2007 Small Business Report | Diverse talents

When the Air Force wanted to build and maintain an underground hospital in Korea, it turned to Eagle Group International LLC.The small business in Atlanta developed a plan that used existing facilities to build a hospital that could survive conventional and unconventional attacks. Eagle Group's medical logistics division studied patient throughput and capacity and evaluated what would be needed to sustain the facility until it could be resupplied.The company, which ranks No. 13 on the 2007 Top 25 8(a) list, also developed floor plans and facility modifications and identified staffing requirements.Eagle Group's work is one example of the breadth of services that companies on this year's list possess. Those companies provide information technology reselling services and tackle sophisticated outsourcing projects. They provide facility management services and assist in scientific and technical research projects.The annual list is developed through an analysis of government procurement data by market research firm Federal Sources Inc. The data is analyzed according to 625 product service codes that agencies assign to expenditures of more than $25,000.Washington Technology picked the codes that best represent spending on systems integration, professional services, IT, telecommunications and engineering services. We tried to use codes that capture the range of high-tech services that government agencies are buying.As has been the trend of the past several years, the Top 25 8(a) list has been dominated by companies owned by American Indian tribes and Alaska Native Corporations. Fourteen of the 25 companies on the list fall into this category, 10 did last year.The No. 1 company this year is Nana Regional Corporation Inc., an ANC based in Anchorage. The corporation owns several government contracting companies, including TKC Communications LLC and TCK Integration LLC, which together were ranked No. 3 on the 2006 list. Nana pulled in about $352.4 million in prime contracting revenue.Of the seven newcomers to the list, only two are not owned by tribes or an ANC. BlueTech Inc., of San Diego, is an IT servces company with several major task-order contracts, such as Navy Seaport Enhanced and General Services Administration Streamlined Technology Acquisition Resources for Services. The other company, I.M. Systems Group Inc., of Rockville, Md., provides IT services, software engineering, and scientific support and solutions.In evaluating company revenues, Washington Technology used the company's total prime contracting revenue for fiscal 2006, not its 8(a) revenue, to establish the rankings. Our reasoning is that total revenue was a better indicator of the most successful companies. But we did set a requirement that companies have at least $1 million in 8(a) revenue. We decided that if a company had less than $1 million in 8(a) revenue then it was not fully participating in the program.