Brian Loggins joined Reinventing Geospatial, Inc. in 2019 and headed up business development until his recent promotion to president. He has a broader set of responsibilities now, but the mission remains essentially the same.
RGi is helping government make sense of what can sometimes seem like an overwhelming volume of geospatial information.
“Whether it’s military or intelligence, or even federal civilian, the abundance of data is the number one challenge,” he said. “The industry has a massive number of commercial satellites, from small to big, and as well as drones and a lot of other means for collecting data.”
That’s all to the good ⏤ more data means more insights. But it takes extensive human effort to analyze that data and put it to work in support of government mission sets. Agency analysts are stretched thin, “and Congress isn’t giving them bigger budgets to hire more people to do more analyst work. So that leaves a big gap,” Loggins said.
That’s where RGi comes in. With automation, supported by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the company offers solutions to ease that workload.
“Sometimes, computers can do it faster than a human, helping the human to make that intelligence call and really solve the problem,” he said.
While other GovCons are tackling the same problem set, “what makes us different is the quality of our work, the quality of our people,” Loggins said.
“I know a lot of companies can say that, but the difference with us is we’re very deliberate and focused on hiring the best, most innovative-type people, and then only going after the really innovative, complex kinds of work,” he said.
Rather than pursue commodity type work like help-desk support, or bidding on back-office automation jobs, RGi only chases the big, complex problems that promise profound mission impact. That helps when it comes to recruiting top talent.
“We’re very mission-system focused, and that focus allows us to be very deliberate about who we hire. That sets us apart,” he said. He pointed for example to an ongoing large project where RGi serves as subcontractor. In that case, “we only have about 4% of the people on the contract. But the prime contractor at a public meeting recently said that RGi is the glue holding the program together.” That is the type of impact we have with our customers and partners.
When it comes to growth strategy, that mission-centric focus helps dictate the direction.
“Our primary customers are the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the Army Geospatial Center,” he said. From there, it makes sense to look for new opportunities within the intelligence community and the military, as well as in defense intelligence agencies.
Despite being relatively small (RGi has less than 100 employees) the company doesn’t focus on small-business set aside work, as it looks to expand that footprint.
“We’re very bold about what we bid,” Loggins said. “If we like it and we think we can do it, then we’re willing to bid. We’ve won prime bids that way: In fact we have won two primes at NGA in full and open competition.”
The company also looks to leverage partnerships in its pursuit of new opportunities.
“Relationships are key,” he said. “We develop strong, long-lasting relationships both with government and industry. For example, we have some large business partners that we do a lot of work with, like Maxar, CACI and Raytheon and we’re picking up new partners all the time.”
Those relationships and our consistent top performance help to keep the project pipeline filled. “They will call us and say: ‘Hey, I’m going after this complicated thing and would like to have RGI on my team,’” he said.
When the call comes in, RGi needs to have top talent available ⏤ software engineers, data scientists, DevOps engineers. Complex projects help attract those innovative thinkers, and a strong corporate culture ensures they stay. Many RGi employees have been there 10 years or more, Loggins said.
“People come here and they stay here for the innovation, the challenging work. That attracts a certain type of person: Someone who really wants to be a part of making a difference,” he said. “Our tagline is ‘Immediate Impact’ and people here truly feel they are making an impact.”
Loggins himself is dedicated to mission impact. He’s split his career thus far ⏤ 21 years as an Army officer, 21 years in the GovCon world ⏤ and it’s the mission that keeps him inspired.
“I enjoyed my time in the Army very much, and when it was time to retire from the Army, I wanted to remain in the national security area,” he said. “I was in the Pentagon on my last assignment and it was a natural transition. There’s a strong sense of community, and it’s rewarding, knowing that we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves.”