04 Jan Growing Mission-Focused Software and Technology Services in Huntsville
In recent years, national security agencies have put a much stronger focus on innovation and value private business partners who work proactively rather than reactively. Entrepreneurs partnering with these agencies are handsomely rewarded for innovating and being agile enough to change courses when trends point elsewhere. While many valuable companies do operate reactively, serving needs after they are expressed, All Points counts itself among those companies who grow toward the future by being an active partner with our customers, investing in innovative products and services, and staying always ahead of the curve. To accomplish that, we have consistently invested in ourselves since the company began in 1997. Our growing Huntsville presence—as well as our presence across the United States—is due to consistent investment in enterprise-wide technology and software capabilities throughout our company’s history.
Huntsville Roots
We are not newcomers to the Huntsville market. As a burgeoning logistics and tech services company headquartered on the Space Coast of Florida on Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, it made sense to establish a second base near Redstone Arsenal, because we recognized that opportunities for technology and software in complex aerospace and defense projects were as imminent with the DoD as they were with NASA. As a result, in 2004, All Points established a presence in Huntsville as a protégé of Boeing. Our work there began with software and technical support to the Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, which protects the nation from the ever-evolving threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
Since that time, mission-focused software and technology services have become even more critical across agencies. Recognizing this, All Points added Huntsville-based business development and technical staff to bolster our abilities in three key areas critical to federal customers with a Huntsville presence:
• Software Development: All Points is known for our success in planning, measuring, designing, and delivering consistent and predictable software solutions that reduce risk, increased quality, and control cost. Our processes are deployed within a flexible architecture that allows for tailoring, based on the program business scenario and goals, leveraging lessons learned from our experience with Agile methods to create a process framework that is both flexible and methodology-agnostic, allowing us to succeed in virtually any environment. We consistently demonstrate our overall commitment to planning, design, continuous improvement, and sound development process and practices. Further, our team has gained experience testing software and hardware “in the loop,” which demonstrates efficacy in model-based simulations during development.
• IT Services: As a highly capable IT services solutions provider, All Points offers proven IT acumen and agile proven management to ensure the highest quality, lowest risk products and services are provided at all times. Our broad base of IT capabilities includes computer hardware, software, and related services that include computer programming, IT security and IA services, data center facilities management, operations and maintenance, help desk and end user services, and testing. We also provide database management, configuration and change management, software and system integration, information retrieval, and IT training.
• Cybersecurity: All Points brings truly differentiated services in the area of cyber security. Given the rapid and significant advances and breakthroughs in cyber security as well as the uptick in both national and international threats, All Points has put a proactive emphasis on ensuring we provide the most efficient, powerful, and effective security related decision-making and data analytics capabilities to ensure our customers’ assets and networks achieve the highest level of security for their users and data. Ever-increasing challenges in cyber security compelled All Points to create a suite of tools, solutions, and truly differentiated services in cyber continuous monitoring and risk scoring and benchmarking currently in use by NASA and approved by the DoD. We maintain a commitment to bring real-time monitoring and response, hardware management, and custom software tools to defense clients who are facing new stringent DoD cybersecurity guidelines.
Huntsville Successes
• In 2016, All Points was awarded the $178 million NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) MITS II prime contract and became responsible for IT planning, policy, service integration and delivery; IT infrastructure and security services; and audio-visual information services for MSFC, as well as the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility.
• In 2017, we became one of only 70 small businesses to be awarded the GSA-designated Best in Class VETS 2 Government Wide Acquisition Contract. This GSA contract vehicle is the only GWAC for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB). VETS 2 entails a broad range of IT services that include new and emerging technologies. Our Huntsville office manages bids and processes related to VETS 2, convenient to many agencies that may take advantage of its $5 billion cap. VETS 2 is active until 2023.
• In 2019, we unveiled MARS Suite™, an NSA NIAP-tested and DoD JTIC approved cybersecurity information and event management tool developed with our Huntsville small business technology partner, Mission Multiplier. The MARS Suite™ software provides a comprehensive common operating picture of network vulnerabilities and threats, allowing network managers to quickly identify and move to respond to cyber-attacks. This product demonstrates our ability to translate knowledge and experience gleaned from NASA and defense work into opportunities for collaboration and innovation, specific to Huntsville.
As a result of our successes, All Points’ Huntsville staff has grown from 25 to over 250 employees. We outgrew our office space and expanded by 12,000 square feet in February 2020 and now occupy two floors of our Cummings Research Park facility, the second largest research park in the country and the fourth largest in the world.
The Future
What does the future look like for All Points in Huntsville? According to John Hall, Senior Vice President in charge of Capture Management and life-long resident of Huntsville, software development and integration will be crucial for projects on the horizon. “All of the growth in Huntsville—F.B.I., Space Force, MDA…the things for which companies are using advanced manufacturing, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)—all up the ante for more advanced software and technology management and open new cybersecurity concerns as well.” Hall added, “We are prepared for and excited to compete for involvement with MDA’s Next Generation Interceptor to upgrade the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system.” Hall notes that this is the kind of project the Huntsville team is enthusiastic to support, given that it combines DoD and space expertise (interceptors fly into space), offensive and defensive cybersecurity, software testing, and vast tech support.
“As a veteran-owned business, we are interested in making missions operable for warfighters and other agents of national progress—pilots, operators, space explorers, etc.” said Hall. “and here in Huntsville, we hope our track record continues to make that commitment to results clear to agencies and partners.”