Defense engineering services contractor Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. (SPA) said this week it has acquired the Operations Research and Analysis (ORCA) division of Metron, strengthening its work in systems engineering for the Navy and other national security clients and adding new customers.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
As part of SPA, ORCA will continue to be led by Jeff Monroe in San Diego. The division has grown from $7 million in sales over the past eight years to $30 million currently and has 100 employees, Monroe says on his LinkedIn profile. He also says ORCA is maintaining a 95 percent customer retention rate, has increased profits 33 percent “by moving to higher margin customers and contracts” and is integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning into its technologies.
William Vantine, SPA’s president and CEO, said in a statement that with ORCA “we will expand and further strengthen SPA’s leadership in model-based systems engineering, operations research, modeling and simulation, DevSecOps and wargaming.”
SPA is a portfolio company of Arlington Capital Partners.
“ORCA is a key component of SPA’s overall strategy to solidify its position as the elite technical advisory partner to the national security community,” David Wodlinger, managing partner at Arlington Capital, said in a statement.
Coni Ratonel and Matt Norton will remain as part of the management team at ORCA, which will be part of SPA’s Naval, Nuclear, and Critical Infrastructure sector led by retired Navy Vice Adm. Terry Benedict.
Monroe says that ORCA accounted for 43 percent of Metron’s annual sales. Metron, which is based in Northern Virginia, provides expertise in data analytics, autonomy, decision support and sensing systems to various Defense Department customers and federal contractors.
Metron said the sale of ORCA will allow it to accelerate its research and development work.
Metron’s financial adviser on the deal was Baird.