The companies on the 2007 Fast 50 exhibit as many differences as similarities.
From the No. 1 company with a compound annual growth rate of 135.5 percent from 2002 through 2006 to No. 50 with 40.2 percent, the companies making this year’s list have in common a stellar track record for growth in the federal market.
But how they achieved that growth exemplifies the many different ways companies can achieve success in the government market. One company sought out the government market after its first-choice market collapsed. Other companies have founders who left government service and parlayed that experience into private-sector success. And still others were founded by people who left larger companies to launch their own.
To be considered, companies submitted five years of revenue data, and we ranked them by their compound annual growth rate.
Whatever their roots, the 2007 Fast 50 offer lessons for those already in the market and those looking to join.
OBERON ASSOCIATES Oberon Associates Inc., a company owned by a woman veteran and a servicedisabled veteran, provides information technology services to the intelligence community and government agencies. It tops the 2007 Washington Technology Fast 50 list.
Veterans David Young and Jodi Johnson founded the Manassas, Va., company in 2002. It has since grown to 400 employees and reported $48.4 million in government revenue in 2006, for a compound annual growth rate of more than 135 percent. When the pair launched Oberon, they had little money and no customers. They did have experience in federal contracting and the acquisition process.
“We spent the first six months building the infrastructure,” Johnson said, and they got a small line of credit in 2003 from Acacia Federal Bank. “Today we have a $7.7 million line of credit with them.”
The first win came in September 2002, when the Office of the Secretary of Defense offered Oberon an IT services and communications contract that was being managed by Science Applications International Corp.
Oberon — named for a moon of Uranus — has not slowed since. Johnson said she expects the company’s government revenue will be almost $90 million this year, due in part to six contract wins in June. One of them — the Defense Network Management Support Services Global contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency — is perhaps Oberon’s most important recent award, she said.
“What’s most exciting for us ... is [that] it’s our first prime contract with DISA.”
The indefinite-delivery, indefinitequantity contract could be worth as much as $86 million over five years.
Oberon partnered with SAIC to provide communications support for U.S. Ambassador Paul Bremer during his yearlong assignment in Iraq. Johnson said the San Diego-based contractor has been a key asset in Oberon’s success.
The company is also working with SAIC on biometrics projects for the Defense Department. “We have designed and developed the Biometrics Automated Toolset,” Johnson said, which is used to identify and track suspected insurgents arrested in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In addition to biometrics applications and integration, Oberon’s core competencies are intelligence support, communications engineering and enterprise data management, the company’s newest area of business.
“I think we will continue to enjoy significant growth,” Johnson said. “Obviously, doubling in size will get harder and harder to do as we continue to grow.”
Despite the demands of the job, Johnson still manages to find time to attend most of her three sons’ soccer games, a feat she is as proud of as Oberon’s success.
2020 COMPANY 2020 Company LLC, which provides professional services to civilian agencies, opened for business in Chicago in 2000 with an enterprise resource planning contract from the city. One year later, it won its first federal contract from the Army National Guard.
A totally self-financed company, 2020 ranks No. 9 on the 2007 Fast 50 list, having recorded $9.5 million in government revenue in 2006 for an 89.9 percent compound annual growth rate from 2002 through 2006.
In 2001, with guidance from the Military Personnel Services Corp., the company won a GSA Schedule 70 contract and secured an 8(a) designation. As a result, 2020 remains close to its mentor.
“They’re a sub to us now, actually,” said Haresh Bhungalia, co-founder and chief operating officer at 2020.
The company — which had grown to 45 employees — moved to Falls Church, Va., in 2004 but retained a presence in Chicago.
“Today we’re past the 170 [employee] mark,” he said. “And we’re on target to do upwards of $20 million in revenue this year.”
2020’s major clients are the Education and Commerce departments and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The company has smaller contracts with the Agriculture and Energy departments.
The vagaries of the federal market the past few years have not affected 2020, Bhungalia said. “We’ve actually grown as an organization through that time period. I don’t know that the market has changed so much as we have a better idea of what it is that we want to focus on.”
Bhungalia estimated that 2020 is now the prime contractor on as much as 75 percent of its government work.
“We partner where appropriate with the companies that we need to,” he said, citing Accenture Ltd. and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. as partners.
2020 is one of several contractors working with Northrop Grumman Corp. on a recently awarded $90 million contract from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in Baltimore, to provide database and data administration services. Bhungalia said USDA farming grants and federal student loan administration for Education will be important parts of 2020’s business by 2012. But the lion’s share will come from health care IT. “I feel very confident going forward that we’ll be able to bring a strong value proposition to that arena,” he said.
AMBIT GROUP The founders of Ambit Group LLC credit the company’s rapid growth to a name change in 2004 and a new business plan focused exclusively on the government marketplace. “That was a sea change,” said John Condon, chief executive officer and co-founder of the company. “Ever since then, we’ve been on a really nice growth curve.”
Ambit ranks No. 10 on the 2007 Fast 50, with $3.7 million in government revenue in 2006 for an 89.6 percent compound annual growth rate.
The woman-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned small consulting company has grown from about 10 employees in 2002 to almost 50 in 2007. “And we’ll probably [have] about 70 to 75 by the end of this calendar year,” Condon said.
The Reston, Va., company recently won a five-year, $22 million prime contract from the Federal Communications Commission to provide database infrastructure, analysis and Web support.
“Overnight, we added 12 people to our staff,” he said, “and since that contract kicked off, we’ve added another five.” Condon said he expects Ambit to record $5.5 million to $6 million in revenue in 2007. “And we’re very confident — particularly with this new [FCC] win — that we’ll do around $11 million next year.”
Kim Shackleford, Ambit’s president and co-founder, said the company is now the prime contractor on 85 percent to 90 percent of its work. “Actually, with this win, we move closer to 95 percent.”
Other government clients include the Small Business Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, USDA and Commerce.
INFORMATION INNOVATORS Steve Ikirt and his wife, Debbie, started Information Innovators Inc. in 2001 in the belief that his 20-year Army career and her government sales experience would give them a good chance at success.
So they bankrolled the company and entered into subcontracting partnerships with a number of companies, including Hewlett-Packard Co.
In the first year, the Springfield, Va., company grew to about eight employees.
“As the years went on, we grew from eight to 10, then to 21 and then to 45, and [we got] additional contracts,” said Ikirt, a service-disabled veteran.
The small business provides project management, security and information assurance, systems design and integration, and enterprise architecture support. Its clients include the Defense Logistics Agency and DISA.
Information Innovators has about 120 employees and ranks No. 15 on the Fast 50 list. The company recorded $20.4 million in government revenue in 2006 for a 78.9 percent compound annual growth rate.
“This year, we’ll probably do about $25 million to $30 million,” Ikirt said. “We’ll probably be somewhere between $50 million and $70 million by 2010, and that’s conservative.”
During the past three years, the company has concentrated on solidifying its infrastructure — getting government certifications and top-secret clearances, building an experienced workforce and reducing turnover, and securing a presence on governmentwide acquisition contracts. That has helped Information Innovators go after government work as the prime contractor, he said.
Six months ago, the company was one of about 42 veteran-owned businesses awarded spots as prime contractors on the General Services Administration’s Veterans Technology Services GWAC. “It’s a huge deal,” he said. “That has really made a big difference in this company.”
Information Innovators recently completed a program management and integration contract to relocate the Transportation Department to new facilities. The move involved 5,800 employees, 6,000 miles of cable, 800-plus servers, and the construction of two data centers and a crisis management center, Ikirt said.
“Those kinds of things over the past three years have really given us relationship credibility,” he said, and have led to partnerships with SAIC, IBM Corp., HP and CACI International Inc.
GUIDENT TECHNOLOGIES When four former industry consultants formed Guident Technologies Inc. in 1996, their plan was to provide business intelligence and Oracle solutions to telecommunications and dot-com companies in the Washington area. They had no thought of entering the government market.
Last year, Guident of Herndon, Va., recorded $7.3 million in government revenue, for a 74.5 percent compound annual growth rate. That was good enough to rank No. 20 on the 2007 Fast 50.
Teddy Matheu, cofounder and a partner at Guident, said the downturn in the commercial market in 2001 and increasing competition from overseas prompted the company’s move into the federal marketplace. Although the partners had very little experience with federal contracting, “we figured that the government could benefit from the best practices of the commercial space,” he said.
Guident’s first success was a small one, a software sale to EPA. The company won its first government services contract soon after that, when a former employee who was then working for a large integrator on a State Department contract recommended Guident to provide Oracle support for the consular affairs offices.
To increase its government business, Guident created a five-member federal advisory board in 2004, composed of former agency officials and private-industry executives. Thanks in part to the advisory board’s advice, Matheu said, Guident’s government client list has grown to include GSA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Government Printing Office.
Guident’s most recent awards include a $2.5 million task order from EPA and a $1.5 million GPO contract for an Oracle financial services implementation. “We’ve had a busy month,” said Dan Ackerman, a partner at Guident.
“About 50 percent of our work is in the commercial sector and about 50 percent in the government sector,” he added, “which is pretty much where we want to stay.”
Guident has more than 120 employees, and Matheu envisions further growth. “In the last two years, we have experienced over 100 percent growth. We’re going to continue to expand and grow.”
NEW VISION ENGINEERING GROUP Veronica Wilson, a Navy veteran, and Derrick Morris, an Army veteran, put aside any latent service rivalries in 2000 to establish New Vision Engineering Group Inc., an 8(a) veteran-owned IT provider. Now, less than seven years later, NVEG has cracked the ranks of the Fast 50 at No. 36. The company recorded $3.8 million in government revenue in 2006 for a 51.7 percent compound annual growth rate.
Morris said he believes much of the company’s success has resulted from a decision to rely on its core competence.
“When we started off, we were a myriad of services,” he said. “We provided networking, Web development, Web support and those types of things. As we started to grow over the years, we really started to focus on business intelligence.”
As veterans, Morris and Wilson always wanted to work with the Defense Department. They gained a lasting foothold when NVEG won a contract from the Defense Contracting Management Agency, which remains the Falls Church, Va., company’s biggest government customer. That contract has led to more DOD work.
“We just finished a major contract with the Department of the Army, where we provided a data warehouse,” Morris said, adding that NVEG has bid on another major DOD contract that should be awarded soon.
About 50 percent of NVEG’s contracts are a result of its 8(a) designation, he said. “Having the 8(a) [designation] does bring some attention to your company, but you still have to be able to perform,” Wilson said, adding that NVEG has been the prime contractor on all the 8(a) contracts it has won.
Wilson and Morris said their 13- employee company will stay small as they look to broaden NVEG’s business intelligence services and data warehousing. “As the contracts come through, we’ll staff them,” Morris said.
Associate Editor David Hubler can be reached at dhubler@1105govinfo.com.
