Tuesday, August 24, 2004

By MARIAN ACCARDI
Times Business Writer accardi@htimes.com

The first friend A.R. "Rey" Almodovar made in the United States after moving from his native Puerto Rico was the man sitting next to him as the two were being processed for Army civilian jobs.

Twenty years later, Almodovar and Hal Brewer are still friends. And, for the past five years, they've been partners in a thriving engineering and technical-services company that supports the Department of Defense and the aerospace industry.

Their company, Intuitive Research and Technology Corp., is ranked No. 2 in this year's Hispanic Business magazine's "Fastest-Growing 100" list of Hispanic-owned companies in the country. The firm, which the pair founded in 1999, is also No. 411 in the same magazine's "2004 Hispanic Business 500," an annual list of the 500 largest Hispanic-owned U.S. firms.

"It's been a banner year," said Almodovar, the company's president and chief executive officer. The company's sales at the end of 2003 reached $7.8 million, and sales from 1999 to 2003 grew more than 22,000 percent.

The company, incorporated in Grand Prairie, Texas, has its home office in Huntsville, and most of its 60 employees are based at offices in the Progress Center and at Redstone Arsenal.

Almodovar and Brewer expect even more growth, projecting a staff of more than 70 employees by the end of the year.

The men had both enjoyed successful careers in engineering and program management. Almodovar was a civilian engineer with the Army for 14 years, and Brewer had 15 years of Civil Service experience.

But right after the last Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC, process in 1995, the two realized there would be lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs in the commercial world.

"We saw a lot of government outsourcing of work, but there were no guarantees," Almodovar said.

"We just started knocking on doors" looking for work, Brewer added.

They used part of the money from Brewer's voluntary separation package to start Intuitive Research. Almodovar was the only employee from June 1999 to February 2000. He did give himself a paycheck, but took a $10,000 cut in his salary at first.

Brewer worked at SAIC for about a year before joining Almodovar. "I won't say it looked great from the get-go," he said.

"Trying to become a government contractor takes a lot of work," Brewer said. "You can go to small-business offices (in government agencies), and they can advise you, but it's a lot of work. While you're doing the technical work, you're trying to establish yourself."

Eventually, Intuitive Research became part of an Omnibus 2000 team. That program, nicknamed O2K, became the primary mechanism used to contract support services for the Army Aviation and Missile Command. O2K contracts were bundled and awarded to teams of contractors.

The hard work and sacrifice has paid off, said Almodovar. "This has been the most rewarding risk I've ever taken."