Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Upcoming Event

Best Places to Work in Virginia

Hamburger Menu Hamburger Menu

Tag: Dulles

Business optimism down among GovCon officials

Business optimism among government contractor (GovCon) officials has dropped 16% during the pandemic, according to the Gauge Report, an annual survey conducted by Dulles-based software company Unanet and New York City-based CohnReznick LLP.

“These concerns and sentiments are to be expected given the current economic climate,” Kim Koster, Unanet vice president of GovCon strategy and co-author of the Gauge Report, said in a statement. “However, what stands out is the relative comfort among businesses that have adequately prepared for variables through strong technology investments and operational efficiencies.” This includes tools such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, according to the report.

Based on feedback from nearly 1,500 respondents, 84% of GovCon officials surveyed were optimistic about their business in early March — but that fell to 68% after the start of the pandemic. Some of the largest pressures on the industry include COVID-19, social justice, virtual working and stock volatility, according to the report.

However, the report also showed that 59% of respondents said that more than 76% of their projects are on or under budget, while 55% reported that their resource management falls at a high level of maturity — an improvement from previous reports. The report also shows that cost has been down among GovCon operations during the pandemic while travel, supplies and on-site costs have been down. 

“Bottom line, the federal government remains a stable industry,” according to the Gauge Report. “Government contractors have the chance to prove yet again how nimble and resilient they are.”

This is the fourth time Unanet and CohnReznick LLP have published the Gauge Report. Unanet provides project management software, timesheet software, expense reporting software and other human resources software to federal government contractors, architects and engineers, while CohnReznick provides advisory, assurance and tax services.

 

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. wins $187M NASA contract

Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corp., a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp., has been awarded a $187 million NASA contract to design living quarters for the Lunar Gateway mini space station. 

The Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) design will be inspired by Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, which delivers supplies, equipment and experiments to the International Space Station. It’s part of NASA’s Artemis program. A successor to the Apollo moon landing program of the 1960s and ’70s, Artemis will see NASA land the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024.

“The success of our Cygnus spacecraft and its active production line helps to enable Northrop Grumman to deliver the HALO module,” Steve Krein, Northrop Grumman vice president of civil and commercial satellites, said in a statement. “HALO is an essential element in NASA’s long-term exploration of deep space, and our HALO program team will continue its work in building and delivering this module in partnership with NASA.”

The HALO spacecraft will serve as a crew habitat and a docking hub for spacecrafts traveling between the Earth and the moon, with three docking ports.

“This contract award is another significant milestone in our plan to build robust and sustainable lunar operations,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. “The Gateway is a key component of NASA’s long-term Artemis architecture and the HALO capability furthers our plans for human exploration at the moon in preparation for future human missions to Mars.”

With more than 90,000 employees, Northrop Grumman recently made the Fortune 500 list again in 2020.

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.

Managing during crisis

Virginia Business virtually sat down with Craig Halliday, CEO of Dulles-based software company Unanet, which provides project management software, timesheet software, expense reporting software and other human resources software to federal government contractors, architects and engineers. This is part of an ongoing series of conversations with Virginians about how their work lives and businesses have changed during the pandemic.

Virginia Business: How has business changed for Unanet during the crisis?

Halliday: Overall, because we’re a cloud-based company, we haven’t noticed a huge change. It’s really just been more about making sure that we keep our customers going and making sure that we take care of our employees and that they have everything they need to work remotely. 

However, we have seen a very large change in the last month. We were just in the process to launch our 24/7 support, so the timing of that was excellent as it related to our customers because they do need a lot of support right now.

What we’re seeing from our customers is a large increase in the amount of support they need to deal with the new provisions and the new legislation coming out: how they need to record time, record expenses and be able to report on that. A lot of our customers are government contractors, so need to have DCAA [Defense Contract Audit Agency] compliance. They have quite strict government reporting deadlines. 

VB: What new legislation are federal government contractors having to respond to?

Halliday: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act [which allows private employers with fewer than 500 employees to keep workers on payroll by reimbursing employers with tax credits for the cost of providing employees with paid sick leave related to COVID-19], especially for our customers who have less than 500 employees. There will be quite a few of those provisions that will apply to them and they will be able to support their employees and also get some relief from the government. But they need to be sure they’re tracking things appropriately. 

VB: What has the bandwidth looked like in terms of  cloud storage?

Halliday: Bandwidth has not been a problem. Honestly we haven’t missed a beat. That’s not to say that as things go on there won’t be increased loads.

Gwendolyn Hess, a Unanet senior technical trainer, working from home. Photo courtesy Unanet

VB: How have employees adapted to supporting clients around the clock?

Halliday: There’s been a large increase in the amount of calls to our support line, especially to help with how to adapt to new provisions.  We’ve been putting articles out there about how you deal with it. We have a customer forum where customers can go in and interact. We’re also doing a lot of customer surveys saying, “What do you need this week?” Because last week was last week, this week is this week. Everything is changing very rapidly, so [we’re asking,] “What do you need from us now?”

VB: Have you noticed clients using project planning software differently?

Halliday: We [sell] project planning software both to government contractors and architects and engineers. They’re planning and replanning their projects. Having those resources right now is good for them. We’re seeing a lot of the architects and engineers getting their projects [moving], but then waiting and seeing [what happens next]. Similarly, for government contractors, they have to plan and replan their work right now, and we have to support them to do that. 

VB: Have any new customers reached out during the crisis?

Halliday: We’re seeing a lot of interest in the products we’ve got, but we’re really focused right now in supporting our current customers and making sure that they can do what they need to do. Everybody now is realizing that they should be on the cloud, so any of our customers who are not fully cloud-enabled are certainly wanting to make sure that they are. For example, we created an invoicing module that we just released and we’re seeing interest in that because people want to be able to be efficient in getting the bills out and making sure that they can automate a lot of these things, which are somewhat impacted by remote working.

VB: How have your employees responded to the increased workload?

Halliday: On the support side, they’ve been busier than usual. On our development side, we’re just continuing as usual. There’s an impact of working remotely, especially for families with kids. With kids not being at school, that has an impact. There’s no doubt. We need to support our employees to make sure that they can take care of them. We’re just doing a lot more virtual meetings. We have a virtual happy hour tomorrow and making a point of having these employee communications where everybody is in contact with everyone else. I think it’s very important for morale and to keep everyone connected.

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.

Dulles-based ERP platform developer Unanet adds six new executives

Dulles-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform developer Unanet has hired six executives, the company announced Friday.

Assad Jarrahian, Unanet chief operating officer

Assad Jarrahian was appointed as chief product officer. Most recently, Jarrahian was the senior vice president of product at Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Intelex Technologies ULC. He has also worked for companies including Pearson, Digidata, Oracle and EMS Software. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

 

 

 

Jeff Davison, Unanet chief customer officer

 

Jeff Davison was appointed as chief customer officer. Davison most recently served as the chief operating officer for Lake Mary, Florida-based CentralSquare Technologies. He worked for Reston-based higher education tech company Ellucian for nearly seven years before that. Davison has a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University.

 

 

 

 

Carrie Mahon, Unanet chief marketing officer

Carrie Mahon was appointed as chief marketing officer and mostly recently comes from Comcast Business where she was vice president of marketing. She previously worked for IBM for 14 years before her time at other tech and telecommunications companies including Windstream Enterprise and EMS software. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester and a master’s degree from Columbia University.

 

 

 

Gene Gainey, Unanet senior vice president of sales

 

Gene Gainey was appointed as senior vice president of sales. He most recently was the senior vice president of sales for the Americas at Reward Gateway in Boston, Massachusetts. Gainey has worked in sales since the mid-1980s, but more recently has worked for companies including Learn.com, Globoforce, HealthcareSource, Cornerstone OnDemand and Reward Getaway. He earned a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina State University.

 

 

 

 

Matt Pantana, senior vice president of Clearview product

 

Matt Pantana was appointed to senior vice president of Clearview product after joining the company in October 2019 following Unanet’s acquisition of Lynchburg-based Clearview Software, which also develops project-based ERP software for architects and engineers. He was Clearview’s CEO and chief technology officer. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Liberty University.

 

 

 

Steve McTavish, senior vice president of Clearview sales

 

Steve McTavish became senior vice president of Clearview sales and also joined the company as a result of the Clearview acquisition. Before he was vice president at Clearview Software, he worked for Central Consulting Group and Deltek. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston C.T. Bauer College of Business.

 

 

In June 2019, Unanet announced that it had received a “significant” investment from Baltimore-based capital market company JMI Equity, although an investment amount was not disclosed.