Marine Corps Eyes Expanded OTAs Amid Acquisition Reform

Other transaction authorities (OTAs) have been the in-vogue way for the War Department to prototype and develop new technology for more than a decade, but with acquisition reform underway, the Marine Corps expects to dramatically increase their use across its portfolio.

“I would say four or five years ago we weren’t much into [other transactions (OTs)], we weren’t much into commercial solutions openings, those kind of things. Obviously we changed that approach,” said Stephen Bowdren, the Marine Corps’ portfolio acquisition executive (PAE), at the AFCEA NOVA Naval IT Day event earlier this month. “We are probably 10-20% now, and that’s growing because we’ve been mandated in many cases to consider commercial solutions first and go with OTs.”

Bowdren outlined the contracting policy changes underway in the service following the War Department’s November 2025 shift to a streamlined acquisition process built around capability portfolios rather than individual programs.

For the Marine Corps, that has meant structuring acquisition programs to be more collaborative, an effort that began even before the department replaced the program executive office (PEO) structure.

Now, instead of contract programs, officials are structuring acquisitions around portfolio bands like Fires & Maneuver, Command & Control or Robotics & Autonomous Systems, among others, and identifying areas where new technology tools can fill capability gaps and work across several platforms.

“Many of these programs support multiple capability portfolios and they also support other PAEs,” Bowdren said.

It also means the Marine Corps, as well as other armed forces, are actively making it easier for industry to engage them when it comes to acquisition, especially with DOW’s focus on procuring commercial technology tools.

Bowdren pointed to a QR code the Marine Corps developed to direct industry partners and nontraditional contractors to the service’s innovation portal, which features white papers and capability briefs for new tools.

The Marine Corps also offers quarterly innovation days where capability portfolio managers brief companies on the key operational problems they are looking for technology to solve.

Along with this acquisition innovation has come the increased focus on OTAs, which move faster than traditional contract programs and allow agencies to prototype and iterate solutions.

Bowdren said one area that OTAs could improve is getting more performance information on the contractors competing for them.

“As you know, in a [Federal Acquisition Regulation]-based contract, performance assessments, you’re able to go look at those. And it’s mutual discussion between the contractor and the program,” he said. “While in an OT, there’s no way to do something like that. I think that’s important.”

Bowdren added that there was a lot of change happening with acquisition regulation, including large shifts in the armed forces’ own supplemental contracting regulations

“I think it’s common knowledge that we are reassessing our whole supplements, if you will,” he said. There was the FAR, the [Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement] and then each service had its own set of supplements. And those are pretty much being canceled, for lack of a better word, and we’re only being allowed to put back in what we think is absolutely essential. A lot of great activity here, and we’ll see much more use of OTs.”