New local center aimed at managing IT, engineer talent pool

Salient Federal Solutions has invested $200,000 building a “Talent Operations Center” in Colorado Springs, betting that the military commands and other installations in the area will offer abundant opportunities even as overall military spending likely declines during the next several years.

The Colorado Springs center, which was unveiled Wednesday, is one of three operated by Salient, a Fairfax, Va.-based provider of information technology, engineering and intelligence analysis services; the centers manage a database of 500,000 potential job candidates, allowing Salient to be nimble and quickly add staff when it wins contracts, said Brad Antle, Salient’s president and CEO.

“Even in this economy with high unemployment, the world of information technology that requires a high security clearance is a tight labor market and you have to be aggressive in finding the best people,” Antle said. “We contact people in advance of when we will need them so we can determine their expertise, capabilities and interests and then add them to our database when we have a fit. We reach out periodically to maintain the relationship so we can hire quickly. We want to be quicker and more responsive than our competitors.”

Antle is no stranger to Colorado Springs; he was CEO of SI International Inc., which grew its Colorado Springs operations from 60 to 300 employees and $60 million to $140 million in revenue between 2001 and 2008. Antle started Salient with $135 million in backing from four private equity investors nine months after leaving SI when it was acquired in 2008 by British government services contractor Serco Group.

The 3,800-square-foot Talent Operations Center at 985 Space Center Drive is staffed by 10 employees, mostly specialists who make about 65 calls a day to potential job candidates to determine if they are a good match to the contracts Salient is seeking.

“Our hope would be to double the size of this site during the next two years,” Antle said. “We will need to take work away from other people to make that happen. We believe there is good talent here and that it is easy to attract people here.”

Because of the role that the Air Force plays in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Antle said, Salient believes there will be plenty of opportunity here even as military spending is likely to decline amid growing pressure to reduce federal government budget deficits.

The Talent Operations Centers also monitor assignments and performance of workers. Colorado Springs center handles 180 employees working on Salient contracts in the Western U.S., including about 40 locally, with major operations in San Antonio, Arizona and the West Coast. The company hopes to add another 100 working through the local office this year, Antle said.

Much of Salient’s management team previously worked at SI. Salient is owned by Frontenac Co., insurance giant John Hancock, Neuberger Berman Group LLC and Thrivent Financial.

—

Contact Wayne Heilman: 636-0234 Twitter @wayneheilman

Facebook Wayne Heilman