Battelle is seeing rapid growth in cyber, especially with defense security concerns involving the Internet of Things (IoT) where many non-essential items, like refrigerators, are connecting to the internet and exchange information with each other.
Battelle President of Contract Research Stephen Kelly told Defense Daily Thursday while the company is seeing rapid growth in cyber and IoT, it is struggling to find prospective employees to address these issues since universities aren’t putting out graduates with these skills. Kelly said Battelle’s customer for its IoT and cyber work is the national security community.
Kelly said while other, larger, companies may be tackling cyber work like desktop or server security, Battelle is focusing on getting in front of the IoT issue, which Kelly called a “wicked problem.” Battelle, he said, had just finished its third or fourth iteration of a cyber-auto camp with SAE International, formerly known as the Society of Automobile Engineers.
Kelly also said Battelle recently mashed up an IoT cyber group with its medical device group because he said most medical devices have zero security. Health, according to Kelly, is one of Battelle’s four “verticals,” along with chembio, infrastructure environment and mission defense technologies.
While not as well-known as traditional, shareholder-driven contractors, Battelle has been in the defense contracting world for decades in a diverse variety of programs. Kelly said Battelle’s work is about 70 percent defense, 20 percent civil and 10 percent commercial. Though Kelly said chembio is Battelle’s single biggest business, the company this year won a contract from U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) worth more than $100 million to provide armored commercial vehicles for the Non-Standard Commercial Vehicle-2 (NSCV2) program (Defense Daily, Aug. 4). Battelle was the incumbent on the armored portion of the program.
Battelle is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, which Kelly said gives the company a little bit of leeway to pursue programs and contracts that might scare off public companies due to high overhead costs. He said this is because Battelle has its own facilities for labs, explosive test facilities, gun ranges, high hazard labs for chemical warfare.
Battelle is gearing up for the new Pentagon world of rapid prototyping and non-traditional contracting partners. Kelly said the company has hired a couple people to find partners through the Defense Department’s new technology effort called Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental (DIUx). Kelly said, at first, he wasn’t terribly interested in DIUx because seemed like a “matchmaking service” and Battelle prefers working with companies with money.
But Kelly feels Battelle can have a great relationship with DIUx and DoD moving forward. As the Pentagon has emphasized procurement innovation through its Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) and Third Offset initiative, Kelly believes Battle as the company’s portfolio matches this new era of Pentagon procurement.
“Rapid prototyping and prototyping experimentation, that sort of activity lies dead center in what we do,” Kelly said.