Welcome to Panama City Beach, FL, home to one of Booz Allen's flagship engineering and manufacturing facilities. I'm David Durden, director of engineering and operations. Today I'm going to show you how we turn innovation into product, building critical technologies that give our war fighter the tactical advantage they need to win all over the world. In Panama City, we move fast, turning bold ideas into mission ready hardware from prototype to battlefield deployment. We reduce risk, accelerate timelines and deliver critical capabilities to our war fighters faster and safer. We invest in U.S.-based facilities like this because we can design, build and test mission ready solutions that keep America ahead of evolving threats. We leverage best in class tools across mechanical, structural systems and ocean engineering to tackle the toughest challenges. And behind the tech are our people, highly skilled engineers and defense experts, including those that have actively served our country from concept to combat. Booz Allen's Panama City Beach facility is proud to drive innovation and deliver excellence for our nation's war fighters. Nothing beats building the technology that secures America.
How Booz Allen Engineers Defense Innovation
Making wearables and tactical autonomy combat-ready
From body‑worn systems to autonomous platforms, today’s military innovations must be more than cutting edge. They must be precision-built, pressure-tested, and delivered at speed. That’s where Booz Allen’s engineering and manufacturing expertise comes in.
With a nationwide network of more than 20 engineering and manufacturing facilities—anchored by three flagship sites in Virginia, Maryland, and Florida—Booz Allen is building advanced hardware and software to give American warfighters lasting tactical advantages. Each flagship site is purpose-built to tackle the military’s toughest technology challenges. Our engineers support everything from concept development and prototyping to full-scale production, integration, and long-term maintenance. We build solutions as small as a pair of combat boots and as large as a hypersonic nozzle.
Our engineering work includes some of the most advanced systems shaping the future of defense. These facilities are where we engineer EdgeXtend™, which brings the power of the cloud to austere edge locations, and support the integration of Booz Allen Sit(x)®, which delivers the ability to connect Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) users within the same operating environment for real-time awareness and secure communications in the field.
Here’s a look at three facilities where our people are delivering the advanced systems America’s military needs to operate with greater speed and precision.
Panama City Beach Engineering and Manufacturing Facility
In Florida, Booz Allen’s largest engineering site focuses on transforming early concepts into durable, scalable hardware. Featuring a 51,000-square-foot manufacturing space, a product development lab, hydrostatic test chamber, and more, this facility, the facility combines advanced manufacturing equipment, heavy-duty fabrication tools, and a multidisciplinary engineering team to design, build, and test complex systems—all under one roof. Its engineers design, build, and test surface, subsurface, and aerial unmanned systems, mobile battle management platforms, hypersonic components, and other solutions.
“What sets our facility apart is our versatility,” says David Durden, director of engineering and operations. “We have a technical capability for every customer challenge imaginable.”
Lorton Engineering Facility
Strategically located near Fort Belvoir and Marine Corps Base Quantico, this 24,000‑square‑foot facility is a hub for rapid prototyping, integration, and testing of advanced systems—from drones and robotics to warfighter wearables. It houses specialized labs for AI, autonomy, cyber, materials science, and warfighter performance. The facility is building a new class of on-body intelligent systems, powered by wearables, AI, advanced materials, and a secure edge mobile computing platform. These systems connect the warfighter to a larger digital ecosystem that can seamlessly operate across training, tactical, and disconnected environments.
“Lorton is where we build what the mission demands,” says Sonya Rahmani, director of Booz Allen’s Warfighter Performance solutions team.
This is the Lorton Engineering Facility one of Booz Allen's flagship engineering centers. Hi, I'm Joel Dillon, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen. I lead our warfighter technology business and our engineering manufacturing and production team. And I'm Sonia Armani, a senior engineer on our warfighter performance team at Lorton. Engineering isn't theoretical, it's hands on, mission driven and built to deliver. This facility is purpose built to move ideas from concept to capability, rapidly designing, building and testing systems that support the warfighter. The high bay enables large scale prototyping, assembly and training, supporting unmanned systems, payload and sensor connection, and modular mission configurations. Specialized labs bring together warfighter performance data and cyber and advanced material science. A secure, modular data center supports AI-powered software, high performance hardware, and disconnected operations from unmanned systems to fully connected tactical solutions. Lorton is where we build what the mission demands, because engineering excellence is what we do.
Pax River Engineering Facility
Technology that malfunctions in soaring humidity or can’t withstand the shock of a wave slamming into a ship’s hull is of no use to American warfighters. That’s why this 20,000‑square‑foot space in Southern Maryland is optimized for rapid prototyping and rigorous testing of new capabilities—especially those built for aircraft and vehicles. The facility also supports a wide range of testing, with climate‑controlled chambers that simulate extreme weather and radio‑frequency equipment that evaluates signal performance. Its large, open high bay allows for installation of new equipment into tactical platforms—trucks, boats, containerized systems—and the testing of autonomous navigation and communications tools.
“The ability to simulate a variety of harsh conditions in-house enables us to test and deploy defense technologies faster, which saves our customers time and money,” says Troy Abbott, director of manufacturing and production.
These facilities represent Booz Allen’s commitment to building the next generation of mission-ready technology. We design for speed, flexibility, and field performance—and our engineers turn that vision into reality. Because in today’s defense landscape, innovation alone isn’t enough. Speed, reliability, and real-world readiness matter most—and that’s exactly what Booz Allen’s engineering facilities deliver.
I'm here at our Pax River Engineering Facility one of Booz Allen's three flagship engineering centers. My name is Troy Abbott. I'm the director of manufacturing and production here at our Pax River Engineering facility. Here we rapidly prototype, develop, test and integrate, and then deploy advanced technologies to our war fighter. We partner with other advanced defense tech companies to accelerate the delivery of cutting edge technologies from vehicles and aircraft to boats and payloads. This climate-controlled facility lets us evaluate commercial and government systems safely and efficiently. In our labs, we provide advanced environmental testing to validate system performance in real-world scenarios. We fuse technical expertise with mission understanding to deliver solutions that work in highly contested environments. Thank you for stopping by. We're very proud of the work that we're doing here, building the tech that helps the people that protect our country.
