Naming a company after the one of the biggest dinosaurs might have seemed like a bold move back in 1999, but given the dinosaur-sized growth that Greenbelt, MD based T-Rex Solutions has seen it now seems completely apt. In the past three years the company has seen its revenues increase by more than 550%, along the way being recognized as a “fastest growing company” on the Inc. 5000 list, and the firm is now ranked number four government cloud vendor by Bloomberg.
Much of this growth has occurred since Seth Moore joined the firm in 2016 as chief financial officer. Just a year later he was promoted to chief operating officer, and this past April he became the company’s president and CEO.
“Seth is a great leader with vision, a deep understanding of our business and industry, and the confidence of our customers and stakeholders,” said Trevor Wilby, T-Rex solutions founder and the current chairman of the board, via a statement,
“He embodies our core values, leads by example, represents quality, integrity, and accountability in all that he does, and inspires others to do the same,” Wilby added. “I am confident that under Seth’s leadership, T-Rex will continue to solidify its place as a sustainable and competitive mid-tier IT-consulting firm.”
Culture of Innovation
The firm has established itself in the government contractor sector for its technical expertise in cloud adoption and infrastructure optimization, data engineering and analytics, systems integration and development, mission critical services and cybersecurity. T-Rex has designed, built, integrated and has operated some of the world’s largest mission critical systems for government clients to help leverage the power of big data while addressing complex IT modernization projects.
Moore is modest regarding his role in the company’s growth.
“We were experiencing a period of revenue growth that began even before I joined the company,” he told ClearanceJobs.
Moore explained that the business culture at T-Rex Solutions remains important in drawing in and keeping the best talent. This includes continuing education.
“We’re trying to create a culture where employees can continue their education and maintain the necessary skills so that they can stay on the cutting edge of technology,” Moore added. “The government sector is facing a talent crisis as a higher percentage of individuals are at the end of their careers and those who will replace them will have to get re-skilled. We see this danger, and understand that skill sets get stale if you don’t say up to date.”
One of the ways T-Rex Solutions is staying up-to-date is with a commitment to rapid growth, and company success that has led to workforce expansion. Moore noted that just three years ago it was a firm with 50 to 60 employees and revenue of $10 to $12 million. Now it has grown to more than 400 employees and exceeds $250 million in revenue. By maintaining a staff that is continually learning T-Rex has managed to stay on that cutting edge.
“We don’t have the ‘graying’ challenge that many firms are facing,” Moore added.
Using AI to Address IT Shortages
One issue that T-Rex Solutions has had to overcome even with its exponential growth has been the industry-wide shortage of skilled IT and specifically cybersecurity workers. To address this challenge T-Rex has increased the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
“There is a high demand for those with cybersecurity skills, and this is commercially as well as with government contractors,” explained Moore. “We’ve been trying to help overcome that at T-Rex and for our customers by automating as much as we can. This includes automating the scripting to whatever degree is possible, and this allows us to cut down the number of analysts that you’d need to have monitoring sensitive data.”
Automation has allowed T-Rex to provide those mission critical services even as there remains a backlog for security clearance applications.
“It is certainly a challenge that the industry is facing as a whole,” he noted. “The move from OPM to DoD will bear fruit and we’ve seen an improvement, with the two year backlog down to the 15 to 18 month range – but we need to do better. What we have created in the industry is an environment where people are in essence robbing Peter to pay Paul when it comes to pursuing talent. You have to have more than money today to entice those skilled workers.”
Another area where automation has been crucial, especially as the country continues to face cybersecurity threats such as the recent ransomware hack of Baltimore, the second the city has faced in just over a year. For those reasons, Moore told ClearanceJobs cyber should be seen as a critical part of our nation’s infrastructure.
“It is critical; it is the electrical grid, the federal environments where data is stored and this includes census, IRS and election data and it all needs to be protected,” he explained. “It is just as vulnerable to attack, so we need to stay one or two steps ahead of the potential bad actors because if we don’t it is going to have a serious impact and could have our nation’s secrets exposed.”
With this in mind, Moore said this is why it is crucial that T-Rex Solutions continues to stay innovative and offer the best services and solutions to its clients.
“We want to provide the opportunity to our clients to help influence the outcome,” said Moore. “Culturally we’re building a place where people will want to be a part of it.”
