IT Services for Aerospace & Defense Contractors in Colorado Springs
CMMC stopped being a future problem. It's now a line in the contracts you're bidding on.
Colorado Springs holds one of the densest ecosystems of defense contractors, subcontractors, and manufacturers in the country. Every one of them now faces the same double bind: meet strict security requirements without being slowed by them. That takes strategy, not just a service. Stepping Forward Technology delivers both: managed IT built on verified controls, and a readiness path run by a full-time, in-house security leader.
20 years
serving Colorado Springs
24 / 7
security operations capability
In-house
full-time CISO owns security strategy
The quiet losses cost more than any audit finding.
Engineering hours lost to slow infrastructure
Are demanding design and engineering workloads running on hardware that was never sized for them? Nobody invoices you for the twenty minutes your best engineers lose every morning. It gets absorbed into payroll and lowered expectations.
Compliance treated as a document project
Does your System Security Plan describe an environment nobody verified? When assessment day comes, the gap between what is written and what is running becomes your problem, on a deadline.
Security recommendations that never became reality
An assessment happened. A report was delivered. Then it aged in a drawer while the findings stayed open.
If nobody owns a finding, you’re still vulnerable and exposed.The bid you couldn't chase
Prime contractors are flowing requirements down. If they have to be compliant, you have to be compliant. Every quarter you’re not ready is a quarter of contracts someone else wins.
IT Support for Aerospace & Defense
What a business-aligned MSP looks like
Stabilize
Infrastructure built around your real workloads: engineering workstations, design software, and the network that connects them, documented and quietly maintained. Our proactive team works from a written standard we have refined every week since 2016, so problems are found before your engineers notice them.
Protect
We assume no defense can stop every threat, so we build for fast detection and response, not prevention theater: layered monitoring, verified controls, and a 24/7 security operations capability. Security strategy is owned in-house by our full-time Chief Information Security Officer, who holds a Masters in Cybersecurity and is a Certified Ethical Hacker.
Empower
A founder-led technology roadmap that treats compliance as a competitive position: lifecycle planning, budget input aligned to your contract cycle, and honest guidance about what your next contract tier will actually require.
When Trine Aerospace, a Colorado Springs-based business jet maintenance and reconnaissance equipment manufacturer, needed infrastructure that could carry demanding 3D engineering workloads, we redesigned their system around the work itself, then put our proven proactive model behind it.
CMMC readiness, without the theater.
Our role is honest and clearly bounded: we prepare you, and independent assessors certify you. We implement and verify the controls, gather the evidence, conduct recurring risk assessments, and coordinate with the Certified Third-Party Assessment Organizations that conduct the official audit.
We do not guarantee certification, because nobody honest can. What we deliver is an environment where the controls are verifiably real, which is the only readiness that survives an assessment.
Compliance detail
The full CMMC support path, level by level
Levels, scoping, evidence, and how the assessment itself works.
Matthew Harvey
Founder & CEO, Stepping Forward Technology
Our strategy is founder-led. You work with the person accountable for the outcome.
“Matt was in it for the good of the customer. Someone whose advice you don’t have to question.”
Lee Taylor, President, Trine Aerospace
Why defense contractors in Colorado Springs choose Stepping Forward
Contractors in the Mountain West cannot hire senior security talent against coastal salaries, and CMMC is exactly the kind of requirement that punishes companies without it. Our structure closes that gap. You get a founder-led strategic advisor plus a genuine, full-time, in-house CISO. That means a 75-person contractor can have the executive-level security leadership it could never hire alone.
We have served Colorado Springs for 20 years. We know this ecosystem because we work inside it every week.Who this is for
We work best with aerospace and defense contractors and subcontractors from 15 to 500+ employees, with our sweet spot between 50 and 150. Manufacturers, engineering firms, and services companies handling FCI or CUI, or preparing to.
If you already have internal IT, our co-managed model can supply the security operations and compliance layer alongside your team.
15 to 500+ employees
Sweet spot 50 to 150
Handling FCI or CUI
Co-managed alongside internal IT
Frequently asked questions
What level CMMC do we need?
It depends on the data you handle. Level 1 covers Federal Contract Information. Level 2 aligns with NIST SP 800-171 and applies to contractors handling Controlled Unclassified Information, which describes most of the defense supply chain. Level 3 is for critical national security programs. Our CMMC compliance page breaks the levels down, and a short conversation can usually place you.
Can you guarantee we will pass our CMMC assessment?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who says yes. Certification is conducted by independent Certified Third-Party Assessment Organizations, and that independence is the point. Our role is readiness: implementing and verifying controls, building the evidence, and connecting you with assessors, so you walk into the assessment with an environment that matches your documentation.
We are a subcontractor. Do these requirements really reach us?
Increasingly, yes. Prime contractors flow requirements down through their supply chains, and CMMC clauses are appearing in subcontracts across the Front Range. Being ready before your prime asks is a competitive position. It makes you the easy subcontractor to keep and the safe one to award.
What does this cost?
Managed services are priced per user as an all-inclusive monthly fee, with compliance-driven project work quoted and approved in advance, so there are no surprise invoices. Our pricing page publishes ranges and what drives them. The honest answer for defense contractors is that verified security costs more than assumed security, and it is the only kind an assessor accepts.
We have internal IT. Can you work alongside them?
Yes. Our co-managed model supplies what your team lacks, commonly the security operations layer, compliance readiness, and strategic guidance, while your internal staff keep day-to-day ownership. The division of labor is documented, and your documentation stays yours.
Your next contract may already require this. Find out where you stand.
A short conversation is usually enough to place your level, size the gap, and tell you whether the work is a project or a program.
