Christine Thropp
Executive Mosaic is honored to induct Stephen duMont, president of GM Defense, into the 2023 edition of the Wash100 Award for leading company growth efforts through new business establishment and industry and defense collaborations.
The award is the first time duMont was named among the Wash100 recipients, who are elite public and private sector individuals with demonstrated leadership, innovation, vision and means to shape the government contracting landscape in the coming years.
Don’t forget to cast your votes at Wash100.com to show support for your favorite GovCon leaders. The Popular Vote contest runs through April 28.
duMont was named president of the defense-focused arm of General Motors in May 2021. He has over two decades of defense industry experience, including working for several years at BAE Systems and Boeing. The executive served at the intelligence and space segment of Raytheon Technologies, where he spent nearly a decade and a half before transitioning to GM Defense.
The business lead is now responsible for driving GM Defense as it offers manufacturing, design and engineering capabilities to support defense and government customers.
In June 2022, GM Defense stood up an international entity envisioned to deliver technologies for electric, autonomous and connected vehicles to U.S. allies and partners to meet their mobility requirements. The business establishment is aimed at expanding the company’s global marketplace footprint.
“As we continue to explore opportunities across North America, Europe, the Middle East, the Indo Pacific region and beyond, we look forward to leveraging commercial technology to modernize the mobility capabilities of allied armed forces around the world,” said duMont, commenting on GM Defense International.
Aside from the international market push, GM Defense has made strides in the domestic government contracting landscape.
The company, along with its partner– American Rheinmetall Vehicles, was named as one of the four contractors of a U.S. Army truck prototype development initiative. Under an other transaction agreement for the first phase of the Common Tactical Truck program, the team will prototype the M915 Line Haul Tractor and M1088 Medium Tractor, Palletized Load System and Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck.
GM Defense was also tapped by General Dynamics‘ land systems business to join its industry team seeking to win another Army competition for Bradley combat vehicle replacement. As a member of the GD Land Systems team for the service branch’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicles program, the General Motors subsidiary will collaborate with AeroVironment, Applied Intuition and GD Mission Systems and, according to duMont, will contribute its autonomy, propulsion, vehicle development and other core capabilities to the bid.
Another focus area for GM Defense under duMont’s leadership is advancing battery electric technology. The company will provide the Army with its GMC Hummer EV pickup, a battery electric vehicle, for use in analysis and demonstration, while the Defense Innovation Unit selected it to develop a battery pack prototype for defense platforms.
“Leveraging GM’s advanced technology, this demonstration will prove to our U.S. Army customer what an all-electric supertruck can do and how the underlying technology can be leveraged for future defense needs, whether on an installation or in a tactical environment,” said duMont.
In an interview released late 2022, duMont pointed to GM Defense’s access to General Motors investments, such as the $35 billion allocation for EV and autonomous vehicle technologies.
“GM Defense is leveraging the benefits of this robust set of digital engineering tools [Virtual Design, Development and Validation] to create greater efficiencies across all phases of development and test to accelerate delivery timelines,” he said.
The executive also talked about encouraging commercial companies to pursue government business opportunities; accelerating the defense acquisition process; and expanding the use of commercial-off-the-shelf technology in the global landscape.
Executive Mosaic looks forward to duMont’s continued contributions to the GovCon industry in the year ahead and congratulates the executive and the GM Defense team for their inclusion in the 2023 Wash100 class.
Visit Wash100.com to vote for duMont and your nine other favorite Wash100 awardees to help them secure top spots in this year’s Popular Vote competition.
