Title: dyncorp
Journal of Aerospace and Defense Industry News
March 28th, 2000
Business News
DynCorp has operations around the world
by Leona C. Bull
senior staff writer
Employee-owned DynCorp's expertise has spanned the computer revolution; the space age; the Cold War' and conflicts from Korea and Vietnam to Desert Storm.
This Virginia based-company has more than 53 years of experience and 19,000 employees in the information and enterprise technology, operations, management support, aerospace and aviation services industry globally, who recognize and understand that it's not just important to win contracts, but that it's also important to be a responsible member of the community as well.
DynCorp found its beginnings in 1946 at the end of World War II, when a group of returning military pilots recognized the business potential of shipping cargo by air. The idea become the California Eastern Airways, Inc., modeled after the Flying Tiger Airlines. The first contract for the company was awarded in 1949 by White Sands Missile Range. The Land and Air divisions of the company were formed at that time out at Alamorgodo, N.M.
By 1947, the company logged 100,000 air miles per month nationwide and later, during the Korean Conflict, the company participated in the U.S. military airlift to the Far East.
The company continued to grow at an amazing rate, but by 1957, the decision was made to phase out commercial air carrier activity and begin diversifying into defense and aerospace engineering, commercial electronics and data management. In 1961, the company's name was changed to the Dynalectron Corporation and by 1976, the company had made19 acquisitions and established four main operating groups: Specialty Contracting, Energy, Government Services and Aviation Services.
The 1980s proved to be a time of explosive growth for the company as13 acquisitions were made to expand the company's aviation services into cargo handling and aviation fueling and to establish a new service business line-computer component repair.
By 1986, Dynalectron Corporation was acknowledged as the fourth largest electrical contractor in North America and one of the largest defense contractors and independent aviation service companies in the United States. At this time, Dynalectron stock was traded on the New York stock exchange and the company was ripe for a hostile takeover bid, or so Victor Posner, the world renowned cooperate raider thought. In 1987 in a management-led buyout, DynCorp became privately held, sharing ownership with employees under an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
Also at this time, operations became restructured into two core businesses - Government Services and Commercial Aviation Services. All other businesses were divested and the aviation maintenance business was expanded with the acquisition of a 285,000 square foot facility in Phoenix, Ariz. When the decision was made to take the company private, it was decided that a new moniker that would reflect its present and past business activities was needed. After more than 5,000 suggestions from employees, DynCorp was selected. The new name was launched in 1987.
DynCorp president and chief executive Paul Lombardi, who has been with the company since 1992, says he was attracted to the company because of the robust history.
"Bringing technology solutions to the market place is what I do, and with my skills I felt like I could help bring it into the 21st century," he said. "I'm an engineer that spent a good portion of my life in the high end information technology services arena.
"What I brought to the table is the technology capability and you marry that with to the normal conventional services or technical and mechanical services, you find more innovative solutions ways to get the old tired things done. That's what really distinguishes our company form other companies," he said.
"We [DynCorp] pride ourselves on the excellent safety record, in fact I have a safety officer that reports directly to me," said Lombardi. "He's not only involved with collecting the data and disseminating that data throughout the company but he also makes sure that our procedures and our policies are published and adhered to.
"In fact, within the Department of Energy, we are probably best in class and certainly in our aviation and range side of the business, we have outstanding records, especially at our Fort Rucker division. We have more than three million flight hours without a maintenance-related accident. Those are hard numbers to come by," Lombardi added. "DynCorp, which took over the Aircraft Maintenance Support Contract more than 11 years ago, is the first contractor at Fort Rucker to reach this remarkable achievement."
Lombardi adds," We live and breathe safety at every level in the company. Because safety frankly begins basically at the grass roots level. We spend an awful lot of time in training, in the development of policies and procedures so that our employees can act and work in a safe environment."
DynCorp has picked up a number of contracts through the A-76 process.
"We won Tinker [Air Force Base, Okla.] and we're in the process of winning Aberdeen [Proving Ground, Md.] but that contract is still under development," explained Lombardi. "We did win the contract, but the government is protesting the award, so they are still making a decision to what is right and wrong with that. We've bid Maxwell [AFB, Ala.] and we've bid Andrews [AFB, Md.], all of which are A-76. These are all base operation support type contracts or aviation services contracts."
While Lombardi acknowledges the concern that government unions have for the current civil service employees that are impacted by the A-76 process, he states, "What we bring to the table in any of these situations are people that understand the business, policies and standard operating procedures which we feel are world class," Lombardi says. "And the government feels the same way." The Department of Defense work, side of the company at this time is about 42 percent of the revenue stream.
The company has an influence that reaches far beyond the shores of the United States.
"All of the aviation services requirements that either Army, Navy or Air Force have anywhere in the world are impacted by DynCorp," he said. "Any kind of skirmish, military or police action that may occur anywhere in the world, whether it's U.N., State or NATO or the Department of Justice, we have contracts to assist them in performing their logistics missions over there.
"We have cleared people in our inventory (staff that has been cleared by the State Department) but also, we have access to a worldwide human resources network for skilled people in other countries. For example, when the State Department was getting ready to reinstate Aristade (president of Haiti) they asked us for police monitors. But that wasn't the only thing they asked us for, they also asked us for Creole speaking cops. So, we had a big deal with the Drug Enforcement Agency, to do asset forfeiture type office work and we had a lot of contacts with New Orleans and the Chief's of Police all over the nation, so we were able to get 150-200 of these people together."
With the company's recent purchase of GTE Information Systems LLC, they are now able to tackle more high-end telecommunications and network out sourcing projects within the government market. Lombardi said he has already has identified nine such projects worth more than $100 million apiece that the combined company can pursue. Neither DynCorp nor the GTE unit could have bid them alone, he said. "With this purchase, we now have a very good capability in wireless communications and, in fact, we turned the floor of the New York Stock Exchange from a paper bound thing into a wireless transaction based system. Wireless communications is a big ticket item for us right now. We're developing solutions for that," qualified Lombardi, "we're not making phones or anything like that. We're not a hardware company, we don't sell any packaged software. We have solutions."
DynCorp closed the end of the calendar year at a net worth of $1.345 billion and with the purchase of the GTE's division they'll end 2000 somewhere around $1.8 billion.
While the purchase price has not been disclosed, DynCorp will pick up $235 million in revenue and 925 people by acquiring the Chantilly, Va.,-based GTE. Currently, DynCorp has just under $1.4 billion in revenue and 16,000 employees.
Previous Home Forward
Page B16 ---------- AEROTECH News and Review ---------- March 28th, 2000
[ AEROTECH Home Page and Previous Issues ]
