The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Vicksburg District has selected Davita Baloue as chief of Contracting.

Baloue will serve as the district’s principal procurement and contracting official. In this role, she will have unlimited monetary authority to contract for supplies, services, construction and architect-engineer services, utilities, and agreements using a variety of fixed price or cost reimbursement type contracts.

Baloue previously served as a supervisory team leader and contracting officer at the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg. During her 12 years at ERDC, she provided contracting support to all seven research laboratories, the Installation Operations Command (IOC), the Office of Research and Technology Transfer (ORTT) and the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).

Her procurement career spans 28 years. Baloue has also worked for the Communications Electronics Command (CECOM) in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; USACE Mobile District; the Army Atlanta Contracting Center in Fort McPherson, Georgia and the Veterans Administration in Jackson, Mississippi.

A native of Forest, Mississippi, Baloue holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting from Jackson State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of South Alabama. She is a current member and former president of the Mississippi chapter of the National Contract Management Association, or NCMA.

The USACE Vicksburg District encompasses a 68,000-square-mile area across portions of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana that holds seven major river basins and incorporates approximately 460 miles of mainline Mississippi River levees. The district is engaged in hundreds of projects and employs approximately 1,100 personnel.