Authorities contractors face many challenges like stringent compliance necessities, intense competitors for specialised expertise, and the fixed uncertainty of federal budgets. Whereas many corporations wrestle with these obstacles, HX5, below Margarita Howard’s management, has overcome these hurdles to construct a thriving enterprise. The corporate helps essential authorities tasks throughout 90 areas in 34 states, specializing in analysis and growth, engineering, info expertise, mission operations, and program administration.
Howard’s path to success wasn’t assured. Feminine founder Margarita Howard began her profession within the U.S. Air Drive earlier than transitioning to the personal sector. She launched HX5 with a transparent imaginative and prescient to create a authorities contracting agency that might compete successfully whereas sustaining the best requirements of integrity and efficiency. The corporate employs over 1,000 folks and has secured giant authorities contracts.
Constructing a Basis By way of Strategic Threat Administration
“Once we speak to enterprise entrepreneurs or new employees, we remind them: We all know that what we do just isn’t straightforward to do, and it’s very costly to make sure it’s performed proper,” Margarita Howard says. “If it had been straightforward, everybody would do it.”
From its inception, HX5 took calculated risks that set it aside from typical small authorities contractors. The corporate made substantial early investments in a specialised accounting system designed particularly for presidency service contracting corporations. This resolution proved pivotal in gaining credibility with authorities companies and enterprise companions.
Howard, an alumnus of the Small Enterprise Administration’s 8(a) program, demonstrates her strategic considering. Whereas many small companies rely closely on set-aside contracts by means of this system, Howard pursued a distinct path. “I had that aggressive edge or need,” she notes. “I knew that I didn’t need HX5 to be depending on sole-source awards.”
Howard continues, “We had been within the trade, we knew small companies in our space, and that’s what lots of them did. And as soon as this system was over after 9 years, they had been performed. They’d by no means competed. They’d by no means actually performed it on their very own.”
Margarita Howard on Conquering the Complexities of Federal Contracting
Federal contracting presents distinctive challenges that require fixed vigilance. HX5 maintains a crew of specialised advisers who assist the corporate keep present with insurance policies and rules governing the protection trade. This experience proves essential when coping with the in depth audit necessities inherent in authorities work.
“The federal government’s job is to audit each single space of what we, as a federal providers contractor, do for them, from the labor division evaluating our human sources insurance policies to the financials that we invoice to the federal government for providers being offered,” Howard explains. The corporate’s safety division undergoes annual audits to confirm correct coaching and clearance administration for personnel.
She says, “From working within the trade, we knew the significance of impeccable file conserving. Subsequently, we’ve at all times ensured our funds, and all our data of every thing we are saying we do should at all times be supported with the suitable documentation and recorded precisely as a result of, as a authorities contractor, all of our data are open to the federal government’s inspection and audits at any time. These are among the many causes for the excessive requirements that we maintain.”
This rigorous oversight extends to mission-critical operations that may’t pause for funds negotiations. The corporate has developed refined processes to determine which packages or tasks may face furloughs throughout funds impasses, permitting for proactive planning and threat mitigation.
Discovering certified personnel presents one other vital hurdle. Howard refers to significantly difficult positions as “purple unicorns” — candidates with uncommon combos of technical experience, safety clearances, and particular expertise. The corporate focuses totally on the STEM fields of science, expertise, engineering, and arithmetic, that are important for supporting Division of Protection and NASA missions.
“We favor to rent skilled people who’ve labored with, or supported, NASA or the Division of Protection,” Margarita Howard says. “Expertise of their respective fields, whereas supporting these companies’ respective packages and missions, may be very completely different than expertise gained from working within the industrial world.”
The corporate invests closely in skilled growth and coaching packages to take care of its aggressive edge. This dedication to worker development has helped HX5 retain expertise, with many employees members staying with the corporate for over a decade.
Howard acknowledges the significance of at all times sustaining the best moral requirements whereas competing in authorities contracting. “Our hardest lesson has completely been the conclusion that there are particular rivals who don’t play by the identical moral guidelines that we do,” she says. This actuality has led HX5 to fastidiously vet potential companions and rivals.
The agency’s commitment to integrity extends to its relationship with monetary establishments. Regardless of now having a number of banks pursuing their enterprise, HX5 maintains loyalty to the primary financial institution that offered them a enterprise mortgage when others wouldn’t take the chance.
Innovation stays central to HX5’s technique, significantly in rising applied sciences. The corporate has begun integrating synthetic intelligence instruments into its operations whereas sustaining its deal with safety and compliance. Recognizing the significance of AI and its ever increasing position in each NASA and the Division of Protection, is essential to the corporate’s ongoing capability to assist its buyer’s various wants within the areas of aeronautics, structural engineering, and weapons analysis.
Margarita Howard’s leadership style emphasizes main by instance and sustaining constant requirements all through the group. “We maintain ourselves to the identical excessive requirements of efficiency, integrity, and honesty that we anticipate of our workers,” she says. “We at all times need to present the very best providers on the highest ranges.”
This method has confirmed significantly necessary in breaking obstacles in a historically male-dominated area. “It’s rewarding to see that girls are making vital strides within the authorities contracting trade, breaking obstacles and extra typically assuming management roles on this trade and inside authorities companies that we work with,” Margarita Howard notes.
Nearly all of HX5’s management team members are ladies. Howard says, ”We typically have to beat extra challenges that sadly nonetheless exist in some areas. NASA has performed a very good job in selling extremely skilled and educated ladies to numerous management positions to incorporate middle director positions.”
