Performance and partnership sustain growth

HCI Integrated Solutions Inc. began life as Hurricane Consulting Inc., in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1995, helping companies acquire spots on General Services Administration schedules and selling computer products, such as tape drives.

“The company made for any given year, until I took over in 2005, probably half a million,” said Armando Ygbuhay, HCI’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Then the first year I was with the company, we closed the books at roughly $2.2 [million].”

Ygbuhay said he was able to grow the service-disabled veteran-owned small business so quickly because as a retired Army veteran, he had the contracting expertise that the originals owners lacked.

Also, he moved the company to Northern Virginia in 2006 to be at the center of the government contracting world.

“We were able to close some 8(a) contracts initially,” he said. Those awards in 2006 came from military installations in Hawaii and Washington state.

The company, based in Arlington, Va., specializes in what Ygbuhay calls its three pillars: logistics operations and maintenance, training, and information technology services.

Those pillars of strength have propelled HCI to a five-year growth rate of 126.1 percent, to rank No. 15 on Washington Technology’s 2009 Fast 50.

The company recorded almost a threefold revenue increase in 2008, soaring from $5.52 million in 2007 to $14.14 million last year.

HCI has more than 230 employees at 22 sites in 14 states, from two employees at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, to more than 60 at Fort Riley, Kan.

Ygbuhay credits the growth to partnering with ManTech International Inc. on a task order from the Army’s Global Property Management Support Services contract and especially to its U.S. Army Field and Installation Readiness Support Team prime contract.

“That’s a $9 billion [indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract] with a base of five years, and we’ve seen a few contracts off that IDIQ,” he said.

The company’s focus in the past few years had been on winning Army and Marine Corps awards, Ygbuhay said.

“We’ve had some civilian contracts in the past with the Securities and Exchange Commission," he said. "In fact, we’re one of the folks that won DHS PACTS recently."

HCI was one of 35 service-disabled veteran-owned companies to be named to the $1.5 billion small-business set-aside Program Management, Administrative, Clerical and Technical Services contract for professional services.

To withstand the vagaries of the market, he advises executives to create performance-oriented companies and focus on value-driven partnerships with other contractors and government agencies.

“We stay true to what we understand and what we know,” Ygbuhay said. “The things that we do know, we capitalize on it, and things we don’t know, we tend to go out and get the resources necessary to figure that out.”