Government contracting firm Belcan has grown in part by acquiring smaller businesses. That requires a culture shift, as those teams adapt from small business set aside work to full and open competition.
We talked with Belcan President of Government Solutions Wayne Lucernoni about what it takes to navigate that transition and his strategies for growing Belcan’s presence in the GovCon marketplace.
Can you tell us about the experience of transitioning from SBSA to F&O?
At Belcan, our commercial mindset allows us to move very quickly. The Government Solutions team includes leaders from both large and small businesses, with decades of SBA and Agency mentor-protégé expertise.
We are successfully leveraging our larger and more complex programs to increase our technologically-differentiated offerings and expanding our investments into new customers with similar mission command, C5ISR and data analyst/science requirements. Our unique ability to capitalize on the deep engineering expertise in MBSE, digital twins and our combined DevSecOps from across Belcan allows us to compete effectively with much larger competitors.
Belcan is largely a commercial, heavy-engineering firm ⏤ less well-known in the GovCon industry. How do you elevate brand awareness?
Where the pure engineering mainstay of Belcan is largely supporting defense and commercial platform primes ⏤ built around propulsion, structures, testing, supply chain and modeling expertise ⏤ those prime contractors are very well-known aerospace, defense and automotive brands. This past performance has already helped us secure two wins, and we are working on several others.
In addition, because Belcan is commercially focused, we are rapidly growing our OTA efforts as a non-traditional prime or partner.
Within the Government Solutions group, we simplified our message by fully integrating the previous acquisitions and entities, and we go to market as a single Belcan business.
How do you address the competitive market for talent?
Recruiting and retention, with both persistent inflation and a potential recession as a backdrop, continue to be an area of focus as our customers evaluate how they will operate post-pandemic.
Government PMs have the same dilemma as industry: Do we ever go back to full time onsite or in the office? At Belcan, we embrace change, and are working with our customers to leverage the benefits of talent, labor cost and distributed development that enabled their success over the last few years.
COVID proved that remote and hybrid work environments can be successful long term. Where our customers can support this model, we embrace the flexibility and balance that hybrid and fully remote work allow our employees.
We are proud of the people-first culture at Belcan. In a recent employee feedback session, our employees shared that they appreciate the fact that they have a voice here and feel empowered to influence change.
Our employees also value the opportunities they are afforded to contribute in meaningful ways because we instill confidence that we work as a team, act with urgency and make every effort to exceed customer expectations.
Where are you investing and why?
Our foremost investment remains in our employees and their technical and career development, with corresponding education and certifications.
As we integrated the business, we also focused on best-in-class solutions and talent that can move across customers, providing career opportunity for our team while broadening Belcan’s brand as an agile, C3 and DevSecOps partner.
We also made significant investments in technology and software prototyping capabilities and environments for key customers, and their response has been incredible.
Can you give a practical example?
One investment I can highlight is our support to the nation’s nuclear C3 modernization. We’re members of the Nebraska Defense Research Corp., a consortium supporting STRATCOM and led by the University of Nebraska. In our new NC3-dedicated digital innovation facility, we will deliver and demonstrate the successful prototype from our first award this month.
We are partnered with the university, sponsoring a highly technical Ph.D. project that aligns with the NDRC mission, and look forward to expanding our relationships within the entire Omaha ecosystem.
It will be exciting to observe the progress on this and other investments in another year or so, as right now they are very distinct and innovative offerings. Suffice it to say that our conversion from a staffing-type profile to a key solution innovator is well underway and accelerating.
What makes this work interesting and meaningful to you?
No surprise ⏤ it’s definitely the people we have the pleasure of working with and the amazing and critical missions and outcomes we have the privilege of supporting for our customers.
Belcan has outstanding leadership at the corporate level. They enable and encourage cross-business growth and collaboration between the government, engineering, and software and digital solutions business units ⏤ which allows my team to deliver much greater depth and breadth to our customers, while operating in a fast-paced and entrepreneurial mindset.