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You will see a facility that effectively supports our business |
October 2009
You've all heard about the move of our headquarters to a nice new facility, and it is prominently announced on our website for everyone else to see. Many of you assigned to remote locations have even toured it during recent visits here. What an improvement over our previous humble origins! But make no mistake, this was a carefully planned and managed move. The entire executive team and move team were "thinking like owners" throughout this process. We budgeted each component of the move then worked doubly hard to get better prices on vendors, equipment, and durable items before executing the plan. Continuity of operations were maintained throughout the move.
The result is an improved facility and an improved corporate support capability. The former is a ten-year lease commitment, and the latter is an ongoing technology upgrade process that is designed to improve over the years through an iterative approach of new tools and better integration. The same is true of the security capabilities at the company, where the hope is to continue to add value such that some security support can eventually be partially recouped from customers as billable services.
We learned a lot during the recent move which is directly applicable to other upcoming and planned moves. The Huntsville office is growing rapidly that they are currently looking at new office sites. This will be our third location in the Huntsville area. We plan to move to a new larger location during 2010. The Las Vegas office has a combination of growth and incumbent landlord issues, so a move is in work there as well. We have signed a letter of intent on a new location and everyone is working hard to get the facilities properly designed and certified to meet a wide range of MTSI and customer requirements. That move should take place during late 2010. Colorado Springs is in the final stages of expanding into new space and reconfiguring existing space. In a few months this expansion will be completed resulting in expanded capabilities and facilities. While not happening today, the Tucson-area activities hold a lot of potential for an initial office based on the recent success in increased support to some existing and new important customers. These are all good news stories. As field activities reach decision points on moving or expanding, I'd encourage your management teams to reach out to the headquarters staff for lessons learned or targeted support in certain areas. We can likely parlay our recent experience into time and cost savings for your own growth scenarios. Plus, our local team did an outstanding job of maintaining continuity of operations. We are operating quite efficiently from day one.
Hopefully, many more of you will get a chance to visit the new headquarters in the future. You will see a facility that effectively supports our business and customers, but is modest and utilitarian in most ways. We remain mindful that we are primarily supporting the federal government and the military services either directly or indirectly and thus it is taxpayer money that pays for everything we do. If we waste money in some way or spend unnecessarily, less dollars will be available to accomplish other more critical work. Let me just thank you for all your efforts which have made this growth and success possible.
- Phil
