Helping soldiers

Fantastic 50
HIGHEST REVENUE GROWTH
Millennium Corp., Arlington
millgroupinc.com

Retired military officers Kevin N. Jennings and Cedric D. Henry may have given up their uniforms, but they haven’t lost their sense of duty.

“We wanted to create our own destiny, but we still wanted to continue to serve our country and help soldiers,” says Jennings, a former Army officer who co-founded Arlington-based Millennium Corp. in 2004 with Henry, a former Navy officer. “And, we have been able to do that.”

Millennium provides government clients system engineering and technical assistance in cybersecurity, program management, logistics, acquisition support and Lean Six Sigma consulting and training for project efficiency. “We make sure that material is developed and built to the requirements of the government, and that it is on budget and on schedule,” Jennings says.

The company’s revenue rose 2,723 percent over four years, making it this year’s leader in the Fantastic 50.

This year marks the company’s 10th anniversary. In 2010 it made the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. and has stayed on the list for the past three years. “We’ve grown by word of mouth,” Jennings says. “It’s a huge responsibility to keep growing and doing the right thing.”

The company has 142 employees. The majority of them are located in Northern Virginia. Millennium has other offices in Huntsville, Ala.; Picatinny, N.J.; and the Aberdeen, Md., area. It also has employees in 17 on-site locations. “We understand the government’s requirements and meet those with the folks we put in there,” Jennings says. “We had a plan. We selected the right talent.”

The company has worked with the Department of Defense and other government agencies since its inception. “All of our contracts are geared toward the warfighter,” Jennings says. Two of the company’s largest projects support the Distributed Common Ground System — Army (DCGS) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., and PM Biometrics at Fort Belvoir.

DCGS is the Army’s intelligence component that gathers, analyzes and shares information in a common system. Biometric systems capture, transmit and store information such as fingerprints for identity verification.

“We provide software program management, logistics, scheduling and systems engineering support for DCGS and strategic planning for PM Biometrics,” Jennings says.

The company’s largest federal contract is with the Department of Homeland Security where it supports the Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security agencies. It also works with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, the Joint Warfare and Analysis Center, Naval Supply Command/Naval Facility Command and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Millennium seeks ways to make projects more efficient and effective. “We are willing to take on hard projects and tough issues,” Jennings says. “We put our resources on a project to help with problems that larger companies might have walked away from. We put the hours in to do what we need to do.”

The company has been working with the U.S. Army PM Close Combat Systems in Picatinny, N.J., for seven years, providing program management and scientific engineering technical assistance. Under that contract, the company has helped the military in its initiative to identify and disarm improvised explosive devices (IEDs). “We are proud that we are helping to ship equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan that can be put to use immediately saving soldiers’ lives,” Jennings says.

The company strives to be one of the leading providers of cybersecurity services for the government. “We are one of the few small businesses that has cybersecurity certifications and can provide offensive penetration testing [recognizing risks and implementing the necessary procedures to combat them],” Jennings says. The company’s cybersecurity specialists often work with their clients as new software and equipment is built, searching for system vulnerabilities. “We look at how we can make it strong and protective,” Jennings says.

Of the company’s seven key executives, six are retired military officers with experience in areas ranging from concept development to sustainment of large acquisitions. “We are a company that complements the government’s skill set,” Jennings says.