Contractors: Bye, shutdowns. Hello, new-era NASA and FIFA World Cup.

Guest:	Jim Carroll
Title:	CEO, Professional Services Council
Summary:	With the threat of a shutdown gone for most of the government at least, contractors can now shift their focus to some eventful business opportunities. For one thing, NASA is going through a transformation. Plus the upcoming FIFA World Cup could present some interesting opportunities.

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Interview transcript:

Eric White With the threat of a shutdown gone for most of the government, at least contractors can now shift their focus to some eventful business opportunities. For one thing, NASA is going through a sort of transformation. Plus the upcoming FIFA World Cup could present some interesting opportunities. For more on that, we welcome Jim Carroll, CEO of the Professional Services Council. It’s going to be a busy week. Let’s start first with NASA as the new administrator over there, Jared Isaacman — took a little while for him to get going and get into place. But now that he is, I understand that there are some workforce initiatives…there’s going to be some major restructuring it seems like. What do you know, what’s the latest?

Jim Carroll Administrator Isaacman has really hit the ground running. One thing that is fun, I think, in terms of what NASA is doing right now is the launch of Artemis II, which should be occurring here within a month, maybe two months, I’d think at the most. And I know, and I’ve heard him talk publicly about this, that is something that’s very exciting for him. I think the amount of work that he is doing on Artemis II has brought to him the amount of work that is being done by both contractors as well as the NASA employees who our contractors that side-by-side with. And the administrator did come out with an internal memo almost two weeks ago, at this point, about restoring and retaining in-house engineering and other types of scientific work inside NASA. I think from a citizen perspective, that’s sort of nice to hear when you think about NASA and all the great work that’s been done. I think that him trying to rebuild NASA is a show that there’s a lot of interest by the president and Congress. We’ve seen that during his confirmation hearings in the Senate. I think what’s important, though, for the contractors who currently do a lot of work there is demonstrating the value that they bring, the expertise that they bring and the uniqueness. The technology that they have at their hands, either at their companies or by sitting there, as I said, side-by-side with the employees, they really provide a valuable talent that can’t be provided elsewhere. As we get more and more into this and see the role of contractors and the excitement about Artemis II, we need to make sure that everyone has a broad understanding, but from a NASA perspective, we’ll continue to see some really good work coming out of Administrator Isaacman. I know his deputy is about to be confirmed, or was just confirmed, and so again, his deputy comes from a government contracting background. And so I think it’ll be interesting to sort of see how this evolves, but we’re not worried at all.

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Eric White So it sounds like you have a positive outlook here. What kind of effect will this be looking for federal contractors as they look to get 2026 going? I mean, it was a delayed start. So now that things are up and running, how do you see this affecting them?

Jim Carroll I really think it will remain steady. The one sentence of his internal memo, I think, is key. I’ll quote it real quick. The foundation of NASA — “this foundation will strengthened by contractors in non-core areas and for surge requirements.” And that’s exactly what contractors do. They bring in expertise, sometimes in core areas, in addition to non-core areas. But they really can surge when necessary and shrink when necessary. I think we’ll continue to see that more and more, and I’m really optimistic because I know so many of the folks that are there at NASA. They have such unique talents and skills that they really are indispensable.

Eric White Talking here with Jim Carroll, CEO of the Professional Services Council. One other major event that’s coming up that several of us are excited about, not just for the contracting opportunities, but the 2026 FIFA World Cup is right on the helm. You wouldn’t think that there would be a major opportunity here for government contractors, but this is going to be a kind of all hands-on-deck situation. What role do you see the government industry side playing?

Jim Carroll It is a lot of preparation for this through the federal government and the contractors. You know, I have to say on a side note, because we’re talking about the role of security and intel providing support for the FIFA games — when you look at what happened over the Mexican government getting El Mencho, the head of the CJNG cartel, and the disruption that has happened in Mexico as a result of this cartel being really decapitated. It shows that these are national security events. And I bring up Mexico because there are games, FIFA games, being played in Mexico. And the role is really unique for the contractors. Eleven U.S. cities, and we had a really good federal law enforcement conference recently, just a week or so ago. We got Andrew Giuliani, who is the White House lead for the FIFA games, to come and speak about security, public safety, the role of drones, the role of counter-drones, and really the ability to surge and how much larger it is than one Super Bowl, which we think of and which most people watch. This is the equivalent of 78 Super Bowls in 40 days. And so this is really a great role for contractors to show the value that they bring. The intel, the cyber, everything is really a wonderful role for our contractors to step up and show the safety and security that they provide.

Eric White Other than, you know, providing the obvious, it’s going to take a lot of manpower, and security means you need eyeballs. Other than the human capital side of things, and the staffing, what ways can we expand upon a little bit on how federal contractors will be supporting this event? Obviously, security is a big one. But I imagine that there are some other some other boxes that can be checked by the contractor roles.

Jim Carroll Mr. Giuliani talked about that, and I have to be honest with you, there was one that I had not really thought about that much prior to his meeting with our members was the role of government contractors in expediting visa and travel operations. Because we will be getting so many visitors to the country, because of getting so many athletes and teams where you know we try to extend the courtesy of getting them through quickly — that quite frankly was an area that I had not given much thought to. But just like we talked about with NASA, this is a surge for our government contractors as we support the U.S. to win this summer. Just like we won gold in hockey, it’d be great to be able to have a similar win for not only our government contractors, but for the U.S. team.

Eric White That may be a far reach for us U.S. soccer fans to get with you on. But hey, you know what? It’s they got to play the game still, right?

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Jim Carroll PSC is the official trade association for FIFA. Okay, I’m kidding, but mentally we are, right? We’re cheering them on.

Eric White Fantastic. We’re cheering right alongside you. Anything else on the horizon for 2026? You know, we don’t have to get super into any of the specific dates or anything, but what else do you all see coming down the pipeline as, like I said, we get to this sort of delayed start now?

Jim Carroll Congress is just getting back. We’re still in the midst of a relatively small DHS shutdown. But you, know, the ones most impacted, I think, are the U.S. Coast Guard, who are clearly not political and doing God’s work safeguarding the country and as well as safety and security. All of the SAR, search and rescue missions, that they do, they’re going without pay. And that is disappointing. Our hope is this will be restored this week. Not the most optimistic person that will resolve this today or tomorrow, but we need to get that finished and up and running and let the government continue to provide services.

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