GovCon Wire had a chance to speak to CRGT CEO Tom Ferrando about his firm’s recent acquisition of Johnston McLamb. Ferrando shared an insider’s perspective on the decision-making process of the move and gave us an up-close look at the nooks and crannies of M&A.
Tom, for starters, tell us a little about your company. Who is CRGT?
“CRGT is a leading expert in emerging technology solutions for the federal government. We are a mid-sized company that has tackled large projects normally handled by bigger companies. Customers love to work with us because we respond quickly and we work closely with them to solve their problems while helping control their costs. No project is too big or too small for us. We stay on top of leading technology trends and provide practical solutions that work for our customers. Our focus on emerging technologies extends beyond large-scale, highly secure application infrastructure to include solutions around mobility, cloud computing, multimedia-rich services, business intelligence and cybersecurity.”
So, why did you acquire Johnston McLamb (JM)?
“CRGT acquired JM for a number of reasons. To begin with, we felt there was a great cultural fit with our ‘get it done’ attitude. Both CRGT and JM have demonstrated success helping customers contain and reduce their technology costs and deliver more with less. These are increasingly important and sought after skills in today’s economic climate. Further, JM brings incredibly complementary expertise in application design and development services, which enhances our large-scale government systems integration and operations capabilities. As such, CRGT is better equipped in the market with the ability to deliver services across the full spectrum of needs required by our government clients.”
Why now? And does CRGT anticipate further acquisition activity in the future?
“Through the acquisition of JM, we add more than 160 full-time professionals with highly valuable skills to our ranks, and instantly become better positioned to compete on the larger government contract opportunities. But more strategically, JM brings important solution offerings around Enterprise Data Management, Geospatial mapping and Visual Business Intelligence that were already high on our Emerging Technology Solutions roadmap. So, this acquisition really helps accelerate our plans to provide strong solution offerings in these key growth areas of the market. As we move forward, we will certainly consider the option of additional acquisitions as a viable strategy to further expand our services capabilities and to increase our solutions portfolio. The key will be strategic fit, as CRGT continues to expand our service offerings and increase our activities within mobility, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and next-generation data services.”
