Lorna Cesar is a United States Naval Academy graduate who has built her career at the intersection of military operations, federal budget management, and advanced technology contracting. She earned her Bachelor of Science from the U.S. Naval Academy—one of the nation's most rigorous officer commissioning programs—and was commissioned as a Navy officer. From 2010 onward, she served on active duty in the U.S. Navy, accumulating over 10 years of service managing federal budgets and operations in national security environments. Her Naval service provided direct experience managing multi-hundred-million-dollar budget cycles in military operations, deep understanding of federal financial systems and compliance requirements, expertise in how federal agencies actually manage money and track spending at scale, knowledge of federal accounting standards (FASB, FAR compliance) and audit requirements, and direct exposure to how financial accuracy translates into operational capability and mission success in high-stakes environments.

Between 2019 and 2024, Cesar served as a Cyber Systems Engineer at MITRE Corporation, the premier Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) serving the Department of Defense and the U.S. Government. MITRE represents the gold standard for how complex defense and federal technology programs are managed, structured, and financed. During her five years at MITRE, Cesar worked on advanced defense programs at the cutting edge of national security technology, gaining direct experience in how MITRE-level contractors—considered the institutional gold standard in federal contracting—operate within the federal government system. She developed expertise in how sophisticated defense programs manage complex project finances and budget authority, gained knowledge of SBIR/STTR contracts and advanced procurement vehicles, understood how federal agencies evaluate contractor financial proposals and assess capability to manage large programs, learned how advanced technology programs interface with federal budget authority and appropriations cycles, and became familiar with contracting complexity including cost-plus contracts, fixed-price structures, and performance-based financing models.

Her work in cyber systems engineering gave her technical depth in security infrastructure, understanding of how cybersecurity programs are funded and budgeted within the Department of Defense and intelligence community, expertise in lifecycle costs of advanced technology systems (research and development, deployment, sustainment, modernization), knowledge of how emerging technology affects federal budget planning with specific experience in cyber operations funding, and the ability to translate complex technical requirements into financial projections and budget justifications that federal agencies understand and trust.

Cesar also brings deep expertise in risk management and financial controls within national security contexts. Her background in national security finance required her to operate with absolute financial controls and compliance—where no shortcuts are possible. She has developed expertise in identifying financial risks, implementing controls that function in classified environments, understanding audit processes specifically designed for defense and national security contractors, knowing what triggers federal audit scrutiny and how to structure operations that pass inspection consistently, managing security clearance requirements and their interaction with financial operations and personnel management, maintaining financial compliance when working with NSA, Department of Defense, and intelligence community partners, and understanding compartmented financial operations and how to manage budget authority in classified programs. She brings knowledge of defense intelligence financial operations, classified program funding, special access program budgets, compartmented financial management, how intelligence agencies manage appropriations differently than standard federal departments, and financial security protocols required by intelligence operations.