L-3 consolidates IT units

Although the last calendar year could hardly be described as a disaster for New York-based L-3 Communications Corp., the company appears happy to have shaken off the worst effects of the recession. Despite a hit to its bottom line, L-3 soldiered on with a solid performance in the last quarter of 2009 and first of 2010.

The company’s success earned it the No. 8 spot on the Top 100, with $4.2 billion in prime federal contracts.

The 2009 fourth-quarter results capped off "a very good year despite economic challenges and uncertainty about the U.S. defense budget,” said Michael Strianese, L-3 chairman, president and chief executive officer, responding in writing to Washington Technology inquiries. “We had key awards in every business segment: imagery and intelligence analysis work, communications for unmanned aerial vehicles, microwave products,…training, [and] helicopter maintenance services.”

Strianese said L-3’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance business is an important driver of L-3's growth, pointing to particularly strong performance from the company’s Stratis business unit.

In January, L-3 consolidated two divisions to create L-3 Stratis, bringing together its IT services in one organization. Les Rose is the president of the Stratis group. Some of the services it provides include managed IT services, business assurance and governance, mission and business applications, and infrastructure program management.

The new division is focused on defense, civilian, state, local and international customers.

In early March, Stratis received a three-year contract valued at $230.9 million to provide intelligence support services to U.S. and multinational forces in Iraq. The contract potentially extends to November 2012. L-3 will provide program management, counterintelligence support, intelligence analysis, intelligence planning and multimedia services at various forward operating bases and facilities throughout Iraq and in Tampa, Fla.

A second Stratis win, also announced in March, is nominally a one-year deal, valued at $24.8 million, to provide imagery analysis that supports the Special Operations Command. The cost-plus-fixed-fee contract includes an initial base year and four option years, with the scope of service extending to November 2014. The potential contract award value could amount to $155 million over five years if all options are exercised.

In late April, another notable win came from the Air Force Central Command. According to the fixed-price contract, L-3 will furnish cyber operators to manage, monitor and defend Air Force IT and network assets against malicious attack. The deal could potentially be worth $152 million over five years.

Other major Stratis customers include the Defense Information Systems Agency; NASA; the Labor, Justice, State, and Health and Human Services departments; and the Environmental Protection Agency.

It possesses spots on several contract vehicles, including Alliant, Millennia Lite, Mobis and the General Services Administration's Schedule 70. Stratis also holds a spot on DISA’s Encore II contract and the National Institutes of Health’s Chief Information Officers Solutions and Partners 2 contract.

In mid-April, L-3 completed the acquisition of the Londonderry, N.H., firm Insight Technology Inc. Terms were not disclosed. Insight develops and manufactures mission-critical night vision and electro-optical equipment. L-3 said the acquisition, renamed L-3 Insight Technology Inc., could add as much as $200 million to L-3’s 2010 sales.