INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: Apptis
Paul Leslie brings over 25 years of technical expertise and business insight into the challenges of federal government contracting. He has proven leadership experience in business growth, mergers and acquisitions, operational excellence, strategic planning and extensive federal market operations, and has a solid track record of successfully building technology companies in the federal sector.
Q: Can you tell us about Apptis and the services it provides to military and other customers?
A: Apptis provides IT services and solutions to the federal government. Our key capabilities surround the IT life cycle, including software, systems and network engineering, information assurance, and enterprise and program management. We have three organizations: defense and national security, federal civilian and health solutions, the largest of which is defense and national security. If you combine the work that we do in our defense sector with the military health services work that we do in health solutions, our defense sector work comprises approximately 65–70 percent of our total business.
Our single largest customer is the Defense Information Systems Agency, where we support network engineering and telecommunications services to the DISA network [DISN]. This includes systems engineering and theater network operations centers. We provide network management and control for both CONUS and OCONUS. Additionally, we provide information assurance and security, and digital voice system support and operations. Most importantly, we provide training support for all of these as well.
Some other examples of our work for the military services include support for the DoD Military Health System in detecting disease outbreaks worldwide. Apptis is the lead developer of a suite of Web-based tools used by our military to monitor, track and detect both natural and unnatural disease outbreaks. The Apptis-developed ESSENCE system [Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics] monitors real-time health data from over 90,000 beneficiaries worldwide in support of our nation’s bio-preparedness and response mission. ESSENCE is the only system of its kind deployed to help ensure that our nation is tracking and preemptively responding to pandemics and other potentially catastrophic disease outbreaks.
Q: What unique benefits does your company offer military and other customers?
A: One of the areas that we pride ourselves on is our experienced people. Our team’s experience within our customer base, combined with the technological know-how, allows us to provide real solutions to real problems for our customers. We provide a lot of certificationtype training to make sure that we are maintaining a level of experience that will provide the highest quality support to our customers.
We also hire a lot of retired military or civil servant personnel because these people really understand the requirements of the warfighter. This is very helpful to us, to the employees and our customers—to come out of the military services and still feel the satisfaction of providing support to a critical mission.
Q: Can you give us some other examples of work you have done for military customers?
A: We are currently providing services to the multi-national divisions in Iraq, where we provide network operations, server administration, Web development, secure video conferencing and information assurance for both the NIPRNet and SIPRNet.
Also, I am especially proud of the work we’ve done for USCENTCOM. We were recently awarded a contract to provide support for the 24/7 technical network operations center, where we provide network monitoring and information assurance at both MacDill AFB in Tampa, Fla., and Bahrain. We were able to analyze all of the project requirements and divide it into a work breakdown structure. Rather than pursue each function serially, we executed at full operational capability in a simultaneous way. When we began our startup, the first thing we had to do was hire 50 employees for the 24/7 support and get them on board and trained very quickly. During that time, we did not lose any response to the operational capability we were providing. We needed to provide a broad array of skill sets, including telephony, video, data and information assurance, which posed a challenge for us during the hiring process. What impressed me most when I recently visited was that we performed in a team environment with a great customer, working with military personnel to ensure a successful transition.
Q: What areas are you working on for the future in meeting military and other federal needs?
A: We’ve been evaluating opportunities to really differentiate ourselves in the market. Our team began focusing on a technology that would be of tremendous benefit to the military and other government agencies, which is cloud computing. We evaluated the dynamics that were occurring in the marketplace, including the financial crisis, tightening of budgets, and the on-going war on terrorism. We felt that cloud computing can help solve some of the critical challenges facing our customers today. We have teamed with a number of companies to create an offering for the utilization of applications in a “trusted” environment.
That’s important, because in the military environment, where there is a requirement for processing, the key is control and security. We need to ensure the highest level of security for the data and the applications that are processing the data. We’re in the early stages, but we anticipate tremendous benefit and cost savings to our customers. We are currently providing cloud consulting to a federal customer in disaster assistance, where they often have surge requirements and want to be able to use the cloud environment to be more responsive to disasters. ♦
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