After the $ 13.4 billion given to Naval contractors last month, most folks breathed a sigh of relief when the big-spenders in Washington decided to shut off the spigots for the first two weeks of October. Our search, therefore produced no evidence of Department of Defense awards from October 1st through October 16th, but here’s what Navy contractors picked up from the 17th on.

Oct. 17th General Atomics, San Diego, CA $ 51,997,981
BAE Systems, San Francisco, CA $ 12,404,114

You think that’s heavy? Take a look at what was dished out (for the Navy only) the very next day.

Oct. 18th Raytheon Company, Sudbury, MA $ 406,024,307
Raytheon Company, Sudbury, MA $ 385,742,176
CACI Technologies, et al, Chantilly, VA $ 899,543,435
Huntington Ingalls, Inc., Newport News, VA $ 155,682,919
Lockheed Martin, Syracuse, NY $ 95,727,501
BAE Systems, San Diego, CA $ 70,777,435
Mortenson Construction, Minneapolis, MN $ 43,472,004
BAE Systems, et al, San Diego, CA $ 35,000,000
URS Group, Inc., San Antonio, TX $ 31,181,234
Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, TX $ 30,000,000
BAE Systems, San Diego, CA $ 23,802,154
Lockheed Martin, Moorestown, NJ $ 21,350,270
Northrop Grumman, Baltimore, MD $ 20,356,252
Epsilon Systems Solutions, San Diego, CA $ 15,814,969
DRS Power & Control Technology, Milwaukee, WI $ 13,396,000
BAE Systems Hawaii, Honolulu, HI $ 13,171,617
Siemens Industry, Inc., Beltsville, MD $ 12,136,943
Raytheon Company, Tucson, AZ $ 10,934,694
Northrop Grumman Systems, Herndon, VA $ 9,932,848
Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, AZ $ 9,606,647
FutureNet Group, Inc., Detroit, MI $ 9,499,725
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Bath, ME $ 9,132,002
Progeny Systems Corp., Manassas, VA $ 8,986,414
Wolf Creek Federal Services, Inc., Anchorage, AK $ 8,357,229
Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, MD $ 7,703,991
Alliant Techsystems Operations, Elkton, MD $ 7,478,270
Asset Group Inc., Oklahoma City, OK $ 7,307,000
Eagle Picher Technologies, Joplin, MO $ 7,190,283
Raytheon Systems, Portsmouth, RI $ 6,620,249
Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, MD $ 6,532,228

Oct. 21st BAE Systems, Nashua, NH $ 11,005,126
L3-Kollmorgen Corp., Northampton, MA $ 10,970,754

Oct. 22nd Patriot Contract Services, Concord, CA $ 329,245,641
Raytheon Company, Tewksbury, MA $ 58,000,000
Tel-Instrument Electronics Corp., East Rutherford, NJ $ 9,500,000
Railroad Construction Co., Paterson, NJ $ 43,214,749

Oct. 23rd United Technologies Corp., East Hartford, CT $ 508,214,419
RORE-ITSI Joint Venture, San Diego, CA $ 11,359,755
Electronic Metrology, Franklin, TN $ 48,887,598

Oct. 24th Raytheon Company, St. Petersburg, FL $ 236,663,164
ManTech Systems, Fairfax, VA $ 11,788,957
Raytheon Company, Largo, FL $ 7,307,299

Oct. 25th The Boeing Company, St. Louis, MO $ 26,650,000
Lockheed Martin, Manassas, VA $ 8,847,668

Oct. 28th The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA $ 99,606,355

Oct. 29th Bechtel Plant Machinery, Monroeville, PA $ 197,571,818
ManTech Technologies, Fairfax, VA $ 85,000,000
BAE Systems, Rockville, MD $ 21,652,898

Oct. 30th Sikorsky Support Services, Stratford, CT $ 110,830,801
Sikorsky Aircraft CORP., Stratford, CT $ 86,832,600
American Equipment Inc., et al, Salt Lake City, UT $ 30,000,000
Specpro Technical Services, San Antonio, TX $ 23,422,445
EDO Corp., Amityville, NY $ 13,009,938
Hamilton Sunstrand Corp., Rockford, IL $ 7,416,890
L-3 Communication Systems, Salt Lake City, UT $ 7,289,689

Oct. 31st Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, TX $ 422,063,723
Sauer Inc., Jacksonville, FL $ 31,910,953
I.E. Pacific, Inc., San Diego, CA $ 12,797,000

Well, maybe a sigh of relief wasn’t quite justified after all because on the 18th it became obvious that the so-called “shutdown” really didn’t affect the Department of Defense. Those folks were still at it during the imposed lull but didn’t publish the “awards” they were setting up until the 18th.

And “awards” they were. The total for the month of October came to $ 4,917,923,130, but almost half that amount – $ 2,382,460,795 – was dished out on that one day. The 18th. And don’t think for a minute all that work was done on that one day. The Department of Defense folks were toeing the line all during the “shutdown” for those who really run the show.

The $ 4,917,923,130 wasn’t anywhere near September’s figure of $ 13,435,026,705, though, so shouldn’t we be grateful for that? Well, yes – if that was all there was to it. But wait! There’s more.
On November 12th, we ran into an analysis put out by some very bright researchers at the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center. Here’s the headline that caught our attention. Read it and weep.

(November 12, 2013) – “Radar deal tops DoD’s October contract awards of $ 17 billion, analysis shows”

“Raytheon Co., the world’s largest missile maker, won the U.S. Defense Department’s biggest contract last month, a potential $ 1.6 billion deal to build advanced radar for new naval destroyers.

“The Waltham, Mass.-based company received a Navy contract to develop the air and missile defense radar for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers beginning in 2016, according to the October 10 announcement.

“Raytheon beat out Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. and Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman Corp. for the work, most of which will be performed at the company’s Sudbury, Mass. site.

“The award topped the list of more than 180 contracts announced in October, with a combined value of more than $ 17 billion, according to a Military.com analysis of the Pentagon’s daily contract announcements. That figure doesn’t reflect what is actually spent, or obligated, because many deals are only partially funded at first.

“The total is less than a third of the value of agreements announced in September, which is typically the busiest time of the year for federal contracting as employees rush to ink deals before the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. The trend was likely exacerbated this year by the federal government shutdown.” –

And all the while we thought we were getting off easy.

We recorded 58 announcements of contracts awarded for Naval construction in October.
Georgia Tech researchers alertly found “more than 180 contracts” announced by the Pentagon.

We smugly calculated an amount of $ 4,917,923,130 awarded just for Naval construction.
Georgia Tech researchers found that the Pentagon’s awards came to more than $ 17 billion.

We believed the con-men who said that from October 1st to the 16th Washington was “shutdown”.
But that $ 1.6 billion deal was struck on October 12th – while we were looking the other way.

And remember, that “figure doesn’t reflect what is actually spent, or obligated, because many deals are only partially funded at first”.

[So, those billions of dollars we found this past year? We were just scratching the surface.]