The Corps contract provides them with a steady volume of work from a customer that pays its bills on time, in a time when private development is lagging. And it certainly doesn’t hurt for the company to point to its Corps experience when bidding on other contracts in the public and private sectors. “We’re a small business doing really big work, which makes a difference in getting those other contracts, for sure,” says Russell. “We’re able to adapt very quickly to changing situations. With the federal government, they could call us tomorrow and need us to have three crews on a job over in Miami the next day. And I would have to react to that. That makes our company very adaptable to the private sector.”

Hyatt Survey Services has already begun preparing for future bids on government contracts, and staying involved in that realm helps to diversify the firm’s workload. “We’re one of a handful of companies in the state that do hydrographic surveying,” says Russell. “To do that work and be profitable, you have to do it for the federal government, because there’s not enough work on the private side to sustain that effort.”

Medical Education Technologies

Medical Education Technologies (METI) was founded in 1996 with just five employees. Today, it has grown to more than 200, and its products are used all over the world.

It has the U.S. Defense Department to thank for some of that growth. Since its inception, METI has garnered some $30 million in defense contracts, both orders for specific products and research and development funds. “We were a small business when we started out, and those contracts helped fund us to develop products that we could commercialize, and to get costs down so everyone could afford them,” says Catherine Strayhorn, METI’s director of government systems. “It’s a great process.”

METI has three active contracts with the Defense Department. The biggest, worth $5.8 million, is to supply Army medical training centers with its high-tech human patient simulators. “The Army is setting up 18 centers around the world to train medics and combat lifesavers,” says Strayhorn. “We’ve seen throughout history that medics and other military medical personnel trained using simulators are able to save a lot more lives.”

Under the second contract, worth $1.4 million, METI is researching and developing training tools to simulate the look, feel, smell and intensity of severe traumas. “We’re looking at developing wounds that you can put on simulators or even people to give people the initial shock needed,” says Strayhorn. “When you see the wound for the first time it’s in a nonthreatening environment, so when you do come face-to-face with it [in real life] you get past the shock and just treat the soldier and save a life.”

The firm’s final current contract is to develop curriculum and educational training packages for the Air Force Special Operations Command. And it will likely land another contract for its new wireless patient simulator, iStan. “That was developed under a U.S. Army requirement for a stand-alone patient simulator,” says Strayhorn. “We’re trying to make things more mobile so medics can train the way they fight. When a soldier is injured, he or she is moved out of harm’s way to a secure area and treated. But previously, simulators have been so tethered they couldn’t be moved.”

METI’s innovative thinking, cutting-edge products and past performance have certainly all been factors in its continued success in government contracting. “I think you have to prove yourself, and then these agencies will come back to you,” says Strayhorn.