Charles Lyons-Burt 
- Detroit Defense is targeting $300M in revenue within two-and-a-half years
- 33,000 Humvee brake retrofits, zero rollover deaths in five years
- Not an OEM — integrates commercial tech across Army, Navy platforms
Frank Sturek has spent more than three decades moving between the battlefield and the boardroom. A 21-year U.S. Army infantry officer who commanded troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and later taught systems engineering at West Point, Sturek transitioned into government contracting business development roles at Northrop Grumman, Engility, Pratt & Miller Engineering, Alion Science and Technology, and Axiologic Solutions before taking the reins as president of SkyePoint Decisions, where he spoke with ExecutiveBiz five years ago.
Since that conversation, Sturek took on the challenge of leading two private-equity-backed companies, Compendium Federal Technology and Millennium Health & Fitness, in the small-business ownership space. However, Sturek found the experience less enjoyable and ultimately unfulfilling. Upon the end of that chapter, Pete Roney, CEO of Detroit Defense and co-founder of Proteus Enterprises, reached out.
He and his partners had just acquired Ricardo Defense, the U.S. subsidiary of U.K.-based engineering firm Ricardo, and needed someone to run growth. Sturek joined in Feb. 2025, just as the company was preparing to rebrand as Detroit Defense.
ExecutiveBiz caught up with Sturek, now senior vice president and head of growth at Detroit Defense, to discuss the company’s rebrand, its systems engineering roots and its plans to triple in size over the next few years.
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ExecutiveBiz: Where do you see Detroit Defense in five years, and what are the concrete steps the company needs to take to get there?
Frank Sturek: Before I answer that, I want to explain where Detroit Defense came from. The company started as Ricardo Defense, a U.S. subsidiary of the U.K.-based Ricardo Group, known for building McLaren Formula One engines and other automotive engineering work. When Proteus Enterprises purchased the business, it became a fully U.S.-owned company, eliminating any foreign ownership concerns. Within the first year of the transition, we rebranded from Ricardo Defense to Detroit Defense, a name that, surprisingly, no one else had taken. It speaks to Detroit’s role as the “arsenal of democracy” during World War II, when the automotive industry converted to build tanks, airplanes and munitions. That grit and engineering discipline is central to who we are.
At our core, we’re a systems engineering company. That plays out in a few ways: integrating software into enterprise platforms, integrating new technologies onto ground vehicles without interference issues, sustaining software with patches and cybersecurity hardening, and delivering integrated logistics services for the enterprise and platform systems we modernize and sustain.
We inherited a strong company, and over the next few years our goal is to roughly triple the business, both organically and through acquisitions. We’re using our private equity backing to access capital, diversify our portfolio, win new contract awards and make acquisitions that strengthen our offerings.
EBiz: Which Department of War agencies are your main customers?
Sturek: Our biggest customer is the U.S. Army, particularly at Detroit Arsenal, where the Army procures its ground vehicles and vehicle systems, everything from tanks and Humvees to the software, guns and sensors that go on them. We also work with the Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground through the Communications-Electronics Command on communications systems, since we do software development and sustainment there as well.
On the Navy side, we support programs at Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River and at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island, focused on maintenance and maintenance information systems for submarines and other underwater technologies. Right now, we sustain and develop software for a low-bandwidth messaging system known as JDMS, which transmits logistics data between ships, planes, ground stations and satellites. It’s efficient and doesn’t require heavy bandwidth to move command-and-control information, so the Army has started adopting it as well. Our platform integration work is centered at Detroit Arsenal, and our software work spans Aberdeen and the Navy.
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EBiz: How is Detroit Defense diversifying its offerings?
Sturek: Diversification is essential, because depending on the administration in office or what’s happening globally, priorities and spending shift. The Department of War and the intelligence community usually receive the largest share of funding, but that doesn’t always mean they’re spending it or looking for new technology. So, we diversify, but we stay within defense and national security.
We operate through two divisions: mission systems and mission services. Mission systems includes platform integration, software development and digital logistics, where we digitize the maintenance, fuel and ammunition workflows that much of the military still tracks on paper. The other side of mission systems is technology integration onto vehicle platforms. We’re best known for an analog brake system retrofit we’ve installed on 33,000 Humvees across the Army over the past five years. Humvees are heavy with armor and were built in the 1980s without electronic stability control, so they tended to roll over. Since we began installing these kits, to our knowledge, there hasn’t been a rollover fatality on a vehicle equipped with the system.
Mission services covers software sustainment, program management, engineering and logistics support, and subject matter experts working alongside our government customers at the Arsenal and in the Navy. We’re also adding another business line to our national security portfolio through acquisition, diversifying us further while we keep growing our core divisions organically.
EBiz: What’s a pressing defense challenge Detroit Defense is working to solve with the military?
Sturek: A big one is helping the military modernize aging platforms and adopt commercial technology at the speed the threat demands. Much of the fleet was designed decades ago, and the challenge is integrating today’s best commercial solutions onto those platforms without creating new problems, then sustaining them over time.
Logistics is part of that picture. A lot of maintenance, fuel and ammunition data is still captured on paper, and inaccurate data at the edge, a single misread digit on a part number, can send an order back through the enterprise system and cost weeks. Getting accurate data from the edge lets us apply predictive analytics to keep units supplied. Being lethal matters, and I say that as a former infantryman, but logistics is what keeps people in the fight.
EBiz: Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you wanted to highlight?
Sturek: One thing that sets Detroit Defense apart is that we’re not an original equipment manufacturer. We didn’t build the analog brake system ourselves; we find the best commercial solution and integrate it onto military platforms. The auto industry sells tens of millions of those brake computers a year, while the Army has only about 104,000 Humvees total, so it’s a small niche for a commercial supplier to chase, and platforms risk obsolescence as manufacturers move on to newer technology.
Because we’re platform-agnostic, we can work across Humvees, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, generators and helicopters. Not being tied to a single product line means we can find the best technology or the right teammate to solve a problem, while still delivering the integrated logistics support, manuals and systems that customers expect from an original equipment manufacturer, because we’ve hired people from those larger businesses who know how to do it. We take the same approach with software: We’re not wedded to a particular language or architecture, as long as it’s open and can interface with other systems, whether that’s Android, iOS or Linux.
That approach fits well with where the government is headed right now, emphasizing commercial technology and issuing commercial solutions offerings on a regular basis. We’re responding to those constantly, and it works to our advantage.
Who Is Frank Sturek?
Frank Sturek is senior vice president and head of growth at Detroit Defense, where he leads business development, capture, proposal development and marketing. He previously served as CEO of Compendium Federal Technology and Millennium Health & Fitness and as president and chief growth officer of SkyePoint Decisions, which grew from $18 million to $32 million in annual revenue under his leadership.
Earlier in his career, Sturek held business development roles at Axiologic Solutions, Alion Science and Technology, Pratt & Miller Engineering, Engility Corporation and Northrop Grumman. Before entering the private sector, he served 21 years as a U.S. Army infantry officer, commanding a battalion task force in Afghanistan and serving as executive officer and chief of staff during combat operations in Iraq. He also taught systems engineering and operations research as an assistant professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
What Is Detroit Defense?
Detroit Defense, formerly Ricardo Defense, is a Troy, Michigan-based defense and aerospace company backed by Proteus Enterprises that provides integrated engineering, software sustainment and field support services to the Department of War. The company operates through two divisions, mission systems and mission services, delivering fleet-wide vehicle retrofits, systems integration, digital logistics applications and supply chain optimization for customers including the U.S. Army at Detroit Arsenal and Aberdeen Proving Ground and the U.S. Navy at Naval Air Systems Command and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. The company is targeting roughly threefold growth over the next few years through organic growth and acquisitions.
