Jerry Hogge has seen firsthand how digital transformation, machine learning and artificial intelligence can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of federal agencies.
“At CALIBRE, we focus on our core capabilities in IT Modernization & Digital Transformation, Training & Education, Finance Logistics & Cost Management, Facility & Land Management mission areas,” he said. “Fundamental to our growth strategy is business expansion across each of these areas achieved by augmenting our legacy core capabilities with automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data analytics to further assist CALIBRE’s clients to become more efficient and effective.”
Hogge is the chief operations and growth officer at CALIBRE Systems. He leads a team that tackles current mission challenges and develops solutions for agency clients to shift to future solutions.
“Agencies operate under tight budget constraints with increasing performance requirements,” he said. “They are naturally driven to seek innovative solutions. Agencies are looking for ways to apply higher-level analytics and machine learning to automate processes, to understand the ever-increasing volume of data that’s coming at them, and to quickly and effectively turn that data into actionable information.”
To that end, CALIBRE uses its expertise in various areas. These include training and education; enterprise information management; finance; logistics; cost management; facilities and land management; and the application of DevSecOps development methodologies, machine learning, data analytics and modeling to accelerate the delivery of solutions to key mission challenges.
CALIBRE’S defense business, for example, provides logistics support work, supporting the military worldwide.
“As you can imagine, collecting, ingesting, curating, and creating actionable information from substantial quantities of data is essential to effective logistic support and ultimately to ensuring Force readiness,” Hogge said. “Infusing our delivery model with machine learning, data analytics, and predictive analysis increase efficiency and effectiveness for our clients.”
A key focus for the company has been Army training, which has retained baseline essential training elements while becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex over time just as warfighting has done.
“Much of this training is delivered in traditional methods, in typical schoolhouse format,” Hogge said. “But just as we all adapted to ‘distance working’ because of the pandemic, so too has the Army adapted many of its training methods and delivery means to new modalities and has applied data analytics and other tools to further enhance content development, delivery and the overall learning experience.”
CALIBRE also has expertise in complex financial modeling and planning.
“When the DOD acquires, fields, and sustains a new weapon system or capability, there is an elaborate financial modeling activity that is required to define the investment and operating and maintenance costs associated with the system or capability, and CALIBRE has deep domain and subject matter expertise in this area,” Hogge said.
In terms of growth strategy, IT modernization, digital transformation and cloud migration represent not only one the largest market segments, but also one of the fastest growing. Collectively, they are a key strategic growth area for CALIBRE.
“We see tremendous demand in data analytics, machine learning, and AI technologies and techniques,” Hogge said. “Use of these methodologies is essential to remaining competitive, to attainment of agency mission objectives, and to remaining agile in response to changing mission objectives and operating environments.”
At CALIBRE, “we believe that our success follows that of our clients, and in order for us to help make our clients successful, we must recruit and retain the very best people,” Hogge said.
The company hires individuals who have both subject matter expertise and direct experience dealing with specific challenges in clients’ operating domains, he added.
“No matter which branch of the military or Federal agency, there is important competitive value in hiring people who have lived that particular mission; people who have lived in the very shoes of those we seek to support,” Hogge said.
At the same time, Hogge recognizes that finding and keeping employees and being cost competitive are major challenges not only for CALIBRE but for every GovCon company in today’s market.
“COVID and remote work made these challenges even more pronounced for all government contractors as geographic work location became an independent variable, allowing companies not just around the beltway to compete for the best people, but companies across the nation and the world,” he said.
Given the increasingly competitive hiring landscape, Hogge noted, CALIBRE’s employee-ownership model gives the firm an important advantage.
“We are an employee-owned company by way of an employee stock ownership plan [ESOP],” he said. “That means the people that we hire not only get to work in a highly professional environment, where everyone is dedicated to our clients’ mission objectives, but they earn the opportunity to build an ownership stake in the company.”
The employee-ownership model is an important element of the company’s success. People who think and act like owners, Hogge said, tend to make better decisions in how the company delivers best value for clients, and in how it operates effectively and efficiently. At CALIBRE, employees can contribute to the growth and profitability of the company, and through the ESOP, that value is returned to them.
“Each year CALIBRE makes an ESOP contribution to our employee-owners ESOP accounts based upon the performance of the company,” Hogge said. “This provides natural alignment between value creation and long-term wealth creation for our employee-owners. This philosophy and business model drive a higher level of performance, and motivates clarity of decision-making, appropriate risk-taking, and ultimately enhances the value of the business.”
As a 35-year veteran of the federal space, Hogge said he finds personal motivation in the CALIBRE mission and from working with such an incredible team of professionals.
“The things that make my professional life most rewarding and meaningful are performing work that is profoundly important to our great nation, working with dedicated and smart people who are committed to mission fulfillment no matter the challenges, and ultimately delivering differentiated value that makes a positive difference in mission outcomes,” he said.