David Wodlinger

David C. Wodlinger is a Managing Partner at Arlington Capital Partners, a Washington, DC–area middle-market private equity firm that specializes in government- and regulation-oriented industries. He joined the firm in 2006 and leads its investing in the national security sector, overseeing deals across government contracting, technology-driven business services, and software and IT services. He is one of the firm's four Managing Partners alongside Matt Altman, Michael Lustbader, and Peter Manos.

Before Arlington, Wodlinger was an investment banking analyst in the Financial Sponsors Group at Deutsche Bank in New York, where he worked on leveraged buyout origination, diligence, structuring, and financing — including landmark transactions such as Blackstone's acquisition of New Skies Satellites and Carlyle's ~$15 billion buyout of Hertz. Earlier in his career, he worked at BearingPoint as a senior management analyst focused on U.S. intelligence community matters. He earned a cum laude A.B. in Economics from Georgetown University.

Over nearly two decades at Arlington, Wodlinger has been involved in 65–80+ transactions and has completed dozens of acquisitions building and scaling national-security and GovCon platforms. He has served on the boards of numerous portfolio companies, including AEgis Technologies, Centauri, Novetta Solutions, Polaris Alpha, Quantum Spatial, Cambridge Major Labs, and Micron Technologies, and currently serves on the boards of Systems Planning and Analysis (SPA) and GRVTY. In 2026 he received his first Wash100 Award, GovCon's most prestigious industry recognition, for his leadership directing private-equity capital into government contracting and national security innovation.

• Invests through control private equity in middle-market companies serving government and highly regulated markets — national security, defense technology, cybersecurity, government software/IT services, and tech-enabled business services.
• Pursues a platform-and-build strategy: acquire a core platform, then scale it through repeated bolt-on acquisitions (e.g., building Novetta, Polaris Alpha/Parsons, Centauri, BlueHalo, and Neumo/GRVTY-type platforms).
• Thesis tailwinds cited by Arlington's Managing Partners at the 2025 Fund VII close: rising national security spending, U.S. manufacturing revitalization, and the expansion of government software and tech-enabled services driving demand for its portfolio companies.
• Values assets with mission-critical government exposure, defensible technology, and clear consolidation/roll-up potential — companies that can be scaled meaningfully via M&A and positioned for large strategic exits.