John Hillen, former president and CEO of Sotera Defense Solutions, has been named executive in residence and professor of practice for George Mason University’s School of Management.
Hillen currently serves as chairman of the board of advisers at SOS International, is on board of directors at Software AG Government Solutions and is vice chairman of Sotera’s board of advisers.
“The School of Management and George Mason are uniquely connected in myriad ways to the innovation engines of the economy in the Washington, D.C., area, ” said Hillen.
Prior to Sotera, Hillen served as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs and has also led CGI Federal as president.
Prior to CGI, he led the defense and intelligence business at the former American Management Systems.
When he spoke to our sister site ExecutiveBiz in January, Hillen explained why he views serving in government as important for other government contracting leaders.
“When I was a government official, I wasn’t in a position where I was doing technology procurement or some of those things, I was a mission and policy person, ” he said.
“But it gives you real insight as to what it takes to run a complex government and in my field, complex national security related business, ” he added.
He also traced the history of the GovCon sector and technology procurement in that conversation.
“Government contracting used to be a real cottage industry, ” he said.
“Then, it really boomed during the 80’s and continued to grow until the 90’s into our own generation when you had a real flowering of technology and advancing of the number of things government was trying to accomplish, ” he added.
