Stuessel brings to the Colorado-based provider of analog and radiation hardened technologies for aerospace and defense customers over two decades of experience in working at Raytheon, now an RTX business.

During her 22 years of career at the defense contractor, Stuessel held a number of roles including senior procurement specialist, team lead for emerging technologies and indirect procurement, material program manager and senior manager for key pursuits and strategic sourcing. She most recently served as a Raytheon director.

Aside from hiring Stuessel, Frontgrade also made other executive appointments in 2024.

Kevin Fox, former chief financial officer of Thermon Group Holdings, was named CFO and Allen Couture, former executive vice president of execution excellence at Mercury Systems, was appointed as chief operating officer in May.

Frontgrade also elevated Ricardo Gonzalez from vice president of microelectronics to chief transformation officer, responsible for helping drive company performance excellence and capture strategic growth campaigns. His promotion was also made in May.

Frontgrade is a rebrand of CAES Space Systems, a division of CAES acquired by Veritas Capital in January 2023. The company has more than six decades of space flight history and is focused on developing radiation-hardened electronic products and subsystems for space operations.

Ramzi Musallam, CEO and managing partner of Veritas and a seven-time Wash100 Award winner, said when the announcement was made, "We are excited to partner with the Frontgrade team, bringing our significant government technology experience to the Company's storied heritage and mission-critical product offering to accelerate growth and enhance Frontgrade's value proposition to customers."