ICYMI: Congresswoman Lee Meets with Nevada Small Businesses in Defense Industry, Discusses Funding Needed to Protect Military Readiness
LAS VEGAS, NV – Congresswoman Susie Lee (NV-03), a member of the House Appropriations Committee Defense Subcommittee, met with leaders from four Nevada defense businesses to understand their capabilities and challenges. In their conversations, Congresswoman Lee and the business leaders discussed how Congress can engage to help them provide critical capabilities for the Department of Defense.
Strike Solutions is a woman and service-disabled veteran owned small business that works to deliver mission-ready solutions for the toughest challenges in defense, intelligence, private industry, and more. In their meeting with Congresswoman Lee, they brought up that National Security agencies do not currently have a facility to develop and test technologies for surveillance and counter-surveillance systems that adequately represents the real-world scenarios these technologies will be used in. This results in both training shortfalls and operational deficiencies.
BeaverFit, a Nevada-based defense contractor, is the largest supplier of fitness equipment to the U.S. Armed Forces, including Nellis Air Force Base. They create custom expeditionary fitness and readiness equipment that allows service members to train for every mission essential task, from portable container gyms to special operations subterranean trainers. When meeting with Congresswoman Lee, BeaverFit identified a shortfall of funding for the Army's Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) Facilities Program Support. This funding would be used to create new training spaces or convert existing spaces into H2F training spaces by providing necessary equipment.
Congresswoman Lee also met with the Sierra Nevada Corporation, a defense technology global leader in aerospace and national security. They identified a funding disconnect for Degraded Visual Environment Pilotage System (DVEPS) Integration. DVEPS is a technology designed to help military helicopter pilots operate safely in challenging conditions where visibility is reduced or obscured, such as during dust storms or in low-light situations.
Congresswoman Lee also visited the new Las Vegas headquarters of Carbon SiC Technologies, Inc. Carbon SiC specializes in ultra-high temperature ceramic composites serving aerospace, defense, automotive, and commercial vehicles. The products they create include hybrid carbon composite brake rotors, thermal protection systems (TPS), and custom heat resistance materials. Carbon Sic identified to Congresswoman Lee a funding shortfall for innovative ceramic composite solutions that are significantly lighter, have a longer service life, and are easier to maintain than current solutions.
With these conversations in mind, Congresswoman Lee successfully advocated for the inclusion of the following funding requests in the House of Representatives’ Fiscal Year 2026 Defense Appropriations Bill:
- $18 Million for an Adaptive Threat Modeling Lab.
- $10 Million for the Army's Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) Facilities Program.
- $30 Million for UH-60M Degraded Visual Environment Pilotage System (DVEPS) Integration.
- $5 Million for low-cost carbon ceramic brake rotors.
These requests ensure adequate funding for these critical technologies and allows companies a chance to compete to provide their products to the Department of Defense.
As negotiations around the Defense Appropriations Bill continue, Congresswoman Lee is committed to ensuring this critical funding remains in any final bill that is signed into law. Protecting our national security is a bipartisan priority, and she will continue to oppose attempts to politicize this process that put our military readiness – and these investments – at risk.
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