Head Games

Michael Hershman is the Simon Cowell of homeland security. A one-time military intelligence officer, senior investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee, and now the president and chief executive officer of the Washington influence shop The Civitas Group, Hershman has a lot in common with the judgmental co-host of TV's American Idol.

Companies come to Hershman hoping he'll give them something as valuable as seed money: access to influential decision-makers in national security and counterterrorism circles-inside and outside government-that Hershman, and his Civitas colleagues, have the pleasure of calling compadres.

The eager executives "are essentially auditioning," Hershman says, hoping that Civitas' introductions will develop into lucrative contracts or acquisition deals from large Beltway firms, much the same way pop-star wannabes on American Idol dream their newfound fame will translate into record deals and slots atop the charts.

Hershman has friends in high places-and so do their friends, and their friends' friends. Collectively, they could open or at least crack almost any door in Washington. Their names make upwards of 40 client-auditioners flock to Civitas every month with product proposals, according to Hershman's math.

Here's a taste of the Civitas power soup: Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, is a senior manager. Richard Clarke, who served as White House counterterrorism chief to three presidents before rocking Washington-and earning a place on President Bush's hit list-with his tell-all Against All Enemies (Simon & Schuster, 2004), sits on the board of advisers. Berger and Clarke also have their own consulting firms, which have formal alliances with Civitas.

Former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, who was co-author of a February 2001 report that called for the creation of a homeland security agency, also is a Civitas adviser. And Republican strongman Charlie Black shares a management role with Berger. Black advised both President Bushes' campaigns, and helped finesse the 2002 Homeland Security Act through Congress.

The Civitas team is bipartisan for no other reason than it helps business. A member's political baggage-such as the kind Clarke carries these days-could be a blessing or a curse, depending on which party is in power, Hershman says. It doesn't really matter. Clients "want us to represent them because they know what our team is about," he says. "It's not hard . . . to understand that we're serious players."

Before moving prospective clients to the next round, Civitas vets their technology, not surprisingly, by running it by the group's friends. Companies frequently show up claiming they have no competition in their market. "That's such a silly statement," says Hershman, who dismisses that kind of apparent naïveté for what it probably is-disingenuousness. Few if any companies are distinctive, and Civitas considers whether there truly is a market for a product, and whether a government customer or a larger company would buy it. The group also screens a company's management and assesses its financial stability. Hershman says no one is looking to bet on a loser. And since Civitas has accepted only 15 clients, it would seem Hershman and company think most security upstarts aren't worth their time-or their friends' time either.

Once Civitas takes on a client, the road to business fruition is not as fast as an American Idol's rise to glory. Hershman estimates that it will take several years before his clients either land government contracts or get bought by larger firms. But worrying about that path, at least as concerns the soft-selling and glad-handing that characterizes it, is what clients want Civitas to do, while they focus on refining their technology, Hershman says.

Hershman speaks of his latest finds with a bursting pride usually reserved for the parents of overachieving high school students. One client, Allegiant Technology Inc., a Stamford, Conn., technology services firm, "has the most robust enterprise-level network security technology . . . in the world today," he says, and he thinks it's a natural fit for homeland security agencies. Another company, Austin, Texas-based Nano-Proprietary Inc., makes a device that can identify traces of explosive on a person's clothes or body, from a distance, and Hershman believes it "is going to transform the detection space."

All that remains to be seen, of course. But it's likely some of Civitas' ventures could inspire a hefty dose of controversy. The group is partnered with an outfit helmed by journalist-turned-security evangelist Steven Brill, who is marketing an identity card that would allow its holders to bypass security screening stations at airports, public sporting venues and office buildings. Customers would be screened against terrorist and criminal watch lists every 30 days. The company's name, Verified Identity Pass Inc., or VIP, points out the debate inherent to such a device: It would create two classes of citizens, what Brill has called "trusted versus not yet trusted."

Hershman is betting that Civitas members' trusted status will be the key for opening doors to government agencies into successful business engagements. Having spent most of their careers in government, many members know their value is vetting potential contractors on busy officials' behalf and finding the diamond in the rough. "They know we're not coming to them with another technology off the street, because they see thousands," Hershman says.

Perhaps in Civitas' strategy lies a sign of things to come. As the government's reliance on contractors increases in all manner of sectors-from technology services to companies on the battlefield in Iraq-the work of industry looks even more like the work of the people. Today, large contractors and groups like Civitas "are almost indistinguishable from government," Hershman says.