Director
Chris Shiplett is an experienced attorney and business executive. He has been volunteering with REACH for Uganda since November. He was introduced to REACH for Uganda through his daughter, Audrey’s, participation in the 2023 REACH Teen Service trip, and through his friends, the Hartman, who are the Tuckahoe Parent Volunteers.
Chris currently serves as the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Capitol Bridge, a group of federal government contracting companies with combined over 3,000 employees and over $200 million in annual revenue. In that position he handles every aspect of corporate risk management, federal contracting compliance and general corporate compliance, oversees all of the company legal functions and serves on the group’s executive management team.
Prior to that, Chris founded and for 15 years managed a law firm, Randolph Law, specializing in assisting small to mid-sized federal government contractors in their legal needs. The firm employed between 3 and 7 attorneys and a number of paralegals and support staff. In addition to managing the firm, Chris’ client work involved assisting companies with start-up and organization, government contracting compliance, adversarial proceedings including bid protests and litigation in state and federal courts, and all aspects of the growth of a start-up through founder exit.
Chris started his career as a computer programmer and database administrator for several government contractors serving the Army and the Marine Corps.
Chris has significant experience in managing organizational growth and organizational change, in particular at the boundary between the start-up phase of an organization and the “professionalism” phase of that organization, where rapid change in the organization makes it necessary to create processes and procedures to manage continued growth. Through his private practice and his current general counsel role, Chris has created a deep network of relationships with businesses in the Arlington and Washington D.C. area. Chris has been a speaker at local, regional and national organizations on diverse topics related to business growth and federal government contracting practices.
Chris is a graduate of the George Mason University School of Law and of Mary Washington College. Chris and his wife Tracy have lived in the Westover neighborhood of Arlington for 20 years and have two daughters. One, Audrey, who just graduated from Yorktown High School, and took the REACH youth trip last summer, and one, Olivia, who is a rising sophomore at H.B. Woodlawn, and who can’t wait to take the REACH youth trip as soon as her parents say she can go!
