SRGX:Info-packed newspaper article from Maine.
Much of this information doesn't show up in the SRGX press releases.
And a postscript: They now have over 50 employees and subcontract with Big Boys Raytheon and Level-3.
Strategy X looks at the big picture
By MATT WICKENHEISER, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
HARRISON — Tucked away among the lake scenes, budding forests and distant mountain views is the headquarters of Strategy X, a new homeland security company with a military mission that seems at odds with its bucolic setting.
The company is headquartered in the Lakes Region for one reason: That's where Chief Executive Officer Clifford A. Lewis lives. Lewis is a Massachusetts native who moved to Maine in 1999, toward the end of a 20-year career in the Air Force.
He's here because his father and grandparents are from Harrison and he believes the community is a great place to raise kids. He and his wife, Michelle, have 11 children, ages 1 through 19.
Lewis is a practical example of how an Internet-connected world allows virtually anyone to live anywhere and run a global business, from graphic artists toiling away at in-home studios for New York magazines to globe-trotting salesmen based out of basement offices.
The services Strategy X offers - assessing and advising on the security systems and processes of military bases, dams, power plants and other facilities - don't have a huge Maine market, but they are in demand elsewhere, Lewis said.
The company has signed a $6 million subcontract with Radian Inc. in which Strategy X will provide engineers and technicians at seven different Army bases over the next two years, along with two other four-person teams for other functions. The company now has 15 employees, most in California and Florida, and plans to have 50 by the end of August, said Lewis.
Strategy X doesn't make and sell security technology such as cameras and motion sensors. What the company does is analyze a facility's overall security strategy, including factors such as employee protocols, technology systems and physical barriers.
First the firm analyzes how well a system deters an attack and, through blast modeling and other tools, looks at what would happen if an attack did take place. It then designs a security system set up to address certain threats and installs all the parts and pieces.
Strategy X's employees operate under a systems strategy. While many would think a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, the true strength is how each link works with the others.
For instance, a motion sensor in a security system might have a failure rate of 10 percent, said Lewis, but what happens to its effectiveness when you add in 40 other sensors, plug 10 computers into the system and have a handful of people working on it?
The entire homeland security market worldwide was pegged at $28 billion in 2003 and is expected to grow to more than $170 billion in 2015, according to ECON Investor Relations, a company that works with businesses involved in the sector.
It's also very competitive - particularly the area Strategy X operates in, said Lewis.
"There are numerous large companies such as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and L3 Communications," Lewis said. "Additionally, the business sector is literally littered with hundreds of smaller companies."
But Lewis points out that the security assessment part of the market isn't that large. The community is mostly made up of ex-military officials, he said. The fact that he spent 20 years in the Air Force developing force-protection strategies and philosophies and training others in the field means that he and his colleagues at Strategy X have valuable contacts already made in many of the businesses they want to work with.
"This is a small community. We all did similar work in the military and we worked with a lot of these folks," said Lewis. "Additionally, our reputations and contacts from our military careers helps us get into doors that most small companies cannot."
Those relationships are what helped, in part, a company that began in January land the subcontract with Radian.
"We have a long history with each other - all of us do," said Richard Harrison, program manager at Radian.
Harrison said it was the integrity of Strategy X's people, the experience they have in working with the government and their overall expertise that won them the contract.
"They've all been doing this for the government for over 20 years," he said.
Lewis, for example, started in the Air Force as a basic security officer and moved up through the ranks, holding positions at various bases such as chief of training and head of base defense. Then, in 1996, the concept of security for American forces took on added importance.
The Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, which housed coalition forces after the first Gulf War, was targeted by terrorists. Khobar's defenses were inadequate to stop the attack; a bomb killed 19 people and injured 500.
The Air Force created the Force Protection Battle Lab in San Antonio, Texas, a think-tank set up to bring together military professionals in order to come up with better ways to secure facilities at home and abroad.
There, Lewis worked on ways to take existing technology and apply it to problems. But, he said, technology wasn't always the answer, though it was often perceived that way.
For example, he said, people view cameras as helping with security, but all they really do is allow officials to see what went wrong after an incident occurs.
Lewis took the work done at the lab and went to work for the Air Force's Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. From there, he trained others in the doctrines developed at the lab and traveled to bases around the world, strengthening their security systems.
But funding was sparse, and everyone had their own "rice bowl," he said - a military term describing jurisdictional jealousy.
Lewis and some of his colleagues knew that funding for what they did was going to continue to go down, but that the need would still be there. He retired from the military in 2004 and began work on Strategy X, which he thought would help meet that demand for the services.
The company is putting various teaming agreements into place with other firms. These are subcontract type of setups where it would provide the expertise and modeling behind a system and a larger company might provide the physical equipment, for example.
Strategy X is publicly traded, funded through private placement of stocks and is working on securing some loans from financial institutions. Based on the contract with Radian and some others being pursued, Strategy X projects a profit in its first year, he said.
However, said Lewis, he's still concerned that the early stage company is capitalized at sufficient levels to be viable.
While the expansion in jobs would take place out of state, if the company grows, said Lewis, headquarters functions also would grow, and there might be room for hiring in Maine as well.
"Within five years, I'm 100 percent confident that Strategy X Inc. will be a major player in the homeland security business sector," said Lewis. "I'd like to see the company doing in the area of $75 to $100 million of business."
Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:
mwickenheiser@pressherald.com
