David Bassett
Senior Counselor
Lieutenant General David Bassett (Ret.) joined The Cohen Group as a Senior Counselor in May 2024 after a distinguished 35-year career in the US Army.
He most recently served as the Director of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). In this role, he led a team of more than 12,000 military and civilian employees responsible for the management and administration of over 300,000 contracts across the Defense Department with a total value of over $3.5 trillion. This included the full range of Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, Army, and Defense Agencies’ portfolios from the building of surface ships, submarines, aircraft, ground vehicles, unmanned systems, and the weapons, communication, and electronic systems on them to the overhaul, maintenance, and repair of equipment and systems across the Defense Department.
Over the course of his career, LTG Bassett has held many senior-level military positions. Prior to his role at DCMA, LTG Bassett served as the Army Program Executive Officer for Command, Control, and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T), where he was responsible for the development, acquisition, fielding, and support of the Army’s tactical networks, a critical modernization priority. He has also served as the Program Executive Officer for Ground Combat Systems (PEO GCS), the Deputy Program Executive Officer for Combat Support and Combat Service Support (PEO CS&CSS), and the manager of the Joint Program Office, Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV).
As a junior officer, LTG Bassett served in Germany in tactical positions with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and 123rd Signal Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division. He was then assigned to the US European Command Staff, where he served as the Requirements Analysis and Interoperability Action Officer, J6. He transferred to the Army Acquisition Corps and was assigned to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, as Operations Officer, Communications and Electronics Command Software Engineering Center. LTG Bassett went on to manage software development efforts for the Army’s Future Combat Systems program and served on the Joint Staff as the Ground Maneuver Analyst, Capabilities and Acquisition Division, J8.
LTG Bassett was commissioned into the Signal Corps in 1988 through ROTC concurrent with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia, where he also earned a Master of Science in Computer Science. He is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a distinguished graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, DC.
In addition to his work with The Cohen Group, Lieutenant General Bassett serves on the Board of Directors for the National Contract Management Association and is a director and proxy holder of Thales Space and Defense, Inc.