By Heather Hayes, Contributing Writer With the bulk of its business devoted to defense, intelligence and homeland security, Titan Corp. sees itself uniquely positioned to address the government’s 21st century challenges. The company, which held steady at No. 15 on Washington Technology’s Top 100 with more than $514 million in prime contracting dollars, this year will pursue a record number of government contracts that are valued at more than $100 million. “Our size is such that now, in the areas where the customer knows us and where we have capability, we can compete with whomever the competitors may be,” said Gene Ray, Titan’s chairman and chief executive officer. That was clear last year when the Titan team won the National Security Agency’s Enterprise Architecture and Decision Support program, beating out a heavyweight team that included Northrop Grumman Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and Science Applications International Corp. Titan will provide technical input and analyses for acquisition, investment and strategic planning for NSA. Worth $533 million over 24 months and five option years, the contract is the largest single award in Titan’s history, Ray said. Transformation is on Titan’s mind, which last year discontinued Titan Wireless, its main commercial venture, and is now concentrating its resources on defense, intelligence, homeland security and NASA business. The focus seemed to pay off as the company’s business increased by $200 million last year through internal growth. Ray attributes this growth to “being in the right markets at the right time.” That is certainly true of the homeland security realm. Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Titan had 10 active contracts that today would be classified as homeland security. Now the company is working on more than 60 homeland security contracts. At the same time, Titan has continued to excel in the defense world. In a new venture, for example, Titan began developing a loitering unmanned aerial vehicle for the Navy. Known as the Affordable Weapon, this UAV can be launched from ship or land, fly for up to 24 hours and then be sent to a moving target within a couple of meters. Titan is building each weapon for just $50,000, a bargain compared to the going rate of $1 million per cruise missile. Fifteen weapons have been tested to date, and Titan has shown that it can cut two years off of test and deployment. “The reason we’re able to build this so cheaply and so quickly is everything is built out of proven commercial products,” Ray said, noting that the weapon could be in full-scale production in less than a year. In other defense dealings, Titan in 2002 won the $190 million Special Forces Command Enterprise Integration Technology contract to perform enterprise network management and engineering services for all communication and network infrastructure, along with a $188 million test and evaluation contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and a $103 million services contract from the Air Force’s Electronic Systems Center. “We now have the size and the capabilities to perform these larger contracts,” Ray said. “But we’re still agile and responsive like a small company. That makes us pretty unique.” Prime IT contracting revenue: $514,175,000
Based: San Diego
Chairman & CEO: Gene Ray
Employees: 10,600
2002 revenue: $1.392 billion
2002 net loss: $271.5 million
2001 revenue: $974 million*
2001 net loss: $98.6 million
www.titan.com Ticker: TTN

More Info... * Restated after discontinuation of Titan Wireless.