CACI rides defense and intell work to double-digit growth

Continued emphases on national security, warfighter protection and adaptive solutions for 21st-century warfare have immunized CACI International Inc. against the ravages of the recession.

The company landed at No. 16 on the Top 100, with $1.9 billion in prime contracts for government work in fiscal 2009.

Other measures also point to a successful year for the company, based in Arlington, Va. For its fiscal 2009, which ended June 30, 2009, net income rose by a double-digit margin, to $95.5 million, up nearly 15 percent from $83.3 million in 2008. Its contracts backlog stood at $7.8 billion, 11 percent higher than in 2008. Some $3.5 billion in submitted proposals remained under evaluation, and more than 80 percent of those would bring new business.

"Our growth rate continues to be double-digit," said CACI Chief Executive Officer and President Paul Cofoni. "That's both the top and bottom lines. It always goes back to clients and requirements. The ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have played to our competencies."

One of the company's core competencies is C4ISR, short for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. CACI's C4ISR expertise is paying off, as the Defense Department intensifies its push for technologies that will give U.S. warfighters an advantage in an increasingly asymmetric and treacherous battle environment.

In March, CACI was awarded one of five prime contracts to support the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command's command and control operations. The multiple-award, five-year indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) task-order contract has a three-year base and two one-year option periods, and it could amount to as much as $588 million. The award calls for CACI to enhance the command's communications and networking systems to enable warfighters to gain rapid, thorough access to mission-critical information.

A related agreement, also announced in March, involves the Navy. According to the terms of the $219 million deal, the company will provide C4ISR and business IT software and maintenance services to Spawar Systems Center Atlantic. CACI will provide development and integration support of software systems — collectively referred to as the Naval Tactical Command Support System — that automate logistics, supply, financial, maintenance and medical functions for ships, submarines, aviation squadrons and intermediate maintenance activities, afloat and ashore.

"Our adversaries are persistent, dogmatic and well funded," Cofoni said. "This is a generational conflict we're in. C4ISR is the way of the future: protection and safety of the warfighter. C4ISR provides leverage."

Finesse in cybersecurity and anti-improvised explosive device technologies also has been a boon. In August 2009, CACI was one of five recipients of a $494 million IDIQ contract from the Joint IED Defeat Organization. The contract expands the company's existing business with the organization, which leads counter-IED efforts for DOD.

Going forward, Cofoni said, DOD and intelligence-related business likely will continue to account for about 75 percent of CACI's revenues, with 20 percent coming from civilian federal agencies. Five percent remains concentrated in the United Kingdom, in the public and private sectors there.