As global account manager of Lockheed Martin at Intel Corp., Don Brown has the unique responsibility of acting as a bridge between both companies, ensuring Lockheed Martin has access to the technologies and capabilities it needs to support national security and defense missions.
Brown said this role, at its core, is about commitment.
“We’re aligning in new ways, blending cultures and creating shared value,” he told WashingtonExec.
Brown joined Intel in 2016, but began his career as a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin. That’s where he developed his strong technical foundation with a focus on edge platforms and cloud architectures before expanding into business development and customer-facing work.
When he joined Intel Federal, he became a business strategist, then global account manager for Lockheed Martin.
“My current role leans a lot on my familiarity with these two distinct business models in combining the Intel and Lockheed worlds for maximum innovation and impact,” he said.
Below, Brown expands on his career path, current growth opportunities and priorities, the importance of mentorship, and more.
Why was this the path you chose, and how influential was it to your career?
It all started with the SR-71 Blackbird. As a kid, I was obsessed, spending weekends at libraries hunting for anything that could explain how this futuristic aircraft worked. That curiosity sparked my passion for advanced technologies within the Aerospace and Defense sector and, ultimately, led me to Lockheed Martin. Today at Intel, I’ve come full circle. I align emerging technologies to deliver next-gen capabilities for Lockheed Martin.
Do you have a personal connection to the current mission you support?
On a personal level, both of my grandfathers served honorably, one in the Navy, the other in the Army, and their legacy instilled in me a deep respect for those who serve. That connection drives a strong sense of responsibility in my work today, where I help strengthen the goal of ensuring our warfighters have the asymmetric advantages they need to succeed.
It is also incredibly validating personally to see the projects that I’m leading get called out for kudos and recognition at the highest levels. For example, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet highlighted in an earnings call our work revolutionizing defense systems capabilities by integrating high-performance, U.S.-built semiconductors into platforms like the MH-60 Romeo helicopter.
What are your current top priorities and responsibilities? How do these relate to Intel’s overall mission/growth strategy?
My top priority is ensuring Lockheed Martin has seamless access to Intel’s most advanced technologies, enabling them to deliver cutting-edge capabilities in support of national security and defense missions. At its core, this work is about this commitment. Intel and Lockheed Martin are very different organizations, but we’re aligning in new ways, blending cultures and creating shared value. I act as a bridge between the two, bringing insight into both companies and a deep understanding of the full engineering development lifecycle, from early R&D to deployment.
Where do you and your team see growth opportunities?
Growth in this field is being driven by a very clear, but incredibly challenging, goal: delivering significantly more compute at lower power and lower cost. Achieving this requires overcoming organizational and domain silos to connect the varied expertise of world-class scientists, foundry engineers, and ASIC developers. Take CJADC2, for example.
The future battlespace will require ubiquitous compute: the kind of capabilities that used to live inside massive data centers now need to be miniaturized, ruggedized, and power-efficient enough to operate on distributed platforms, often in highly contested and resource-constrained environments. This is where I like to roll up my sleeves; architecting distributed cloud architectures allows me to geek out while driving business.
How are you and your team planning to address/prepare for these opportunities?
We spend our days aligning to the needs of Lockheed Martin and their customers, researching and testing the Intel technologies and products that could be integrated to solve their challenges. For example, we at Intel won’t build Golden Dome; however, our technologies serve as key components in creating the capabilities that will make it possible.
We also see major opportunities at the intersection of 5G and edge computing. Together, they represent a kind of technological alchemy, enabling robust, low-latency global communications, even in denied environments. This opens the door to an explosion of data at the edge and, just as importantly, the ability to analyze that data in real time.
How important is mentorship & networking in GovCon? Were they influential to your career?
Mentorship and networking are absolutely critical in GovCon. The problems that we’re solving in this sector are complex and high-stakes, and no one does it alone. I’ve been fortunate to have great mentors throughout my career, and I now pay that forward by mentoring others. A good mentor will challenge you, polish your thinking, and help bring your work to a whole new level of clarity and precision. That process only works when there’s trust and authenticity on both sides.
What is something most people don’t know about you personally?
It’s not romantic, and definitely a bit antiquated, but the Department of Defense Architecture Framework, or DoDAF, is my love language. Most systems engineers dread it, but I genuinely enjoy it as a powerful framework that allows you to compare, connect, and contextualize complex systems across multiple programs. I’ve always had a passion for systems thinking, and frameworks like DoDAF give structure to that passion.