How Pentagon Cash Helped Save Small Defense Companies During the Pandemic – By Marcus Weisgerber (Defense One) / May 24 2021
Business leaders are now calling on defense officials and lawmakers to keep a policy that pays contractors more money up front
As the world began shutting down amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Doug Carlberg worried about his San Antonio, Texas, factory that makes parts for military and commercial aircraft.
While his work making parts for combat jets like the F-35 stealth fighter remained constant, his business supplying commercial plane makers dried up, as passenger air travel nearly came to a halt. But a key Pentagon policy put in place early in the pandemic allowed him to make it through the year without having to lay off any of his 65 employees, Carlberg said.
“Even though last year was a very tough year, we were pretty close to meeting our regular revenue goal for the year,” Carlberg, a retired Army maintenance officer and test pilot, said in an interview. “It was because we were able to pick up a lot of additional DoD work where the commercial stuff kind of went off to the right, a little bit.”
Under the Pentagon policy, defense companies began receiving a larger share of contract payments up front. The firms, in turn, passed that cash to smaller suppliers, like M2 Global Technology, Carlberg’s disabled-veteran-owned company. The money also allowed firms—large and small—to blunt losses in commercial aerospace work.
