EP 112 — Persistent Systems' Jon Patrick On Winning $120M in Tactical Networking Without A Program Of Record

<p><a href="https://persistentsystems.com/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Persistent Systems</a> won a $120 million tactical networking award without a program of record. Their Wave Relay MANET served as the network backbone during Project Convergence Capstone 5, a combined arms breach exercise that became the precursor to the Army's Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) architecture.</p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-patrick/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jon Patrick</a>, VP of Business Development for Army and SOCOM at Persistent Systems, spent 26 years in DoD acquisition before crossing to industry. He tells Dave how two-year tranche buys reshape risk for bootstrapped companies, what it takes to scale from 150 to 750 network nodes, and where AI fits at the tactical edge.</p><p><strong>Topics discussed:</strong></p><ul><li><p>How government language shifts reshape small business IR&amp;D decisions</p></li><li><p>Two-year tranche buys replacing base-plus-four contract structures</p></li><li><p>MANET versus mesh networking at the tactical edge</p></li><li><p>Scaling NGC2 from 150 nodes to 750 at brigade level</p></li><li><p>Building a defense networking company for 18 years without VC</p></li><li><p>AI addressing terminal data fatigue on tactical networks</p></li><li><p>Going directly to SOCOM operators to find real requirements</p></li><li><p>Financial-industry security as an alternative to Type 1 encryption</p></li></ul><p><strong>Listen to more episodes: </strong></p><p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dib-innovators/id1720062726" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Apple </a></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z3PpCHsglA3uk2S6dCRBP" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Spotify </a></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX2eBOnzz1SX0Psj6BmbdCw" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">YouTube</a></p><p><a href="https://radicl.com/dib-innovators-podcast" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Website</a></p>