Peraton last week announced a new organizational structure that essentially consolidates its operating segments from six to four in an effort to help eliminate duplication and overlap while also improving its customer focus.
The company this week also expects to announce the hiring of Reggie Brothers, who was undersecretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the last three years of the Obama administration, as its chief technology officer (CTO). Brothers, who has been a principal at the strategic advisory firm The Chertoff Group since leaving government service a year ago, will report to Peraton CEO Stu Shea.
The CTO position at Peraton is a new one, and the company is giving Brothers responsibilities that go beyond the traditional role of a corporate technology chief. He will oversee technology solutions, as well as strategy, business development, mergers and acquisition, Matt McQueen, Peraton’s chief communications officer, told Defense Daily on Jan. 12.
Peraton wants to “lead with technology as the pointy end of the spear to really capitalize on all of those technologies that are within the business,” McQueen said.
Before leading DHS S&T, Brothers spent nearly seven years at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), more recently as deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and before that as a program manager. Between his two stints at DARPA, he worked for the U.S. operations of Britain’s BAE Systems for four years on technology solutions and mission applications.
Under the reorganization, Peraton will be organized into two primary sectors, Space, Intelligence and Cyber, led by Roger Mason, and Defense and Electronic Warfare, headed by Gus Bontzos. These sectors account for about 75 percent of the company’s business, which overall stands at more than $1 billion.
Peraton was formed last year largely through the acquisition of the former government information technology business of Harris Corp. [HRS] by the private equity firm Veritas Capital.
The Space, Intelligence and Cyber sector will focus on “space protection and resiliency, intelligence processing, secure communications, cyber operations, and network platform protection across a broad range” of customers, including NASA. Mason joined Peraton earlier this month from Noblis.
Bontzos’ sector will be responsible for the company’ research and development efforts, but will also manage operational programs. The sector will bring in all of the company’s internal and customer R&D work, which supports DoD laboratories, DARPA and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The Defense and Electronic Warfare sector also oversees operational programs such a high-performance computing services and solutions for the Air Force’s Distributed Common Ground System and spectrum management for the Defense Information Systems Agency.
Shea told Defense Daily last November that he was working to focus Peraton on “emerging warfighter domains,” which he essentially described are in the areas space, intelligence, cyber, signals intelligence, and electronic warfare.
The realignment “really breaks the mold of our legacy structure and aligns to those customer mission needs,” McQueen said, adding that the consolidation will also improve internal collaboration, improve time to delivery for customers, and lead to growth opportunities for employees. He also said that the previous organization had too much “overlap” between the different businesses, and that “leader visibility was not strong [and the] contract base was highly fragmented.”
The legacy business structure was divided into six operating groups, Space and Intelligence, Advanced Solutions, which was led by Bontzos, Defense, Civil and Health, NASA, and Government Communications.
While the two sectors are Peraton’s current growth engines, the company has created two strategic business units that will report to Shea’s office. The Homeland Security unit will serve DHS and the State Department and will provide technology integration and mission support services. The business also does work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense Health.
Last fall, Peraton unseated Leidos [LDOS] for a potential $578 million contract to support the Transportation Security Administration with integrated logistics support services for the agency’s security equipment deployed at airports nationwide. Leidos protested that award and the Government Accountability Office is expected to render a decision by Jan. 22.
The Communications unit will provide mission-critical and advanced communications services to the company’s intelligence, defense, civil and commercial customers. The unit serves the government satellite and terrestrial communications markets.
Peraton said it will announce leaders for the two business units at a later date.
“We are deliberately building a company that is positioned to meet our customers’ mission needs now and is prepared to aggressively shape and pursue opportunities across the emerging warfighting domains of tomorrow,” Shea said in a statement last Thursday when the reorganization was announced. He said the new structure and leadership “underscores our focus on the future direction of this company. Under Peraton’s new leadership, our businesses are now in a position to compete in a truly differentiated manner and on par with any company in our marketplace.”