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Westar Aerospace & Defense Group—A Brief History
Westar Aerospace & Defense Group, Inc. is founded in
1986 in
Albuquerque by a small group of highly experienced engineers with prior
U.S. Army service. Initially, Westar serves the Army Aviation community
by providing test and evaluation, mission equipment and programmatic
support. During the late 1980’s, the company grows by adding engineering
and logistics capabilities to support Army aviation platform
modernization, propulsion systems, base and weapon’s range operations,
and logistic services.
In 1989, Westar establishes an Engineering Center in St. Louis to better
serve its Army Aviation customers. Robert (Rob) Topping, hired from
Boeing in 1989 as Westar’s sixth employee, will become its President and
CEO in October 2004.
From 1986 to 1996, Westar’s business thrives through its prime
contractor Program and Technical Services (PATS) work with Army
Aviation, and subcontracting work with major defense contractors,
earning high marks within the industry for its domain knowledge,
reliability and technical expertise.
In 1996, Westar hires the first employee for its Huntsville (Ala.)
Engineering Center and, three years later, relocates a significant
number of staff from its St. Louis Engineering Center to Huntsville to
better support the engineering operations of the Army Aviation and
Missile Command (AMCOM).
In the year 2000, Westar acquires COBRO Corp. of Earth City, Mo., whose
own history of supporting U.S. Army Aviation dates back to 1972. The
acquisition of COBRO expands Westar’s services portfolio and positions
it as a premier provider of high-end logistics information management
solutions and integrated logistics support services to the Army and
other military services. It adds more than 450 highly-qualified
logisticians, engineers, technicians and analysts to Westar’s existing
staff of 200 engineering professionals. The same year the company is
awarded an AMCOM Omnibus 2000 IDIQ services contract in the technical
domain.
Two years later, Westar acquires Great Pond Technologies, Inc., of
Brunswick, Maine. At the time, Great Pond consists of seven MIT
graduates whose mathematical models describe the way helicopters will
operate in any given flight environment. Their technology enables the
military to complete a mission flight plan with highly accurate data in
about 15 minutes—a task that used to take two hours. Westar incorporates
this technology into Mission Planning Performance solutions that are
currently being used by the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Aviation
Regiment (SOAR), the Australian Defense Forces, and other military
aviation units.
In 2003, Westar acquires ELMCO, adding to the company’s technology
portfolio an expertise in engineering services for missile and space
applications. A privately held company, ELMCO had grown rapidly by
designing battlefield and missile defense simulation programs used by
the Army Aviation and Missile Command. Garrett Martz, ELMCO’s President
& CEO, will become the President of Westar Aerospace & Defense Group,
Inc. in February 2007.
In 2004, Westar acquires PIMSOL (Program Information Management
Solutions) to facilitate large-scale automated program management
processes within the company and in major customer organizations. PIMSOL
later applies its system software solutions to the U.S. Army’s Aviation
Reset Program to help manage the logistics and maintenance of U.S. Army
combat helicopters. The application results in improved decision-making,
thousands of dollars per year in labor savings, and reduced helicopter
downtime.
That same year, a series of AMCOM Omnibus contracts are re-competed and
Westar wins an AMCOM EXPRESS Technical Domain contract. Other top
contracts contributing to Westar’s revenue that year include Family of
Systems Simulation (FOSSIM), Army ATC Field Exercise Data Collection (FEDC),
Aberdeen Test Center Data Support Services, Army Material Systems
Analysis Agency Field Exercise Data Collection (AMSAA FEDC), and Army
Aviation Technical Test Center (ATTC) Technical and Logistics contracts.
In October 2004, international defense and security technology company,
QinetiQ (pronounced “kinetic”), acquires Westar as part of a strategy to
gain a foothold in the growing U.S. defense and homeland security
markets. Today, Westar is a wholly owned subsidiary of QinetiQ North
America, along with sister companies Apogen Technologies, Analex Corp.,
Foster-Miller, ITS Corp., Ocean Systems Engineering, and Planning
Systems, Inc. QinetiQ, formerly the military research laboratories of
the UK Ministry of Defense, is now a publicly traded company on the
London Exchange.
In 2005, sales climb to $177 million, up from $140 million in 2004. That
same year: the Army Space and Missile Defense Command awards Westar a
contract to develop system engineering solutions that will expedite the
injection of Single Integrated Air Picture (SIAP) technologies into the
hands of U.S. and joint coalition warfighters; the U.S. Marine Corps
System Command awards Westar a Prime BPA Contract for engineering and
scientific support services; AMCOM awards Westar a large task order for
Battlefield Automated Systems Engineering support; the U.S. Army Combat
Readiness Center awards Westar a prime contract for safety engineering,
loss prevention, composite risk management, research analysis and IT
program support; the Army awards Westar a contract to provide an
automated logistics information system to the 160th SOAR; and AMCOM asks
Westar to head up the engineering, statistical analysis and database
architecture design services for the implementation of its Condition
Based Maintenance program. 2005 was a good year; the company breaks
ground on a new 80,000-square-foot facility in Huntsville’s Cummings
Research Park to accommodate its growing workforce.
Early in 2006, Westar acquires flight data visualization and simulation
expert SimAuthor, Inc., of Boulder, Colo. Later that year, the flight
visualization and analysis tools SimAuthor develops for the U.S. Navy’s
MFOQA demonstration program prove so effective in improving performance
and safety, the Navy takes them on a carrier deployment to Iraq where
they are currently being used to support combat operations.
Also in 2006, The U.S. Army asks Westar to provide: software engineering
and technical support to its Unmanned Aircraft Systems program;
technical support services to its RESET Program; airworthiness and
qualification engineering support to its Apache Helicopter Division;
test support services to it Aviation Technical Test Center at Ft.
Rucker; to name a few of the many services the company provides. Westar
also helps AMCOM achieve Defense Business Systems Management Committee
certification for its Conditioned Based Maintenance-Data Warehouse
program; and demonstrates the benefits of the Army’s MFOQA program
through a synthetic battalion laboratory it designs, develops and
operates for the Army.
Today, Westar is a leading Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance
(SETA) firm with more than 1200 professionals around the world
delivering high-value engineering, software solutions, logistics
information management, and defense IT technology services to the U.S.
Department of Defense, allied governments and select commercial
customers.
Westar’s Executive Management Team is led by Garrett Martz, who was
named President of Westar following Rob Topping’s appointment to
President & COO of QinetiQ North America in February 2007. Other members
of the team include: Randy Tieszen, Executive Vice President of
Operations; John Irby, Executive Vice President of Proposal Operations;
Jim Williford, Executive Vice President of Business Development; and
Bill Braddy, Senior Vice President of Business Performance Management.