The Navy is still the Charleston area’s biggest federal customer by far. But in the first nine months of the federal fiscal year, the Coast Guard did more than any other agency to push contract spending in the region higher.

Federal agencies obligated $2.28 billion on contracts for work performed in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties from Oct. 1, 2025, through June 30, according to a Charleston Business Report analysis of federal spending records on USAspending.gov. That was up from $1.68 billion in the same nine months a year earlier.

Most of that swing came from a single recipient whose numbers say little about local work. Advanced Technology International, a Summerville nonprofit that manages research consortiums for federal agencies, received $245 million. Almost all of it came from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, including $210 million in February for an agreement to produce drugs at commercial scale through a consortium the company manages. The money flows to consortium members, which may do the work elsewhere, but the records list Summerville as the place of performance. A year earlier, after the same office cut $435 million from two earlier agreements in April 2025, ATI’s net obligations in the region were minus $234 million.

Leaving out the consortium manager, obligations rose about 6%, to $2.04 billion from $1.91 billion.

The analysis compares nine-month periods because Defense Department contract data are published with a 90-day delay, according to USAspending.gov, so records for July through September are not yet complete.

The Coast Guard’s big year

Coast Guard obligations for work in the region rose to $495 million, from $14 million a year earlier.

Three design-build contracts at Coast Guard Base Charleston on the former Navy base account for nearly 90% of it, the records show:

  • $230 million to Brasfield & Gorrie LLC on June 16 for shore construction
  • $116.7 million to The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. on March 6 to rebuild Pier Mike
  • $95.5 million to Brasfield & Gorrie on April 7 for utilities, roads and a clinic

The Coast Guard has said the base will be home to new cutters. Detyens Shipyards Inc. in North Charleston also received $20.3 million in June for dry dock maintenance on the cutter Hamilton.

Navy spending slips

The Department of the Navy obligated $1.03 billion for work in the region, down 16% from $1.22 billion. Defense Department spending overall fell 15%, to $1.28 billion.

Most of the Navy’s money flows through the Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic, the Navy engineering command headquartered in the region. Contracts and orders issued by its contracting office, identified by award numbers beginning with N65236, totaled $724 million, down 24% from $958 million.

That decline traces largely to one order. In February 2025, the command obligated $230 million on an order with Amentum Services Inc. for testing, evaluation and engineering support of submarine command, control and communications systems. Leaving out Amentum, the contracting office’s obligations rose about 2%.

Scientific Research Corp. received the most Navy money among contractors after Detyens, $145 million, followed by Science Applications International Corp. with $62 million and CACI with $54 million.

Ship repair grows

Detyens Shipyards received $212.5 million from all agencies in the nine months, up from $141.9 million, the most of any company other than Brasfield & Gorrie and the consortium manager.

Most of it came from the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, which uses the yard to overhaul and repair its support ships. Orders included $31.4 million for an overhaul and dry docking of USNS Supply and $28.2 million for work on USNS Robert F. Kennedy. Obligations by the command’s contracting office for the region rose to $215 million from $157 million.

Other agencies

The Department of Veterans Affairs obligated $205 million, up from $188 million. Much of it went to staffing and shipping contracts, including $29.8 million for staffing at the VA’s Charleston mail-order pharmacy and $100 million in FedEx contracts for mail manifesting services.

Army obligations fell to $118 million from $158 million. Air Force obligations rose to $83 million from $65 million.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s spending in the region fell to $4.9 million from $65.8 million, which had included a $59.5 million construction order for Charleston’s terminal radar approach control facility, which guides planes near the airport.

Obligations by agency, October through June:

  • Navy: $1.03 billion, down from $1.22 billion
  • Coast Guard: $495 million, up from $14 million
  • Preparedness and Response (HHS): $225 million, compared with a net reduction of $249 million
  • Veterans Affairs: $205 million, up from $188 million
  • Army: $118 million, down from $158 million
  • Air Force: $83 million, up from $65 million

Where the work is

By county, Charleston County accounted for $1.45 billion of the nine-month total, Berkeley County for $819 million and Dorchester County for $14 million. Berkeley County’s total rose from $316 million, mostly because of the consortium manager’s award.

Statewide, contract obligations rose to $8.54 billion, from $5.91 billion. Energy Department contracts, which include the Savannah River Site near Aiken, accounted for $4.46 billion.

What the numbers don’t show

Obligations are commitments to spend, not payments. They can swing widely when an agency funds a multiyear project at once, as the Coast Guard did, and they can be negative when an agency reduces funding on earlier awards.

The location is where an agency says the work is performed, and agencies sometimes list an office address. A $72.3 million Army Corps of Engineers beach renourishment order for Myrtle Beach in December 2024, for example, lists a downtown Charleston ZIP code as its place of performance. The records include contracts and orders but not grants or other assistance.

How we did this

We downloaded contract obligations from USAspending.gov’s public application programming interface on Nov. 5 for awards whose place of performance was Berkeley, Charleston or Dorchester County, covering definitive contracts, purchase orders, delivery orders and blanket purchase agreement calls. We summed transaction amounts for Oct. 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, and for the same months a year earlier, by agency, subagency, recipient, industry and county. NIWC Atlantic figures are the sum of Navy transactions whose award numbers begin with the command’s contracting office code, N65236; Military Sealift Command figures use code N32205. Figures for the consortium manager include all of its contract transactions in the region.