Serco Group hires global maritime lead

Serco Group has hired nearly two-decade defense industry veteran Kai Skvarla as head of international maritime programs for all of the government services company’s divisions.

Skvarla will report directly to Chief Executive Rupert Soames and work directly with the geographic and division-level CEOs on maritime opportunities in their regions, Serco said Thursday.

Those regions include the Americas, which he will be based in out of the office in Herndon, Virginia. Skvarla intends to travel to Serco’s other regions on a regular basis.

More specific to the U.S., the company's Serco Inc. subsidiary has prioritized Navy programs as avenues for growth. That push included the acquisition two years ago of the now-former Alion Science and Technology naval engineering business.

Most recently, Skvarla was president of naval architecture firm BMT Designers & Planners and spent 11 years at that company altogether. BMT credits his six years of being president as coinciding with a 26-percent compound annual growth rate.

Prior to BMT, Skvarla was naval shipbuilding program manager for the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter program.