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okay the name of the company is kinetic
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north america
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uh it's spelled with a
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q at the beginning capital q at the
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beginning and a capital q at the end and
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it's a to me an interesting story there
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the uh if you're a james bond follower
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and we call q and james bond the
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inventor of all the gadgets if he were a
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real person
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he would have worked for what is now
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kinetic in the uk
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uh so that was part of the british
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government they privatized it went
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public generated a lot of cash and began
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buying companies in the u.s
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so since 2005
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there's been a kinetic north america
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there have been 15 acquisitions that put
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the company together and we've grown to
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be about a billion and a half dollar
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company since 2004.
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we do engineering nasa is one of our
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biggest customers we really do have
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rocket scientists working for us uh we
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develop software do systems integration
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a lot of security work a lot of
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intelligence work
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and we have a group that does products
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and
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they're survivability oriented products
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robots that will go after unexploded
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ordnance and and
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you blow up a robot but you don't blow
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up one of our soldiers
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we put protective mesh over tanks and
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military vehicles to help them against
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rpg threats
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and
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a lot of the things that we do are
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associated with protecting our customers
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most valuable resources
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i'm the president of the company
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president chief operating officer
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oh i i definitely think there will be
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more acquisitions that take place and
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and and certainly consolidation uh then
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there are a lot of financially oriented
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people at the conference here today i
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think part of that is to you know see
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what's going on and hear what the
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environment is but
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there is money available
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venture funds that view the government
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and defense especially within the
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government market as a great place to
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buy companies
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i think there are bargains to be had now
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because people are worried about the
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defense budget's going down it runs in
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cycles so now is the time where you know
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people who have a long-term view are
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willing to make acquisitions buy those
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companies build up
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buy good companies because when you get
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into the lean times the good companies
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survive the bad companies fall by the
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wayside so if you can take advantage of
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an environment where
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uh you're able to acquire companies that
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are good companies build it up it's a
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good time to buy and when times are are
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better then you'll find that
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you have a big strong
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large company that really is doing well
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in the government contracting business
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we we tend to do business primarily in
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the defense and intelligence arena um
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and and and i guess our our
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definition of that is uh expansive in
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that
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nasa is one of our biggest customers and
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the department of homeland security is
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one of our biggest customers so in a
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sense we view that as part of the the
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overall national security arena
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and then the rest of our customers are
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actually department of defense and
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intelligence community that's where we
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will focus
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uh we tend to be more of a high-tech
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company
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so we stay away from commodity type
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areas
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we do work that is solid you know rocket
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science type engineering supporting
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launches for for nasa for example
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and
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and software and
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research and development type things
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with customers like darpa for example
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and those things will support our
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product development so in terms of what
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we would look for you know things that
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would would
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probably bring us into
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customer areas where we're not doing
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similar technologies so it's going to be
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closely aligned in defense intelligence
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or something that is research oriented
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that would help our you know eventual
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product sales
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a lot of the work that we do for
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customers
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uh
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starts out with
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you know conceptual type studies
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building toward you know architectures
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and then eventually toward prototype
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development and actual systems
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and and some of the work that we're
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starting
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in the early stages
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um
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is is work that that that i would call
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strategic agility for customers now for
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example we have a new contract where
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we're going to look at
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architectures communications
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architectures in space
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and one of the problems with space is
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once you launch a satellite there's not
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a whole i mean you can't send out the
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the maytag repairman to fix the
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satellite
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so what we're developing is a very agile
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architecture
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with space assets that
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really requires you to do a lot of
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thinking ahead of time to pre
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preposition assets
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we're doing undersea things similar so
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that you know the the thought is you can
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pre-position assets underwater so if
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something happens you know you know
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where the assets are so
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to to me
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uh
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strategic agility is uh another way of
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saying you're making your own luck doing
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things that you do ahead of time to be
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smart in the future
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where where you have good fortune and
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and you know a lot of that is what we do
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we've been then in terms of our own
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business
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uh as we look at acquisitions and growth
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areas that the key thing to do is
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not
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make sure it's not a fad the place where
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everybody is going toward but looking at
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what what is the next step
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and then what we've been able to do
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successfully is you know whereas a lot
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of government
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contracts will really focus on a
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solution that takes a long long time and
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when it gets to the field it's perfect
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where we've seen strength is proposing
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an 80 solution but that gets there
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quickly so that you know we're saving
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lives
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very quickly
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as opposed to waiting for a product to
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come around that
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might be the 100 solution but never gets
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there so we feel quickly and get there
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pretty dumb most of the way
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and actually this was through an
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acquisition that we made about a year
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and a half ago a company that
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has has a products and software as a
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service that is more offensive than
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defensive you know our view is is you
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can build all the firewalls in the world
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and then somebody's going to defeat it
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you build a stronger one and you get
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caught up in that
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um what what we have done is uh
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taken the this companies and services
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and it's really a proactive go after the
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bad guys approach and we surrounded it
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with other products that
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give a whole suite of protective devices
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so you know our our web crawlers go out
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find where bad guys are
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gather information build a database we
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collect information in the database and
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uh
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basically catch the threat before it
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gets to us
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and we
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work with our set of customers and then
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the set of customers identifies a threat
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profile so if you know if if uh you know
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iran's nuclear
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department
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uh we're one of the customers and we'd
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sort of look at you know who could be
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the possible threats and then look into
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what's called the dark internet to
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find where those threats are um and
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in in essence
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it's the internet you don't see
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um you know for example if um
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i'm not sure what wharton's website is
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but i assume it's
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www.wharton.edu
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so
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the the open internet is where people
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want you to look at their website and
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understand immediately what it is
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the dark internet and people have
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websites like www.123789426
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that whatever
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so you know it's a little bit fishy if
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you really want to be anonymous on the
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internet so there's there's a whole
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world out there that's like that and uh
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that's where a lot of the bad guys are
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lurking
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well i i tell you the the the cyber
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company that we just talked about is a
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good example
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um
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we we recognized i i think early on the
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role that cyber could play
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and it
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is especially complementary with
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customers that we have who are more you
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know defense and intelligence community
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type customers so we we looked at
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a set of companies where we could we
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could put together a cyber portfolio
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and in in doing that
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you know acquisition targets came up so
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there we
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started two-pronged approach one is
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build a portfolio through teaming
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partners or strategic uh partnerships
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but also with an eye toward you know
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picking the pearl out and seeing if we
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could acquire that and having that
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company for ourselves so we're actively
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looking at that type of company
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you
