Playing Both Sides

When it comes to winning the government's business, it's not just what you know, but whom you know that matters.

Few people probably know that as well as Carl Wright, who has successfully played the game of government contracting from both sides. Two years ago, Wright retired from the Marine Corps, where he was responsible for buying all manner of information technology as a "data systems officer," and became a vice president with Securify, a then three-year-old Mountain View, Calif., network security startup that had zero presence in the federal market.

Wright had found a niche in the Marines, starting off as a maintenance officer for a microcomputers facility in Okinawa, Japan. In 1996, he entered the Naval Post Graduate School and earned a master's degree in information technology management. During his graduate studies, he worked as a consultant for technology giants such as 3Com and Dell. It was the first time he realized his technological and managerial skills would eventually be "transferable" to the private sector. His personal connections ultimately would prove just as valuable.

In 1998, Wright was handpicked to come to the Marine base at Quantico, Va., to help the Marine Corps build a service-wide computer network. He was responsible for acquiring the network's security technologies. Doing the job, Wright said, "I got to know the federal acquisition regulations pretty well."

That would be an understatement. There were only about 150 officers in the entire Corps with Wright's expertise, he noted. His job was to scope out the technical specifications of various products the Corps wanted, and then to work with the contracting officer to buy them for the network. His official title was "contracting officer's technical representative," but he might just as well have been called the details man.

Knowing the procurement process inside and out was key to Wright's success. It also gave him the edge in his private sector career. But more than knowing obscure federal regulations, knowing the right people to call when the time came to do business made Wright a hot commodity.

After leaving the Corps, Wright worked briefly as an executive at a Maryland-based security and engineering firm. Securify recruited him in the hopes of making inroads with the ultimate insider's market: the U.S. government.

Wright knew the best place to start. While serving in the Marines, he was a technical adviser on the massive Navy Marine Corps Intranet project, an effort to link thousands of software applications, computers and data sites across the two services. While on the job, Wright had learned the Navy had wanted its prime vendor-Electronic Data Systems-to provide better network security.

Wright knew the higher-ups at the Navy and in EDS who would ultimately decide what kind of security provider to hire. He made pitches to both sides.

Wright told the Navy officials there was a better way to find potential security problems with the network's applications: namely, to use Securify's flagship product. The officials had been taking essentially manual surveys up to that point, and Wright was offering them a way to do the job automatically and with greater accuracy.

EDS had a lot to gain from managing the change better, Wright knew. The company had suffered withering criticism in the press for its handling of NMCI, which had proved vastly more complicated than many had anticipated. In October 2002, news reports had suggested EDS might not be able to finish the $7 billion project, which was running behind schedule.

The Navy needed a "seamless transition" as much as its contractor, Wright said. And both sides wanted to hear what he had to say.

Ultimately, the Navy crafted a new security requirement for NMCI, Wright said, one that happened to match up with Securify's product. Last month, the company was awarded a $5.8 million subcontract by EDS and became part of the NMCI mega-deal.

Today, Wright is applying his insider knowledge to winning war business. Securify recently won a contract with the Defense Department to monitor activity on part of the command and control network of Central Command (CENTOM), which is in charge of prosecuting the war in Iraq. From his military experience, Wright had learned the intricacies of CENTCOM's organization chart and also the hierarchy at the other agency controlling the purse strings, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

"I knew not which person to talk to, but which organization to talk to," Wright said. "That's half the battle of doing business in the federal government," and it "gives you significant advantage over competitors who don't understand it," he said.

Wright continues leading Securify's charge into the market. This month, the company signed an agreement with government contractor Artel of Reston, Va. The firm, which has worked for military agencies, including DISA, will use the same security software Securify sold to EDS and the Navy in Artel's security products.

Wright's colleagues are industry veterans. Securify's founder, Taher Elgamal, was chief scientist at Netscape, and other corporate officers hail from Silicon Valley startups to the halls of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Wright's background, on paper, certainly looks less glamorous. "I was a procurement guy," he said.

But that's precisely why he was recruited, and the strategy now appears to be paying off.