Jeff Harman has an affinity for every step and aspect of the government contracting process, especially the competitive capture pursuit and the accountability enforced by government clients. Harman is a U.S. Air Force veteran who, after a decade of service, made the transition to GovCon out of a desire to provide “meaningful technologies to the warfighter that solve real problems.” The majority of his career, which included a small firm named BBN and then CACI International, has been spent in the IT domain.
Harman says he “grew up” at CACI, starting as a program director and ascending to an eventual post of senior vice president. His mentors at CACI were responsible for helping him grow his leadership skills into what they are today — he now leads telecommunications company Oceus as president and CEO, a position he’s held for the majority of this decade.
ExecutiveBiz spoke with Harman for a Spotlight interview that covered a lot of ground: new offerings from Oceus like the Oceus Intelligence Controller; what changes Harman would like to see come to fruition to make business with the federal government easier; and the progress being made in the Department of Defense with 5G deployment, among other topics.
Jeff Harman: To me, it comes down to two things. We spend a lot of time talking to customers, understanding where they’re going, what their needs are and looking at broader factors. For example, if you’re familiar with the National Defense Authorization Act and how it allocates funding, you can see how it shapes our work. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative and the European Deterrence Initiative are moving funds to those theaters, and that’s driving our strategy. They’re clearly signaling where more money and capability are needed, which shifts our focus. For a long time, we were more concentrated on the special operations community. Now, we’re broadening that focus to support those two major theaters, and we’re actively deploying systems there as part of that strategy.
The second big factor is the growth of artificial intelligence. It’s not just being used in obvious areas but also in places where it creates unexpected advantages. For instance, we’re integrating AI into our tool suites—namely Oceus Intelligence Controller—and also exploring AI for request for proposal analysis. It helps us identify RFPs that match our capabilities and respond more quickly and effectively. This approach allows us to be more detailed and faster in our responses. So, from a trend perspective, those are the two key areas we’ve been focused on…
