Frank Sturek, president of SkyePoint Decisions, recently spoke with ExecutiveBiz regarding the company’s recent growth initiatives and how recent partnerships in the federal marketplace as well as everything SkyePoint is doing to perform with strong business ethics and give back to the greater community during the latest Executive Spotlight interview.
“SkyePoint is a growing IT Services business, and we want to continue to find different ways to make an impact for our current customers and deliver similar success with new customers in the federal government marketplace.
We’ve been able to put together cutting edge and interesting solutions to win contract awards and then deliver excellence. Additionally, we strive to create a positive work environment for our workforce. SkyePoint’s success and ability to grow starts with our workforce, they are our Intellectual Capital!”
You can read the full interview with Frank Sturek below:
ExecutiveBiz: What can you tell us about the company’s recent growth initiatives and how you’re driving value for your customers through contract awards, acquisitions and other aspects across the federal sector?
“Since our first Executive Spotlight last year, SkyePoint has grown significantly. We won a couple of prime contracts in the past year, including a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) and a Task Order supporting the Department of Education (DoED), supporting the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA).
The scope of our Task Order at FSA includes Cybersecurity Governance Risk and Compliance, specifically Security Assessments, Audits, Development, and Penetration Testing.
We also won a Pilot project contract award supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Pilot Proof of Concept implements an artificial intelligence and machine learning advanced threat detection and response solution to further harden the ICE network and Cloud environment.
The DoED contract was a game changer for SkyePoint because we added 50+ full-time billing staff. Prior to the award, we only had around 100 full-time billing staff. Now, our billing staff is well over 160 people, which is a big change for SkyePoint.
Our growth is a direct result of SkyePoint building capabilities in cybersecurity and application development, creating compelling solutions, and responding with compelling and compliant proposals.
The GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Highly Adaptable Cybersecurity Services (HACS) SIN and our CIO SP3 Small Business prime contract vehicles were both critical mechanisms that we leveraged very successfully to fuel our recent success.”
ExecutiveBiz: How have recent partnerships been able to assist SkyePoint expand its position in the federal marketplace, drive innovation and new capabilities and ultimately help complete your company’s mission?
“At SkyePoint, we worked really hard to understand the IT Services challenge, specifically cybersecurity, and develop relationships with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) technical leadership based upon the needs they communicated through industry outreach and market research.
From the start, they were interested in the capabilities that we developed with our technology partner TIBCO Software, a $2.5 billion commercial software company. We partnered with their Federal business unit based upon the capabilities of their commercial software and successful use cases we learned about through research and engagement.
TIBCO is and has been the Data Management platform for FedEX for years. They have scale and unique emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced data virtualization capabilities that we leveraged to develop an advanced cybersecurity threat detection and response solution for ICE.
We worked with TIBCO to develop a solution that finds the unknown threats to networks and systems, and then through one platform enables the security operations analysts, incident response engineers, and threat intelligence experts to collaborate and quickly respond to emerging cyber threats.
SkyePoint worked with TIBCO to build an unsupervised AI model to ‘learn’ what ‘normal’ looks like on customer networks, and then that same capability, once ’trained’, through the use of machine learning will pick up the abnormalities and label them as potential problems or threats to address and remediate. We call this capability, Threat Predict.
SkyePoint staff delivers the domain (cybersecurity) expertise, mission experience, and certifications on the use of the TIBCO platform and software. This combination of cutting-edge technology, coupled with expert cybersecurity subject matter expert services staff delivers a true turn-key advanced Cyber Threat Detection, Incident Response, and Threat Intelligence capability to any customer.
It’s a winning concept and it created an opportunity for SkyePoint and TIBCO to grow at ICE, and potentially other Federal Agencies in the future.”
ExecutiveBiz: What are the core values that are important to your company’s culture? How has your team at Skyepoint developed its workflow and ability to drive success in such a competitive market?
“Very recently, we had Eric Shaw and Jason Weaver promoted from within SkyePoint to Chief Growth Officer and Chief Technology Officer, respectively. Those are both critical positions in our internal leadership team. This speaks volumes about our workforce quality and their ability to grow professionally.
We provide opportunities for personal and professional growth to all SkyePoint employees, and their promotions are proof positive that SkyePoint actively works to promote from within our workforce, which is an attractive aspect of our culture.
At SkyePoint, we support the professional and personal growth of our people. We always offer a way to grow in technical skills or in management. There are real possibilities for the growth of our people here, and we strongly believe the opportunity and support for the professional growth of our current staff builds trust with both our customers and our employees.
We are building a culture of trust that attracts the type of talent it takes to succeed in the government contracting IT services market. We believe if we can attract the right people, provide opportunities for personal and professional growth, and resource them with the tools and support to effectively do their jobs they will deliver excellence.
We also provide feedback to the SkyePoint staff, and we strive to find ways to reward great performance. Feedback, engagement, and performance measurement builds trust, and it’s absolutely critical to delivering excellence to our customers. Everything we do at SkyePoint is about delivery excellence.”
ExecutiveBiz: An important part of a company having strong business ethics in the federal sector is about helping and giving back to the greater community. Can you speak to the various charities and work with other organizations that your company does to make a difference and how people can get involved?
“Our Founder and Chairman at SkyePoint, Bo Kimbrough, believes investment in the local and veteran community through a number of different charities is an obligation and supports a key SkyePoint value, Living in Gratitude by giving back. Living in Gratitude resonates with our staff, customers and stakeholders.
We’re laser focused on veterans’ issues as well as the areas of food and water security, and children’s health. SkyePoint participated recently in a number of programs such as Food for Others meal packing, building playgrounds for kids who have cancer through the Roc Solid Foundation, and through donations to the US Army 4th Infantry Regiment Association’s memorial fund.
The Memorial honored the history of the unit and the sacrifices of the Soldiers who served in the Regiment throughout our Nation’s history, and specifically the last 20 years of conflict. It was recently erected and dedicated on the grounds of the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning, Georgia.
These all are efforts and initiatives that positively impact people’s lives and our greater community, and that’s what resonates with SkyePoint employees, leadership, and stakeholders. We look forward to continuing to live our value of Living in Gratitude by Giving Back as we move forward in our growth journey as a company!”