Salient Federal Solutions’ acquisition of ATS Corp. provides Salient valuable access to the civilian side of the federal market, CEO Brad Antle told GovCon Wire Friday, a longtime goal of the Fairfax, Va.-based information technology contractor.
The acquisition puts Salient’s revenues at roughly $250 million and while sequestration and budget limitations pose many concerns, Antle said Salient is ready to work its way through and come out stronger on the other side of the lean budget environment.
The Northern Virginia Technology Council Chair said diversifying the company’s contract base has been a business priority for some time and targeted the Department of Housing and Urban Development, with which ATSC has strong ties, as a future customer.
The deal also gives Salient access to a series of contract vehicles with the National Institutes of Health and a spot on General Services Administration’s Alliant porgram, which has another eight years to run and a huge ceiling, Antle said.
ATSC also holds spots on the GSA’s Schedule 70, the Navy’s Seaport-e and the Army’s Human Resources solutions vehicles.
HUD is “prime for modernization” and would benefit from the agile software development skills Salient will bring to bear, Antle said.
Salient plans to establish a center for excellence to develop agile software, an area Antle called an area of growing demand that provides government the ability to develop software in smaller bytes over shorter cycle times.
ATSC also brings software and financial management systems and Antle said these would benefit his company as many legacy financial systems are antiquated today.
The leadership team is not re-tooling the company, but rather building for the demands of today, he added.
Antle said that opportunities remain in defense and intelligence and his focus is to grow the company through periods of budget downturns.
