Colorado Springs defense contractor Apogee Engineering has landed $190 million in contracts that will add 120 people to its workforce and put the company at the forefront of space, intelligence and cybersecurity technology.
All three contracts are part of the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services master contract that the federal government uses to buy “complex professional services” such as engineering, scientific and program management. About 40 contractors divided into seven pools compete for individual work orders that so far have totaled more than $15 billion. Apogee acquired a contract position two years ago from a company it did not identify and has won 28 work orders totaling $277.2 million.
“This is a major evolution for Apogee. We are now on the leading edge of space technology, space logistics, intelligence, data science and cyber,” said Frank Varga, Apogee’s vice president of program operations.
“These are very big contracts for Apogee, and are a natural extension of our core business of supporting Air Force Space Command and the Space and Missile Center.”
The contracts, all awarded in February, are:
• A $26.5 million, five-year deal with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles and Directed Energy directorates to develop space technologies for “evolving warfighter requirements” that include communications, positioning, navigation and timing, space cyber, space modeling and simulation, space evaluation and analysis assessments, defensive space control, space situational awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
• A $28.2 million, six-year deal with the Space and Missile Center Space Logistics Directorate and related organizations for space logistics infrastructure support services to support various missions, command, control, communications and intelligence activities of Air Force Space Command. Apogee was awarded the contract along with Springs-based Infinity Systems Engineering that also includes providing logistical support to the Global Positioning System and five other satellite networks.
• A $135.9 million, five-year deal with the Air Combat Command Intelligence Directorate for technical and managerial expertise for the command’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities as part the Air Force’s consolidation of cyber and network security missions under the command. The work includes helping the Air Force develop intelligence tools, applications and systems to analyze and use data.
Most of the 120 people Apogee is hiring for work other defense contractors that previously held contracts for the same work, though 10-15 will be new positions, Varga said. The company has 46 openings at various locations listed on its website (apogeeengineering.net/careers/), mostly for engineers, analysts, scientists and logicians, as well as finance and administrative personnel.
Apogee was started in 2004 by three engineering school classmates from Walla Walla University in Washington — Wes Georges, Tom Hamel and Jason Courtright — who had worked in satellite communications for Lockheed Martin Corp. and later Booz Allen Hamilton in Colorado Springs and decided to start their own consulting firm. The company won early subcontracts for work with Air Force Space Command, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command before winning a support contract in 2010 from the Air Force Academy.
A joint venture, Joint Strategic Solutions, formed by Apogee and Springs-based Delta Solutions & Strategies was one of nine contractors selected in 2014 for an $800 million contract to provide services to the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb. Apogee now employs 114 in Colorado Springs and nearly 200 at offices in Dayton, Ohio, and Chesapeake and Hampton, Va., and at more than 20 military bases across the nation.
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