Model small business now on a larger team

ManTech acquires award-winning SRS Huntsville division

SRS Technologies Systems Solutions Division of Hunts-ville has received a Tibbetts Award for being a model small business. It won't be eligible for that honor again, though, because SRS was acquired May 7 by ManTech International Corp.

"We see it as a good thing," said retired Maj. Gen. Joseph L. Bergantz, corporate vice president and general manager of the Huntsville division. The SRS customer base "marries well with ManTech," he said. SRS Technologies is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Fairfax, Va., company.

ManTech financed the acquisition with cash available and $170 million in borrowings from its new senior secured $300 million credit facility, according to a company press release.

Tibbetts awards are given each year "to small firms, projects, organizations, and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in SBIR (Small Business and Innovative Research) achievement," according to the Small Business Administration.

SRS Technologies began in 1970 on the West Coast, Bergantz said. In 1979, SRS opened its Systems Solutions Division in Huntsville.

Before being acquired by ManTech, SRS employed 850 people nationally, Bergantz said. About 110 people work in Huntsville.

"We've been growing year by year. ɠThe last couple of years we've been doing well," Bergantz said.

ManTech employs 6,000, has offices in 140 countries with revenues of about $1.3 billion in 2006, said Bergantz, who joined the Huntsville division in 2004 shortly after retiring from his job as Program Executive Officer for Aviation at Redstone Arsenal.

The Huntsville division is about 90 percent government work, Bergantz said, much of it defense-related.

On the non-military side, the division is involved in the development of the sun shield for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The JWST, scheduled for launch in 2013, will has a goal of finding the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.

Another project of the Huntsville division is a lightweight, ground-based, broadband antenna that can communicate with satellites. The antenna is encased in a bubble made of sailcloth, and it can be set up almost anywhere. It's useful to the military but could also be helpful in civilian applications - such as the disaster situations surrounding Hurricane Katrina.