When a compliance deadline stops being theoretical, the companies that move first tend to be the ones that treat the requirement as a business decision rather than a checkbox. That distinction runs through the conversation between Jason LaPointe, Chief Technology Officer at Exostar, and Michael Parisi, Chief Growth Officer at Steel Patriot Partners. Exostar sits in the Defense Industrial Base. Founded by a consortium that included Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the company provides a FedRAMP-moderate platform that helps suppliers of all sizes securely collaborate with customers and partners while meeting government security requirements.
Timing mattered. When LaPointe made this point, November 7 was the expected transition date. While that implementation timeline has since been paused, the broader message remains the same: organizations should continue preparing to demonstrate compliance, whether through self-attestation, third-party validation, or future CMMC requirements. Working alongside Steel Patriot Partners, the company pulled that timeline in by almost a full three months. For a business whose customers depend on it to clear their own audits, that acceleration is not a convenience. It protects contracts, go to market motion, and the suppliers downstream who are counting on Exostar to carry part of their compliance load.
What Does It Mean to Build FedRAMP First?
Building FedRAMP first means treating a federal security boundary as the starting point for new products rather than a retrofit applied later. For Exostar, this security-first approach underpins the company’s entire platform and compliance strategy. New products are developed within Exostar's FedRAMP security boundary from day one, with the boundary expanding as new capabilities are introduced. LaPointe views FedRAMP readiness as a commitment to robust application security, operational security, and vulnerability management. In his words, organizations move "from the minor leagues to the big leagues" quickly—and while the journey is demanding, it ultimately leaves the business with stronger security practices and a more resilient operation.
Parisi describes the same shift from the advisory side. Steel Patriot Partners approaches an engagement with what he calls a business owners first mentality, security and engineering people second, and compliance people third. The goal is not to pass an assessment in the cheapest possible way. It is to engineer a program that produces a business advantage, because the certification is what earns broad adoption and acceptance across a community that runs on federal law and acquisition rules.
Why Does Building Alongside Beat Building on Top?
Building a new platform alongside the existing one lets a company modernize aggressively without putting current customers at risk. Exostar already ran software in a government subscription in GCC High, but the software still had to change to meet FedRAMP compliant communication standards and configuration, and the team wanted to modernize along the way. Attempting that inside a live production environment would have been disruptive. Instead, LaPointe and his team built the new home first, a platform first initiative, and then migrated customers into it.
The advantage is speed without collateral damage. When a team does not have to worry about breaking customers mid flight, it can take large steps in re-architecting, redesigning, and retooling. That freedom is difficult to recover once a system is already carrying production traffic, which is why the decision to build alongside rather than on top became one of the more consequential calls in the program.
How Do Smaller Suppliers Inherit Compliance?
Exostar's FedRAMP-moderate authorization lets smaller defense suppliers inherit roughly 85% of the security controls required for CMMC certification. Instead of moving every server, machine, and mailbox into a secure boundary, a supplier uses Exostar's environment to handle controlled unclassified information, which shrinks the scope of its own audit considerably. LaPointe frames the value plainly. Either a provider holds FedRAMP moderate equivalence or it does not, and without that badge, a customer cannot inherit the controls, so every control falls back into the scope of the audit.
That is where the stakes become a business conversation rather than a technical one. Parisi, who spent years in the assessor's seat and ran the practice for a large C3PAO, notes that the opportunity cost of missing an audit window is steep. Direct contracts worth millions can be exposed, prospective customers can stall, and the auditors themselves book out six to eight months in advance. A missed window is not a short delay. It is a return to the back of a long line.
The Part That Does Not Show Up on a Control List
Some of what Steel Patriot brought does not appear in any framework. The team embedded directly with Exostar's product team through daily standups and leadership calls several mornings a week, closer to employees than to staff augmentation. All of the work stayed with US citizens, a requirement that matters once controlled information is in play. And when the audit arrived, preparation extended to how questions get answered. LaPointe compares the audit to a deposition, where an unsolicited comment can hand an auditor somewhere new to go. Knowing the assessors, understanding their interpretation, and presenting information accurately and factually keeps the process controlled.
The outcome LaPointe describes is a clean, no POA&M result, and a business now experiencing tailwinds as it participates in initiatives like Golden Dome. The lesson he offers other technology and security leaders is less about tooling than temperament. Every part of the organization gets touched, from R&D to HR to finance, and the willingness to change quickly becomes the governor on whether a program succeeds. Fighting it is a losing battle. Having a clear voice at the table for what good looks like is what accelerates the decisions.
Watch and Connect
Watch or listen to the full Brand Feature conversation with Jason LaPointe and Michael Parisi, and follow the work behind it.
Connect with Jason LaPointe, Chief Technology Officer of Exostar, on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonlapointe, and with Michael Parisi, Chief Growth Officer of Steel Patriot Partners, on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-parisi-4009b2261/.
Learn more about Exostar at https://www.exostar.com/ and Steel Patriot Partners at https://www.steelpatriotpartners.com/.
Not sure where your own compliance program stands? Find your path with Steel Patriot Partners at https://steelpatriotpartners.com/find-your-path/.
