility that also houses the headquarters of the segment™s network and space systems unit.

Caret has prioritized bolstered relationships with government customers in her 10 months as CEO of the roughly $31 billion Boeing Defense, Space & Security segment and the move is intended to facilitate increased interactions with key decision makers.

Click here for GovCon Wire™s full report on the implications of this transition for both the St. Louis and Washington regions.

The world™s largest airplane maker was not the only GovCon entity to announce a change as KBRannounced the appointment of former Leidos finance chief Mark Sopp to the same role.

Sopp will officially start at KBR in the first quarter of 2017 and brings to the Houston-based engineering services contractor a career that includes 10 years as Leidos™ CFO and seven in the same role at the former Titan Corp.

KBR became a significant, œnon-traditional player in the GovCon market landscape this year through its estimated $900 million in acquisitions of El Segundo, Calif.-headquartered Wyle and the former Honeywell Technology Solutions business based out of Columbia, Md.

Those transactions led KBR to create a new $2.5 billion government services segment the company expects to represent close to 41 percent of total revenue per year and help diversify sales beyond the shorter-cycled hydrocarbons business.

With KBR now a significant GovCon player, Sopp will be key in the company™s relationship with government market-focused investors as the acquisitions bring increased attention from œThe Street on that area of the business.

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