Melissa Mitchell joined COLSA in September 2025 as the Executive Director of Acquisition with 27 years of experience and expertise in Government Contracting and Business Operations. During the span of her Government career, she was a manager for 16 years and GS-15 equivalent for 10 years. As the first ever Executive Director of Acquisition at…
Diana is a COLSA Cyber Analyst supporting both the Army Aviation and Missile Command (DEVCOM AvMC) in Huntsville and the High-Performance Computing Modernization Office (HPCMO) in Vicksburg, Mississippi and Aberdeen, Maryland. Her natural inclination towards computers and a talent for organization, led her to pursue a career in computer science. While in college, she made…
International Day of Women and Girls in Science is a day dedicated to recognizing the significant gender gap that persists in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field. Women have come a long way in gaining access to higher education, but there is still room for improvement. We need to ensure that women are…
After completing years in the Army as a military intelligence officer, Samantha Viray found herself transitioning to Huntsville in search of a new career. She knew that Huntsville was a big defense-contracting town, which was right up her alley. She realized that her experience from the Army would be best utilized if she stayed aligned…
While finishing his graduate degree last year, Ryan Shu was looking for internship opportunities from all over the country. He was drawn to the defense industry, specifically companies with a strong software focus. COLSA was one of the leading companies that Ryan was drawn to and wanted to work for. After interviewing with COLSA, Ryan…
Prior to COLSA, Morgan Garris was in college pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Management with a concentration in Human Resource Management. While in school, she had the opportunity to intern with COLSA. It was here that she realized that COLSA was somewhere she could see herself long-term. After her internship, Morgan applied to COLSA…
Will Green started at COLSA this past summer as an intern in our Cyber and Information Warfare department. As a part-time employee for COLSA, Will focuses on threat hunting and finishing up his degree in applied cybersecurity studies at SANS Technology Institute. Outside of work at COLSA, he is also a member of the US…
Johnathan Stuecker is one of our part-time student employees that recently completed our summer internship program. Not only is Johnathan pursuing an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Alabama, but he’s also currently working on his MBA. Though Johnathan never thought he’d end up in data science, he’s glad he did. This…
Six years ago, Wade Hawkins moved with his wife from Utah to Ohio so that he could start a new job with COLSA. After eight months in his first position, the need for a program manager position on one of COLSA’s contracts arose. Wade filled in temporarily but was officially promoted to the position within…
Ryan Comandante is one of our recent new hires at COLSA as he just started a little over a year ago supporting our long-time Navy client on the Data Link Test Tools contract that we’ve been executing for over 20 years. While working as a configuration manager (CM), he’s learned a lot in just a short…
