Executive Spotlight: Tom Anderson of Wyle

Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson leads Wyle’s Information Systems Group.  He spoke with ExecutiveBiz about cyber, OCI and his firm’s place in the business.

ExecutiveBiz:  Why did you join Wyle at this time?

Tom Anderson:  When I joined Wyle in March of this year, I found myself having enjoyed experiences in both large and small companies, and I felt it was the perfect time to put my industry knowledge to work in a mid-Tier company.  Wyle offered exactly that opportunity.   In my early discussions with the Wyle leadership, I was excited about the diversity that Wyle offered.  When I began to look more closely at the business possibilities, especially given the current market trends and business climate, I realized that the opportunity to grow and evolve the Information Systems business within Wyle was a really a good opportunity.  With three operating groups, I also saw an immediate opportunity to leverage capabilities across the groups.  Our company has strong leadership, led by CEO George Melton, who is well known and respected in the federal technology, science, and engineering markets.    I viewed it as a great opportunity to be able to work with him.  Thus far, it has proven to be exactly the great opportunity I thought it was going to be.

ExecutiveBiz:  How large is the business unit that you are responsible for?

Tom Anderson:  Wyle’s annual revenues are approximately $850M – the Information Systems Group currently is approximately one-fourth of that with 1,100 employees coast to coast.  Our company has been in business since 1949.  Like other companies in our business, Wyle has grown through acquisition.  The Information Systems Group, for example, has evolved from the acquisition of a graduated small business.  Most people don’t realize that Wyle is one of the 50 largest federal information technology (IT) prime contractors in our market.

Within the Wyle Information Systems Group, we provide mission-critical services to our customers in the federal civilian, defense, and intelligence communities.  Several of our key defense customers include the Air Force, DARPA, and the Office of Naval Research.   Several of our civilian customers include the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, and Treasury, as well as NASA.  Our group is dedicated to providing the highest quality service to our customers, demonstrated by organization-wide ISO certifications.  I am thrilled with the talent of our employees and their commitment to service excellence.

ExecutiveBiz:  Can you talk about your role and some of the decisions that you have made in the last ninety days?

Tom Anderson:  It has been an exciting time to say the very least.  I have full responsibility for the daily operations of the business plus the execution of evolving the business into the future; much of that starts with taking stock of what existed when I arrived.  I had an immediate opportunity to bring some new leadership into the company.  When I arrived here, there were a number of key leadership positions that needed to be filled so I was given the opportunity, inside those first ninety days, to fill four or five key leadership positions.  I’ve been very fortunate to have filled those positions with people who I consider to be some of the best in the business.   A good example is Mark Abel, who joined us to lead our business development organization.  He came to us most recently from ManTech International.  Rocky Thurston joined us to lead our efforts associated with the civilian agency business, previously from Lockheed Martin.  And Paul Thomas joined us from L-3 Communications and leads our efforts in the defense and intelligence business.  Those are three examples of some great leaders that we have brought onboard to compliment the leadership that was already in place.

Upon joining and hiring the new leaders, I restructured the business to position it to best serve our customers and allow for a transition to growth.  I observed that there was an opportunity to evolve a solutions consulting function in this organization.  I asked Rick White, a current Vice President, previously with the Gartner Group, to lead this new Solutions Division.  This division is a critical element of our business, as it is home to the innovation and growth areas of the business.  Soon after joining the company, we took a close look at the range of core capabilities available within the business, and worked closely with Rick’s team to align the existing capabilities into a new framework.  Our business capabilities are now branded as Enterprise Solutions, Business Solutions and Cyber Security Solutions.

We have also made some important changes in the business development arena.  I previously mentioned the recent hire of Mark Abel, the new vice president of Business Development.  He has quickly worked to align his organization to the business and has hired several key individuals.  As an example, Ron Treattau has joined the company to run the capture and proposal management organization.  Mark established a new GWAC organization and hired two industry veterans to lead this business, including Drew Steever and Mark Henderson.  Wyle has been very successful at winning many GWAC programs and with the addition of Mark and Drew, I am certain that we now have the talent to offer our many capabilities to the market through these vehicles.

One of the things that I did right away was to make sure that everybody understood that customer satisfaction is my number one priority.  I have made it a priority to get out and meet with our clients – I want to personally understand our client’s environments and issues.  That is one of the things that I felt we needed to do right away to ensure that we are successful in the transition to the new leadership team and to the future of our business.  Additionally, I would add that in addition to the organic growth there will be acquired growth and I’m very active in those areas today to find the right kinds of acquisitions that make sense for the evolution of this business.

ExecutiveBiz:  We talked about the fact that cyber is one of your key growth areas.  How do you look at the cyber landscape and how does Wyle play in that space?

Tom Anderson:  The cyber landscape presents a multi-dimensional challenge for the Federal Government, and protecting government information and ensuring the security and resiliency of IT networks is a national security priority. Wyle provides a robust set of capabilities in information assurance and computer network defense to both DoD and Civilian government customers.  DISA recently evaluated our cyber capabilities and reported that Wyle provides “outstanding computer network defense.” Today, Wyle fields over 300 Cybersecurity professionals across more than 20 Federal and DoD contracts, and more than half of our staff possess security clearances.  Many of our staff hold key cyber security certifications, and we provide industry leading security training to Federal employees at our Information Assurance Training Academy. Looking to the future, our Federal customers are not only challenged with maintaining a proactive posture toward internal and external threats, they are also playing a significant role in the adoption of emerging technologies and architectures like open government and cloud computing. Wyle’s Solutions Division is chartered to address the government’s toughest challenges with innovative solutions. Our team is working on solutions to improve cyber situational awareness, deploy innovative forensic analysis techniques, and enable organizations to achieve security while achieving compliance with cybersecurity standards and guidelines.

ExecutiveBiz:  Another hot issue out there is OCI so when you look at the acquisition landscape are there opportunities of other companies having challenges that you think would be an acquisition target?

Tom Anderson:  While I generally don’t comment on specific areas of acquisition, the issue of OCI is one that Wyle takes seriously.  That said, we certainly wouldn’t want to acquire a property that had an inherent OCI issue, so we look very carefully at this.  Our growth strategy includes a desire for acquired and organic growth, so its something to be carefully managed.

ExecutiveBiz:  What would you say your biggest challenge in business is today?

Tom Anderson:  Well, I think there are a number of them.  One of the first is getting brand recognition for Wyle.  While our company is well known in aerospace and life sciences, we need to expand the brand in the federal IT market.  Another challenge is getting out there and getting to know all of our clients and making sure that we understand their needs.  And as you might imagine, any time there is a leadership transition, there are lots of things to do to ensure that all of the employees and customers understand the change and what it means to them.    Moving forward from there, I think there are issues that are affecting the entire industry including procurement delays, protests, OCI issues and so forth.

ExecutiveBiz:  Why is the brand recognition important to you?

Tom Anderson:  Brand recognition is everything, provided that you deliver a quality of service to your clients that they will remember in a positive way.  I want the federal IT community to know Wyle as a trusted supplier of solutions and services as we already are in the aerospace and science/engineering communities.  We are well on our way to making that happen.

ExecutiveBiz:  What is the best business advice that you have ever received or something that you have learned over time that serves you well as you approach this opportunity?

Tom Anderson:  I believe in the concept of a trusted partner in business.  I believe in building relationships and always delivering to your client’s expectations and then some.  I also believe in keeping things simple and following your instincts – they are usually right.

ExecutiveBiz:  What is something that people would be surprised to learn about you?

Tom Anderson:  I have many interests and hobbies.   I think there are several that come toward the top of the list.   I love gardening and enjoy it when I have the time to be outside.  It is a great way to relax.  I also love wood working; I took four years of wood working shop at the high school level.  Another interest is the guitar.  I first started playing the guitar when I was in my early teens.  I’ve transitioned from the electrics to acoustic and enjoy playing when I can find time.   I also have two lovely children that are in their early to mid teenage years and they are my number one priority.  I love spending as much time with them as I can.

ExecutiveBiz:  Can you talk about your company’s move.  Your company is moving from one location to another if you could talk about that and what that means.

Tom Anderson:  The current headquarters location for the Information Systems group is localted in McLean, Virginia. Our lease expires soon and we’re going to relocate to the Tyson’s area in the January or February of 2011.     We started the process of looking for the new space not too long ago.  Our headquarters office is home to some of the senior management and many of the business support functions.   We plan to include a new solutions center at the new location.  It will showcase our innovative solutions, including classroom/training space for our  information assurance academy and other programs.  I think it will be very nice for our employees and very nice for our clients.  There are lots of changes taking place here and it’s all good.

ExecutiveBiz: Is there anything you would like to add?

Tom Anderson:  I’m really impressed with the range of capabilities the company has to offer.  The organization has performed work as a solutions integrator for many clients.  I look forward to building on this baseline and I think we have just the right team to make this happen.  I think that  you will see an increased level of participation of Wyle leadership in industry programs and associated sponsorships.  With respect to the federal IT community, we are becoming very actively engaged in organizations and sponsorship.  Part of the branding initiative is to get our name out in that way.  One of the interests that I personally have is to be able to address the local community by giving back through support of various service activities and events.  You will see more of that in the future.

Posted by Staff Writer on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010. Filed under Executive Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry