Paul Strasser is Dynamic Research Corporation (DRC)’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, High Performance Technology Group. Though he joined this position in 2010, Strasser has over 28 years of experience in technical and senior management positions and was Pragmatics COO for almost six years. Prior to Pragmatics, he was VP and Division General Manager for Titan Corporation’s Enterprise Services and Solutions Sector.
Strasser has a B.A. in Meteorology, with Astronomy and Marine Sciences minors, from the State University of New York at Oswego, and a graduate certificate in Information Systems Management from the University of Southern California’s graduate school.
Strasser spoke with WashingtonExec about how he got to DRC, what he’s learned during his time in the industry, how the federal IT-sphere may fare in 2013, what DRC prides itself in, his leadership style, his very first job, and more.
WashingtonExec: Can you tell us a little more about your background and how you got to DRC?
Paul Strasser: I’ve been in this business for about 30 years. I have a degree in meteorology with minors in oceanography and astronomy, which was my entrée into the defense and aerospace business. I started my career in defense and aerospace working for Lockheed Missiles & Space in Sunnyvale, California in the early ‘80s. I supported many satellite systems for the military and was part of a mission control team, which was a lot of fun.
From there, my career advanced through technical leadership and systems engineering. I became a project manager and eventually a program manager. I managed multiple projects and programs and then a vice presidency in the early to mid ‘90s. In 2001, Titan had acquired the company I was with and they moved me to the Washington, D.C. area. When I left Titan in 2004, I joined Pragmatics as COO, and left there in 2010 to join DRC. I’ve been with DRC going on three years now.
WashingtonExec: What are some important takeaways that you’ve received over the years?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Paul Strasser: It starts with people. You’ve got to honor your people, you’ve got to take care of your people and you’ve got to constantly grow with the people keeping the customer in mind.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
I also find that it really comes down to understanding the customer’s business and the application of technology, because that’s inevitably what succeeds.
WashingtonExec: There is much uncertainty in the industry with the start of the New Year. What are your predictions for how the federal IT industry is going to fare in 2013 and beyond?
Paul Strasser: I’m hopeful that Congress will sort out the dilemma they have in front of them. Obviously the country needs to solve our fiscal problems and once we get that behind us (the sequestration, continued resolution, etc.), then our industry is going to continue its current relative pace. The data that I’ve been looking at recently shows government services contracting in decline since about mid 2009, and so we’ve been seeing a shrinking budget. We believe that there will be shrinking budgets into 2014, but then we expect it to improve.
Companies that are well positioned, innovative and, to some degree, nimble should be able to do very well in this environment. I see it as an opportunity for DRC. The current situation is a challenge and can be particularly concerning in protecting and continuing your work as an incumbent contractor with the same skills and techniques that brought success in the past.
WashingtonExec: What would you say DRC prides itself in?
Paul Strasser: The company has been around for 58 years, so we have a long history of rock solid results. With that said, we never get complacent.
We are always constantly looking at how we can get better, improve our approaches, our innovations, and we really ground that approach in engineering and the hard sciences. We have a strong team of PhDs and scientists working on the most challenging problems that face our country, and even the entire human race, to some degree. For example, DRC scientists and engineers are developing extremely complex climate models and algorithms that run on some of the world’s most powerful high performance computing systems for NOAA. This work directly supports the international community and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in unraveling the issue of global climate change.
For DRC, the third quarter was the best quarter ever for us in terms of growth. It really validates our strategy that we’ve been embarked on for a few years now, which is to focus on growth markets like cyber security, health care and homeland security. It’s been a lot of work and it’s continuing on a path that started 58 years ago. I’m so excited to be a part of the transformation that’s going on at DRC today.
WashingtonExec: How would you describe your leadership style?
Paul Strasser: I like to call my leadership style collaborative. I try to be very clear with people, and I try to set a vision, get my hands dirty and roll up my sleeves. I really enjoy getting a small group of people to really strategize and do some critical thinking either around improvements or innovation. We do a lot of that at DRC, and we are on the cutting edge of innovation right now. For example, we’ve really coined this idea of clinical consulting. We’ve been pioneering that for awhile which is really combining medical experts, doctors, dentists, nurses, and other clinicians with the techniques of management consulting to bring those skills together.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
“This leadership style has served me well thus far in my new role as the general manager of DRC’s High Performance Technologies Group.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________
I also think my colleague Chuck Schefer, who is succeeding me as the general manager of the Federal Group, has a very collaborative style that will contribute to that group’s growth and our groups working together in support of our customers.
WashingtonExec: What app on your phone (or tablet) makes you more productive at work?
One of the unique things about business in the public sector is all the compliance with federal regulations we must adhere to such as timekeeping. DRC has developed mobile apps for administering timecards, approving purchase requests, and pretty much all of the frequent functions we do using our ERP system. This really helps when you’re constantly on the move.
WashingtonExec: What was your very first job?
Paul Strasser: Professionally, I actually worked as a meteorologist at a place called Oceanroutes. We weather routed ships all over the world. I think my very first job was as a paperboy when I was like 13, and I’ve had a strong work ethic, ever since. What I learned as a meteorologist was that I understood how computers could make our job better and easier.
That said, astronomy was my true love, and that is how I got into the space business working in support of programs like GPS and the Space Shuttle as well as doing cool things like orbital estimation, telemetry processing and mobile command and control.”
