MORI Associates delivers enterprise technology and advanced technology solutions in the aerospace sector, including clients such as NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and various defense agencies. As president and chief operating officer, Dan Deans sees common challenges there.
“They all are looking at digital transformation, more streamlined IT-service delivery, improved security resiliency, more integration of the modernized infrastructure across their various centers and facilities,” he said. “They are making forays into AI and ML operations for automation and data-informed decision-making, and the use of digital engineering,”
None of these are easily achieved, and MORI is helping ease the journey for its customers. Often, this means bringing to life the opportunities others might overlook.
“We are really focused on putting solutions in places where you wouldn’t normally think about,” Deans said. “For instance, we have an initiative with one of our customers, using AI to automate tasks, apply self-healing capabilities and reduce the labor of evaluating security vulnerabilities and things that go on behind the scenes.”
While others might not look to tackle seemingly routine operations, “we look at it from a customer perspective, making their lives better by bringing ideas they might not have considered initially,” Deans said. “There are simple things that people treat as mundane, that can make a big difference and reduce labor costs, while freeing up engineers to focus on more challenging work.”
All those “simple things” are part of the bigger-picture digital transformation effort. “There’s a lot of scaling of agile methodologies in play here, and a ton of focus on cybersecurity,” he said.
“By providing mission-critical support behind the scenes for their everyday activities, we help to maintain their resiliency and the overall reliability,” he added. “When you sit down to do your tasking as a mission operator, everything’s going to be there: Your tools are going to be available, your systems are going to be up. Our folks make sure of that.”
There’s opportunity for that kind of improvement all across the government landscape. To make the most of this moment, Deans has been pursuing what he describes as an aggressive and multifaceted growth strategy since joining MORI a year ago.
“I’ve had the honor of knowing MORI’s founder, Shanaz Amirjafari, since the mid-2000s,” he said. “She’s already been successful in high-end technology, and she asked me to partner with her to expand MORI’s capabilities, to take on more customers and more locations.”
Trained as an aerospace engineer, he takes three-pronged growth strategy. “The first and the quickest way to do it is through mergers and acquisitions, and we have quite a few of those projects in the works,” he said.
Deans and his team, including Chief Growth Officer Blake Hershey, Senior Vice President of Space and Defense Gabe Garrett and Large Contract Project Managers Pasha Campos, Krista Dawson and Michael Deldjoubar also are building a robust pipeline of new opportunities.
“We’re chasing these via the standard government business-development process, using excellent capture folks — a dream team of experts,” Deans said. “They are introducing new innovations to their customers and writing compelling, complete, and compliant proposals on government opportunities.”
Deans is also looking to drive growth in the present client base. “Among our existing customers like JPL, other NASA folks, some of the DOD customers, we are introducing them to our new capability sets, getting them excited about that in order to grow in those areas,” he said.
As all this unfolds, MORI as an organization is going through a transitional period, expanding from a very-small to a medium-sized small business. This comes with its own unique challenges. The company no longer competes for small-business contracts based on revenue: It now must compete based on headcount.
In that expanded playing field, “the competition and the opportunities are different,” Deans said. “It’s a much larger pool to swim in, so you have to plan that well.”
Planning is this case means spending. “It’s all about investment, and I’m grateful that with our founder and CEO, her first answer is ‘yes.’ She says: Do whatever it takes. She’s incredibly supportive and focused on putting the investments into the company,” Deans said.
To that end, “we’re hiring experts, we’re acquiring assets from smaller companies. She’s deploying her capital in a very aggressive and a very wise way, and it’s really starting to pay dividends,” he said.
Deans said he welcomes the chance to be a part of that effort.
He spent most of the past 35 years in the GovCon space, with brief forays into the chemical industry and semiconductor equipment manufacturing. Success in this arena comes from having the right leadership style, he said.
“I’ve got an encouraging spirit,” he said. “For me, being gracious and kind and focused on serving others has really been helpful. It leads to a joyous culture that people want to be a part of, where they want to get out of bed and come to work in the morning.”
Leadership “is mostly in the people skills, the soft skills: Encouraging people to do great things with you,” he added.
“If you can surround yourself with great people and give them what they need to get the job done —supporting them, empowering them, encouraging them — they will go out and do great things,” he said. “I’ve seen it over and over.”