HBJ October 2022

Teledyne Brown Engineering's Newest Contract Set to Expand

Shelby Helps Celebrate U.S. Courthouse in Downtown Ceremony

By Anja Solum

By Dawn Suiter

By Noah Logan

Page

Huntsville based Teledyne Brown Engi neering revealed late last week that the company has been awarded the Marshall Operations, Systems, Services and Inte gration II (MOSSI II) contract from NASA.

By Noah Logan - Page 2

Senator Richard Shelby, who is finishing his sixth term in office before retiring, con tinued a “victory lap” in Huntsville as the keynote speaker during a groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Northern District Courthouse in downtown.

By Mike Easterling - Page 18

Teledyne Brown Engineering’s

Newest Contract Set to Expand International Space Station

Huntsville based Teledyne Brown Engineering recently re vealed that NASA awarded the the company with a Marshall Op erations, Systems, Services and Integration II (MOSSI II) contract. The contract is a performancebased, cost-plus-award-fee contract with a potential mission services value of $596.5 over eight years.

“Our team’s dedication to Marshall Space Flight Center, the International Space Station and NASA’s mission to explore space is undeniable”

As the prime contractor for MOSSI II, Teledyne Brown is now responsible for the management, personnel, supplies and equipment to support the International Space Station (ISS) and its missions. The news comes after a very lengthy application process that lasted around four years according to Tele dyne executives.

A subsidiary of Teledyne Tech nologies Incorporated, Teledyne Brown has a surplus of experience when it comes to working with NASA on the ISS and other space initiatives. In fact, it was the first high-technology firm established in Huntsville, Alabama to assist Wer nher von Braun and his rocket team in developing the Redstone Rocket.

The company has previously supplied over 175,000 hours of round-the-clock support for the station over the past 20 years. Tele dyne Brown played a major role in supporting NASA’s science research aboard the ISS by integrating more than 3,000 payloads, providing crew training activities for these payloads, developing experiment procedures, and delivering realtime support to science teams from

around the world.

“Our team’s dedication to Marshall Space Flight Center, the International Space Station and NASA’s mission to explore space is undeniable,” stated Scott Hall, President of Teledyne Brown En gineering. “Our talent, experience

“Our talent, experience and understanding of the multi faceted parameters in payload operations and console support have contributed to the success of the ISS program and we look forward to working on MOSSI II and future space programs.”

“We expect that there will be other missions in the future that haven’t been planned yet such as commercial space stations with NASA payloads or work with the lunar base,”

and understanding of the mul tifaceted parameters in payload operations and console support have contributed to the success of the ISS program and we look for ward to working on MOSSI II and future space programs.”

The company’s prior work with the ISS comes from their incumbent status on the Mission Operations and Integration (MO&I) portion

of the same contract. MOSSI II is a combi nation of the current MO&I and Huntsville Operations Support Cen ter (HOSC) contracts. It consists of all phases of ISS operations, includ ing mission preparation, crew and flight control ler training and real-time spaceflight operations, as well as maintaining sup port infrastructure.

Work will be per formed on-site at Marshall and other locations as re quired, including NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In addition to the base contract value, MOSSI II contains a maximum potential indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quan tity value of $85 million. In an interview with the Huntsville Busi ness Journal, Teledyne Brown’s Vice President of Space Systems Reggie Spivey explained the IDIQ contract portion as funds to support other tasks that are not included in the original core of the contract.

“We expect that there will be other missions in the future that haven’t been planned yet such as commercial space stations with NASA payloads or work with the lunar base,” he explained. “With in the next 10 years, the work on this contract could expand to other things besides the ISS.”

When asked about how long Teledyne Brown Engineering has been working on procuring their newest contract, Spivey stated that it was a lengthy process.

“Oh goodness…..we’ve been chasing this for a while. In total it was over four years,” he stated. “It was a long procurement process that we’re ready to get behind us and move along with the mission.”

By Noah Logan /

Photos courtesy of NASA

Sinequa Cuts the Ribbon at New UAH Office

Enterprise Search leader Sinequa held a ribbon cutting for their new office on Tuesday at the Invention to Innovation Center on campus at UAH. The office will help them with their new business practice that was also announced this week, dedicated to the specific needs of public and private agencies serving the United States Aerospace and Defense Industry. With their new office at UAH, their team hopes to tap into the region’s technology and partner ecosystem.

Spearheading their new business will be Sinequa’s Senior Vice Presi dent of Aerospace & Federal Business, Bob Lewis. The company also wel comed Colonel David Wallis as their new Director of Operations. Wallis has 27 years of experience with the USMC and IT experience with com panies like Dynetics.

“Sinequa’s new Aerospace and Fed eral Defense Business Unit is the first of many strategic growth initiatives we are launching to grow our customer footprint and expand our partner ecosystem, including government con tractors and systems integrators,” said Alexandre Bilger, CEO of Sinequa.

“Sinequa‘s leadership team, ex pansion of resources and the new Huntsville office will allow us to deepen relationships with our exist ing customers such as NASA and Northrop Grumman, develop new partnerships and continue to col laborate with premier integrators like SAIC, while further advancing intel ligent search technology to serve this critical market to serve this critical market," Bilger continued.

Sinequa’s Search Cloud aims to bring organizations of all sizes the most complete enterprise search ever. Customers employ Search Cloud to connect all content, both text and data based, derive meaning, learn from user interactions, and present information in context. This solves content chaos and informs employees through a sin gle, secure interface.

Sinequa’s platform allows them to extract and protect valuable insights from information such as structured and unstructured data for their clients

By Noah Logan / Photos courtesy of Sinequa

like NASA, Northrop Grumman and Airbus. Their AI-powered search plat form, which is optimized for Microsoft Azure, helps them provide insights on this data by using deep learning, lan guage processing and a neural search function.

In an interview with The Hunts ville Business Journal, Sinequa’s Vice President of Aerospace Bob Lewis ex plained how their work with NASA led to them determining their need for an office in Huntsville.

“We started working with NASA about four years ago and NASA en gaged us with what is arguably their most innovative group, which is their engineering team at Marshall Space Flight Center. And the technology that we bring to market provides the ability to find information that's oth erwise hard to find. So we were able to take all the engineering documents that they've developed over the last 60 years, index that information and make it searchable and findable for the NASA engineers,” he explained.

“We also have been doing a simi lar project with Northrop Grumman here in Huntsville as well,” Lewis continued. “And so what brought us here though, is that NASA has been describing this ecosystem of partner ships that as they move from exploring sort of low orbit space to outer space, they kind of outsource the low orbit stuff to commercial side. But they've got all these constellation of partners and they're interested in using our technology to connect their informa tion with the information that sits inside that partner community. The facility here at the university, the In vention to Innovation Center, it just seemed like a perfect place where we could both serve existing customers and expand our business and grow into that ecosystem.”

Sinequa is already integrating itself in the Huntsville community as the company recently joined the Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville, is a mem ber of the National Space Club and a member of Cyber Huntsville. Sinequa is also a contributor to the Nerdettes, an all-girls, high school robotics team from Huntsville.

For more information on Sinequa and the services they provide, visit their website at www.sinequa.com.

“We started working with NASA about four years ago and NASA engaged us with what is arguably their most innovative group, which is their engineering team at Marshall space wide center.”

Subsidiary of EVENT Publishing

Todd Stephenson Editor Gus Wintzell

President /Publisher

Writers Alan Clemons

Mike Easterling

Ashlyn Grey

Marie Johnson

Noah Logan Dawn Suiter

Justina Simon Website

Graphic Design

Jim Gharib Photographers

Steve Babin

Justina Simon

Director of Sales

Noah Logan

Carolyn Stephenson Account Executives

Marilyn Pinchock Distribution Glenda Mace

Huntsville Business Journal is published monthly by EVENT Publishing, PO Box 14219, Huntsville, AL 35815.

For advertising information call 256.533.8078, e-mail todd@eventhuntsville.com, or visit us on the web at www.huntsvillebusinessjournal.com

For editorial information contact editor@huntsvillebusinessjournal.com

ALL CONTENTS ©2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION OR USE IN WHOLE OR IN PART OF THE CONTENTS WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER IS PROHIBITED. HUNTSVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF EVENT PUBLISHING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. UNSOLICITED PHOTOGRAPHS OR ARTICLES ARE SUBMITTED AT THE RISK OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER OR AUTHOR. EVENT PUBLISHING ASSUMES NO LIABILITY FOR THE RETURN OF ANY UNSOLICITED MATERIALS AND MAY USE THEM AT ITS DISCRETION.

Constellation Apartments Shines at Grand Opening

As the City of Huntsville con tinues to enjoy booming growth as a live-work-play community, it celebrated a glittering new addition to its rapidly growing skyline on Monday afternoon with the grand opening of Constellation Apart ments at 740 Constellation Place Dr. SW, located within view of the Von Braun Center.

Prior to the ribbon cutting celebration, guests gathered to enjoy a live musical perfor mance from Dave Anderson, hors d’oeuvres, champagne, and cup cakes as they explored the luxurious, beautifully decorated facility. Its pet-friendly apartment units feature thoughtful touches throughout, as well as 1 Gig internet throughout the building.

Built by Doster Construction, the 219-unit luxury apartment community began leasing on July 9 of this year and is already at 35% occupancy. Featuring multiple workspaces, 60 storage lockers, a spacious gym, interior and exterior gathering spaces, a pet spa, and an attractive swimming pool with a Little and Big Dipper design visible from above, it reflects the past and future of the city both inside and out with its space history-themed decor and forward-thinking design.

Heartland Real Estate Part ners Managing Principal Tim Grogan partnered with D. Scott McLain, CCIM, CRE of Coldwell Banker Commercial McLain Real Estate of Huntsville to bring the Constellation project to life. Although Grogan’s team is Chi cago-based, he stated that they’ve had a longstanding presence in Huntsville and remain committed to the community.

“This is only phase 1. We’re working on the retail [phase]; hopefully that announcement is going to come very soon. We have

that phase 3 and we’re also look ing at other opportunities within Huntsville. So we’re here, we’re part of the community, and we’ll continue to be part of the commu

By Dawn Suiter /

Photos by Dawn Suiter

nity,” Grogan said.

Grogan also thanked May or Battle for his role in working with the development team to bring the project to fruition, not ing that every department at every level communicated effectively and helped them become part of the community.

“It’s amazing when you’re in a town where we’ve had two ribbon cuttings and a groundbreaking today,” Battle said, noting that last week had at least 8 ribbon cut tings or groundbreakings. He noted that this growth requires new ways of looking at things, describing Constellation as a “new wave com ing to Huntsville.”

“It’s really great to see that new wave coming…it’s coming because of innovative developers and inno vative builders and we want to say thank you.”

w

Huntsville Ranks in Top 10 for Best Places for Career Opportunities in 2022

Despite rising inflation and re cent stock market instability, it’s still a job seeker’s market. There are roughly 11 million job openings available nationwide as of May 2022, accord ing to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). For the same month, there were 6.5 million hires. Data from June 2022 shows a 4% increase in the percentage of people who voluntarily left their jobs compared with one year ago.

With rising costs of living and a nationwide climate that is respond ing to the pandemic’s impact, some markets are better for those seeking new opportunities or looking to grow their careers. We sought to under stand where job seekers have the best access to career opportunities.

To do this, SmartAsset looked at data for the largest 200 metro areas across nine metrics on topics such as employment, earnings, housing costs

and access to career guidance. Key findings include:

• Midwestern metro areas make up half of the top 10. Specifi cally, two Indiana metro areas (Lafayette-West Lafayette and Fort Wayne), two Ohio met

ro areas (Dayton and Toledo) and one Iowa metro area (Cedar Rapids) placed in the top 10. Job opportunities in these areas are diverse and median annual housing costs are rela tively low.

• In some areas, average earnings for professionals can increase by more than 20% throughout their career. The ChampaignUrbana, Illinois metro area ranks highest for this metric at 41%. More specifically, in this metro area, workers between the ages of 25 and 44 earn $57,437, while those aged 45 to 64 earn $81,300. Income growth between these two age groups of workers exceeds 20% in 23 additional metro areas that we studied.

• On average, across the study, median earnings rose by 8% between 2019 and 2021. The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California metro area has the highest two-year earnings change (21.83%). Of the 200 metro ar eas in this study, three metro areas experienced a decline in

Guest Post by Anja Solum

earnings: two in Connecticut and one in Texas.

SmartAsset also totalized the data and compiled a list of the top-ten cit ies for job opportunities. Huntsville ranked second.

Huntsville, Alabama ranks in the top 10 metro areas for two met rics. It has the fifth-lowest May 2022 unemployment rate (1.9%) and ranks seventh-highest for income growth between professionals aged 25 to 44 and those aged 45 to 64 (25.85%). Additionally, overall median earn ings for workers in the metro area increased by roughly 15% over a twoyear period ending in 2021.

Tuscaloosa also landed a top ten spot, coming in fourth for its May 2022 unemployment rate of 2.5%.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama also had a one-year change in total employment of 4.10% and has the 27th-lowest an nual housing costs, average around $10,152. For professional guidance, workers have access to roughly three career counselors for every 1,000

workers (ranking 24th-highest).

Other metros in the top ten in clude Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN; Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls, NY; Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA; Cedar Rapids, IA; Dayton, OH; Salt Lake City, UT; Fort Wayne, IN; and Toledo, OH.

To totalize the above list, Smart Asset analyzed data for 200 of the largest U.S. metro areas across the following nine metrics:

• May 2022 unemployment rate.

Data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• One-year change in total em ployment. This is the percentage change in total employment be tween May 2021 and May 2022.

Data is from the Bureau of La bor Statistics.

• Median earnings. This is the annual median earnings of all workers. Data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is for 2021.

• Income growth over career. This

is the percentage change in me dian income for households where the head of household was between the ages of 25 and 44 compared to those where the head of household was between 54 and 64. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2020 5-year American Community Survey.

• Two-year earnings change. This is the percentage change in indi vidual earnings over a two-year period. Data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is for 2019 and 2021.

• Annual median housing costs. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2020 5-year American Community Survey.

• Number of career counselors per 1,000 workers. Data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is for 2021.

• Number of post-secondary teachers per 1,000 workers. Data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is for 2021.

• Job diversity. This measures the variety of industries available in a city. We used the Shannon index to calculate this figure.

A higher number indicates a more diverse job market. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2020 5-year American Commu nity Survey.

SmartAsset ranked each metro area in every metric, giving an equal weighting to all but four metrics: two-year earnings change from 2019 to 2021, income growth over career, number of career counselors and number of post-secondary teachers per 1,000 workers, each of which was given a half weight.

The company then found each metro area’s average ranking. The metro area with the best average rank ing places first in our study while the area with the lowest average ranking places last.

Editor’s note: this post is a guest post provided by Anja Solum of SmartAsset. w

Accelerating Success: JS Solutions Takes Off with Help of I2C

For local entrepreneurs, especially those in the tech field, it’s no secret that the Huntsville community is re nowned for its support of businesses. There’s no reason to go it alone with the wealth of resources that are readily available, one of which is the Inven tion to Innovation Center (I²C), a high tech incubator located on the UAH campus adjacent to the Busi ness Administration Building (BAB).

The I²C facility houses 30 office spaces within its 45,000 square foot, $16 million facility, which combines three interconnected elements: shared workspaces, a co-working commu nity, and collaborative co-creation. In addition to its building funds, it received an additional $1.5 mil lion in funding for programmatic and strategic initiatives to better serve its mission.

companies who are physically located here and the goal is to focus on tech nology-based entrepreneurship,” Joshi explained. “We are always a little less than full and the reason for that is we always want to keep some office space which is available for churn.”

“Besides biotech, life sciences, and traditional healthcare, we want to try to embrace, as much as we can, other technologies–we have EdTech, we have FinTech, cyber, robotics, 3-D printing, additive manufacturing, apps, traditional software, things like that,” Joshi continued. “It’s a really nice mix of companies, and we have a small subset of companies that are in the government technology space as well. That’s where Jason was–he pretty much opened doors.”

Joshi noted that the current occupants of the I²C range from “companies which have one or two people that haven’t raised any funding all the way to a company [Sinequa, an enterprise search tech nology company] that moved from France.”

By Dawn Suiter /

Photos by Dawn Suiter

I²C Director Rigved Joshi came on board in 2017, bringing 15+ years of experience in technology devel opment, startup commercialization, venture capital/private equity, and business management. Previously, he managed New Ventures at Vanderbilt University, resulting in 22 startups raising over $7M in early stage ven ture and research funding.

According to Joshi, the goal of the I²C was very simple: to build resources around the incubation strategy, creating a sort of watering hole for entrepreneurs and startups so they could take their ideas to the next level.

Jason Swafford’s company, JS Solutions, was one of the first to move into the I²C, coming on board in September 2019 as a oneman operation.

“Currently, we have about 25

Joshi explained that the I²C strives to create a mix of companies that can collaborate with one another if they want or need to, as well as to “create an environment that facilitates that positive collision or collisions, whether it’s in the hallways, in the cafe areas, in the most organic sense that one would expect in an environ ment or in a space like this.”

In addition to its collaborative, open environment, the I²C features a mentor program, as well as corporate innovation hubs, which allow compa nies with mature business models to use the facility as a skunkworks or a sandbox for their innovations.

The I²C provided the perfect en vironment to enable JS Solutions to get off the ground. Swafford explained that after leaving his former employ er, he felt there was a need for a small business that would focus more on its employees and its customers.

“That’s not to say that the places I worked for previously didn’t, but I felt like we could do it differently and better,” he said, adding that “there

were always outside influences on our decision making that weren’t local in Huntsville. Huntsville is different–it’s a different animal specif ically in government contracting and the way technology starts and grows and develops here.”

“My time there taught me every thing I needed to know about how to get here and to do this, and I got to see all kinds of examples of good, bad, ugly, right, wrong, indifferent, just all kinds of experience in differ ent scenarios,” Swafford continued, explaining that he worked for another company for a year after his departure.

“During that year it was really eating at me that ‘this is the time when I can go start something.’”

As the sole earner in a single in

come family, Swafford needed to find a way for the company to pay for it self instantly.

“Like, I didn’t really want to go out and deplete savings and risk put ting the whole family in financial ruin. My oldest son has special needs so I couldn’t do that. It had to have no impact really to the family or minimal impact to the family.”

After being asked for consulting help by multiple colleagues, Swafford launched JSS, using FreeLogoSer vices.com to create his company logo.

“Then I picked up a couple con sulting clients…I was at one of the RISE morning events and I met the gentleman who was doing the nam etags for that group. He was here at the I²C and so I came here to meet

“Currently, we have about 25 companies who are physically located here and the goal is to focus on technology-based entrepreneurship”

Pictured left to right: Jason Swafford and Rigved Joshi

him…they’d just moved into this fa cility,” Swafford recalled.

“I was three minutes in and I’m like ‘hey, at the end of the meeting I’d like you to introduce me to the director of this facility because I want in.’ Like, this was what I was looking for for an office space to start up but I couldn’t afford office space that looked like this as a one person consulting company.”

In order to be accepted, Swaf ford said, “you’ve gotta go through an approval process, and to do that ap proval process they force you to build a business plan. I hadn’t built a busi ness plan yet. I mean, yeah, I knew I was supposed to do these things but I didn’t have time to do that. But to get what I wanted, which was to be in this facility, I had to go through the different requirements to get in. And that helped me kind of formalize some things.

“We built the business plan, [and] we had to justify why we felt like we deserved the privilege to be in the facility. We were fortunate to get ac

cepted,” Swafford said.

Swafford soon realized just how important that business plan would be when he had to go back and read through it again two years later following his nomination for the En trepreneur of the Year Award.

“I had to go look at revenues and how we went, and my one page PowerPoint slide showed our revenue path…it was exactly where we were, just by complete chance that I pre dicted that. I had some predictions, as far as I knew what my current bookings were and I knew what my backlog was, but I didn’t know what the growth was actually going to be,” he recalled.

“It was right spot on, to the month, to the hundreds of dollars.”

In addition to forcing him to cre ate a business plan, the I²C provided instant credibility to the startup.

“People would come in and we’d meet here and come upstairs to the conference room and the first thing they’d want is a tour of the facility. Every meeting got derailed for the

first 15 minutes and I got used to it… they’d want to know what this is, why it’s here, what’s it all about, and how’d it get here,” Swafford said, adding that he’s given that tour to “everybody who’s ever come to meet here.”

“It has the look and feel of a technology hub. You’ve got all the other businesses here that bring cred ibility to it, like Accenture, SAIC, and Intuitive. They’re all well-known

companies here. By operating in a space that they’re in, that brings sub conscious credibility, subconscious bias maybe, and, you know, you look professional.”

In addition to the overall optics of the facility and ready access to private meeting spaces, Swafford made good use of the access to different networks that I²C provides. “If I had a prob lem, I’d come ask Rigved ‘hey, I’m

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

trying to figure this out, I don’t know who to talk to’–he’d give me about 3-5 different people to reach out to every time.”

“These folks, they’ve been through this or they know who to talk to to help me. And sure enough, every time they’d help me get to my solution.”

“If I could really pick my top three entrepreneurs who really leveraged to the max how they could benefit from all the resources we have, I think Ja son would be on the top of the list. You know, just the way he utilized the space, he could position his company, make it seem legitimate, as he was growing, to his customers who were not easy to convince,” Joshi added.

And grow, it did. Although Swaf ford initially wanted to go into some technology fields and work with NASA, clients and revenue dictated the path of the business for the first couple of years.

“The opportunity to switch from consulting to government contracting appeared and we were able to do sup port for Army Aviation, specifically working with modernized crypto. We still have a technology focus, but it’s a split between logistics and technol ogy support that we still do now for

Army Aviation. Once we started into that, that’s when we had our explosive growth,” Swafford said.

By the spring of 2020, Swafford had jumped from consulting to gov ernment contracting.

“Those discussions obviously started months in advance because it takes months to get a contract up and going or to get added to contracts. So I was one person but I had a couple of part time help[ers] when I was do ing consulting.” With his client list growing rapidly, the company quickly expanded to five people.

“Later that year we were doing good work–we were a good subcon tractor to our client and together we managed our contract well. We were responsive to them and we had the opportunity to add some more posi tions, and then we added two more in the next six months”.

By the fall of 2020, the compa ny added three additional positions. Since then, Swafford has had to hire a business manager, then a di rector of strategy and growth, and most recently, an executive adminis trative assistant.

“We’re 3 ½ years old…we basi cally doubled in revenue every year.”

JS Solutions also recently won a $46 billion IDIQ contract with the U.S. Air Force.

“This is the one that made us fa mous for a day,” Swafford quipped.

The IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity Contract) is a top-level contract where the govern ment brings in multiple awardees, which prequalifies companies to generate competition for specific types of work.

“We won a position with the Air Force on EWAAC (Eglin Wide Agile Acquisition Contract),” Swaf ford explained. “It’s out of Eglin, Florida, and it’s a $46 billion ceiling, ten-year ordering period…what that means is we won a seat at the table to compete against all of the task orders that will come out on that IDIQ. We are the smallest company sitting at that table.”

Swafford described this as a huge milestone for the company, which required them to assemble a team and lead it to go after the contract. “A lot of the companies that we asked to team with us really weren’t tracking this. Like, they did initial awardees of this in, I think, September of 2021. A month later they announced they were going to do a second onramp of companies because they wanted a broader mix of competi tion. All the traditional contracting companies kind of went after the big companies to do things…all the top five are in there.”

He noted that a lot of compa nies weren’t tracking that there was another on-ramping taking place. “It kind of came quietly…a lot of folks just kind of blew it off. Well, we happened to be paying attention and we were like ‘hey, we can do this. We qualify for this. So we went after it. Which forced us to do some things internally in the foundation of the company. It forced us to verify that we had a government-approved accounting process, which is a big deal with government contracting. You have to be legitimate and look like a low-risk possible prime to be awarded a seat at one of these tables.”

JS Solutions has since acquired its GSA schedule, another prime contract with the government that allows the company to bid on ad

ditional items. “We shock a lot of folks all the time–I say we fight above our weight class. We’re a small com pany that’s not the traditional small business contractor in town…I’ve got a good team wit a mix of abili ties and we’ve done big things like this in previous organizations, working in a big company with a big compa ny’s resources behind us. We’re like ‘we can do those same things, we just have to do it a little differently,” Swafford said.

“This sets the stage for us to have explosive growth over the next ten years. One of my goals is that we’re trying to get to be a 30 or 50 person company within 3-5 years from win ning that IDIQ…it’s possible, it’s doable–you just have to put the hard work in.”

Joshi noted that Swafford “was one of the very few who was able to see and identify, pinpoint, exploit, and leverage everything that we were trying to build and create for one-man entrepreneurs like he was.” Returning to the topic of churn, he explained that exits for the I²C in cluded its resident companies failing, being acquired, or going IPO.

“But there’s a very legitimate exit that we could quantify, which is growth,” he added. “Every time someone asks me ‘have you had any exits,’ I always say we’ve had three so far–[Swafford] was the first one who moved out of the I²C for the right reasons because he grew from one person to 15 people, moved from a 300 square foot office to 3,000 square feet. To us, that’s an exit, and for our stakeholders that comes as very posi tive…it checks boxes across various metrics that we track.”

JS Solutions celebrated its con tinuing success by cutting the ribbon on its new facility on September 20. The ceremony itself marked a new chapter in Huntsville history with a joint ribbon cutting for both the Madison and Huntsville-Madison County Chambers of Commerce, symbolizing a new collaborative en ergy fueling North Alabama’s small business ecosystem.

Swafford is proud of the fact that in addition to repeated nomina tions for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, his company won silver in the

Pictured: Jason Swafford

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Huntsville Chamber of Commerce’s Best Places to Work Awards this year. “That shows we take care of our people and that people want to come work with us. When we’re recruiting and talking to folks, everyone in town pays attention to that. Whether they tell you that or not, they are.”

“Those things keep showing up and happening because we’re put ting in the hard work to grow the customer relationship, to grow our em ployee relationship. If both of those are not happy and they’re not happy to gether then we’re not going to exist, and the company won’t exist unless the employees and the customers all like each other and want to work together. Now we’re up for Small Business of the Year as a contender, and we’re hopeful that we’ll do well there,” he continued.

Swafford considers the Best Places to Work Award to be the one he cares most about “because that’s our report card from our employees on how we’re doing on taking care of them.”

Although he sees this as the com pany’s pathway to growth, Swafford noted that the focus isn’t so much on the number of employees as it is its ability to take care of the people with in the company. “That’s success…I want to make sure we don’t lose sight of that right there. It’s not just about

the growth revenue or the awards. It’s making sure that we stay humble and take care of our people, who will take care of our customers and vice versa. Everything else will kind of take care of itself outside of that.”

Swafford noted that his first office space at the I²C was #320, coinciden

tally the same number as JS Solutions’s new corporate headquarters at 150 West Park Loop in Huntsville. “I looked at two other offices between when I was getting ready to move out–they were also 320. It was weird. So our next office will have to be 320, I guess.”

w

When Wernher von Braun and a collection of fellow rocket engineers and scientists were sent to Redstone Arse nal in 1950, the city’s trajectory would be altered forever, especially after Presi dent Dwight D. Eisenhower transferred the group from the Army to the newlyformed National Aeronautics and Space Administration a decade later.

“When they brought the German rocket team back in the 50s, or whenever it was, to Redstone (Arsenal) that changed the face of Huntsville,’’ retiring U.S. Sen ator Richard Shelby told a crowd of over 900 at the Washington Update Breakfast at the Davidson Center for Space Explo ration. “Thank God.’’

The 88-year old Shelby obviously had no idea at that time, but the arrival of the Operation Paperclip crew from Fort Bliss, Texas, following their relocation to the U.S. after World War II to what would become the Rocket City, would also have a profound impact on his political career.

He’s retiring at the end of his current term, his sixth in the Senate following four in the House of Representatives. He’s serving 36 years as a Senator, includ ing 8 additional years as a Congressman. A large portion of his time in Washing ton, D.C. was spent pushing projects to Huntsville in support of the space and defense industry.

That’s something that has not gone unnoticed in the community. Madison County Commission Chair Dale Strong, speaking for Mayors Tommy Battle of Huntsville and Paul Finley of Madison, presented the senator with a framed reso lution declaring Sept. 19 Richard Shelby Day in Madison County.

Shelby received two standing ova tions at his final update in the city, this one on the grounds of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.

“Somebody said to me one time, ‘Who do you work for?’ I said I spend about half of my time and probably 65 percent of our time in my office work ing for Huntsville because it fuels North Alabama and half of Tennessee economi cally,’’ Shelby said. “But, more than that, (Huntsville) has a purpose for national security, for the space program, and now it’s going to be for security like the FBI that is going to have a huge presence here, as you know.’’

Shelby has steered hundreds of mil lions of federal dollars for projects to the Tennessee Valley over the years. Two of his latest triumphs were landing $2 bil lion for the FBI campus on the arsenal and a new federal courthouse downtown.

Shelby Still Fighting for City, State

By Mike Easterling / Photos courtesy of

(Sept. 19), and that courthouse is here because of Richard Shelby. You look at the arsenal and the FBI presence. It’s here with the fingerprints of Richard Shelby on it.’’

Distinguished career

Shelby, a native of Birmingham and fifth-generation Alabamian who now resides in Tuscaloosa, has an impressive resume:

• Undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Alabama

• Tuscaloosa city prosecutor (19631971)

• U.S. magistrate for the Northern District of Alabama (1966-1970)

• Special Assistant Attorney General of Alabama (1969-1971)

• Alabama State Senate (1970-1978)

“He has led the way for our efforts to grow and diversify Redstone, to maxi mize its value to the U.S. government including making Redstone the FBI’s un official second headquarters operation,’’ Huntsville/Madison County Chamber Board Chair Greg Brown said. “He has brought tremendous resources to our lo cal universities and challenged them to become leaders in research and develop ment.’’

Shelby’s time on The Hill was spent supporting not only Alabama but Hunts ville in particular.

“Senator Shelby has been a champion of Marshall Space Flight Center and has led the fight to preserve U.S. leadership in space exploration through his support,’’ Brown said. “He’s been the voice of rea son we’ve looked to.’’

When introduced at the breakfast address, Shelby received a standing ova tion. Later in the day, he received more applause at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new federal courthouse down town.

“Thank you. Wow. My gosh, thank you very much,’’ he told the Davidson Center crowd. “I remember my first trip to Huntsville – and I drove in here by my self many years ago. I think I was in the state senate then. I was just looking for a service station. I was about out of gas. And I didn’t have this kind of welcome.’’

He certainly got a raucous reception during what will surely be one of his final official visits to the city.

“I don’t know what to say but, ‘Thank you,’ ’’ Shelby said. “I’m grateful for 36 years in the Senate and eight in the House, not from this district, though. Thirty six years is a long time and a short

time – I guess it’s how you calculate it.

“A lot of people in this room have helped me over the years, helped me get elected and re-elected and re-elected and re-elected, and I’m grateful for that and thankful for that. Being in the U.S. Sen ate is a great opportunity for somebody, but you’ve got to take that opportunity and try to do something with it. I cer tainly have tried, but one person can’t do it. Look at what you’ve done in Huntsville and all of you together and your people over the years.’’

A lot of what Huntsville has done to become what U.S. News and World Re port named No. 1 on its Best Places to Live rankings goes back to Shelby.

“Just look around,’’ Battle said. “Ev erything that has happened in Huntsville, somewhere, has his fingerprints on it. We’re dedicating a federal courthouse

• U.S. House of Representatives (1978, re-elected in 1980, 1982, and 1984)

• U.S. Senate (1986, re-elected 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010, and 2016)

• Switched from Democrat to Repub lican Party (1994)

• Longest serving senator from Ala bama Committee assignments:

• Senate Committee on Appropria tions (current vice chair, former chair)

• Banking, Housing and Urban Af fairs (former chair)

• Rules and Administration (former chair)

• Senate Intelligence (former chair) Sub-committee assignments:

• Commerce, Justice and Science

• Defense

• Energy and Water Development

• Homeland Security

Alabama Senator Richard Shelby

Alabama Senator Richard Shelby (left), (Seated man?), and Kimberly Robinson, US Space & Rocket Center CEO and Excutive Director (center)

State as Long Senate Tenure Nears End

of Huntsville/Madison County Chamber

• Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies

• Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies

“He’s the fourth most senior member of the Senate,’’ Brown said. “He has been our champion in the D.C. arena, defend ing our state and especially Huntsville for those who don’t share the same level of enthusiasm for our federal activities.’’

Ronnie Chronister, Vice Chair of Government and Public Affairs for the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber, called Shelby “the most effective member of Congress the state of Alabama has ever had.”

“He’s leveraged his position on the Appropriations Committee to make sure the needs of the nation are met while at the same time matching the cause for Ala bama.’’

Huntsville, which Battle claimed has a competitive advantage over other cit ies because of, among other things, a low cost of living and a strong workforce, has greatly benefitted from Shelby’s efforts.

“Somebody had to start the thought of looking at Huntsville, and that’s Rich ard Shelby,’’ Battle told the Huntsville Business Journal. “He’s been the one who has done that, the one who has said ‘Huntsville is a great place to come’. ’’

Battle added, “A lot of people will say that’s pork coming in. It’s not pork. We’re doing the job that has to be done in America and we’re doing it for a better price than anyone else can and we do it better than anyone else can.’’

Political fighter, and got jokes

During his breakfast address, Shelby said he would be “remiss if I didn’t think back about some of the people I served with,’’ particularly the late Howell Heflin of Tuscumbia. Heflin succeeded fellow Southern Democrat John Sparkman, who was born in Hartselle and set up a law practice in Huntsville.

“Senator Heflin was a good friend of mine,’’ Shelby said. “He took me under his wing – he was a big man – he took me under his wing when I first went to the Senate. I remember we worked together and the program then was to build what is now known as (the Sparkman Center Complex on Redstone Arsenal). They said, 'Gosh, can you get the money?’ Well, it's a fight. It was a bigger fight then and we did it.’’

Shelby also recalled working with his then-Chief of Staff Tom Young on turn ing the Von Braun Center into a complex and began expanding NASA. Later came Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC).

“Huntsville had a lot to offer,’’ Shelby said. “We got some commands here that are very powerful and very important to national security.’’

Shelby said he hopes the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which includes de fense spending and will expire at the end of September, will get support to be extended temporarily on Oct. 1 until a larger act can be addressed for Fis cal Year 2023.

“Inflation has been running close to 10 percent’’ he said. “That means last year’s military budget has probably al ready lost 10 percent. We’ve got to plus that up to keep up and we need a little more than that to show the world that we’re serious about our commitments in the world.”

The recently passed Inflation Reduc tion Act of 2022 is advertised as a bill that “will make a historic down payment on deficit reduction to fight inflation, invest in domestic energy production and man ufacturing, and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030.’’

In addition, the act promises to “pro tect Medicare recipients from catastrophic drug costs by phasing in a cap for out-ofpocket costs and establishing a $35 cap for a month’s supply of insulin. And, as an historic win, Medicare will be able to ne gotiate prices for high-cost drugs for the first time ever.’’

Shelby, who deemed inflation “ram pant across the globe,’’ is not impressed.

“Biden’s plan?’’ he asked the HBJ when the subject was brought up during a media opportunity following his Update. “They call it that. It’s not a reduction. They’re borrowing money that’s got to be paid. I voted against that. The Democrats – they just put a name on it. That’s not going to reduce inflation. It’s probably going to aid and abet inflation.’’

Shelby added that the key to reduc ing inflation was to “get our supply chain moving in the right direction in the world. That will help a lot because we’re all inter dependent on it in the world economy.’’

As for the FBI, the senator called the budding campus something that “you’ve never seen anything like it.’’

“They’re going to be on the cutting edge. And why did they want to be here? Because of the talent here, because the engineers and scientists are here, because they have to be on the cutting edge.’’

The old Red Menace and its authori tarian President Vladimir Putin, who is threatening to use nuclear weapons as it continues its invasion of Ukraine, hogs headlines. But Shelby, who said he sup

ports the U.S. and allies giving aid to Ukraine in its struggle, the former com munists country is not at the forefront of his concerns.

“People worry about Russia, but they better think about China’’ he said. “China will be our biggest economic competitor, already is, and it’s going to be more so. Also, they’re interested in global hege mony economically, militarily, politically – everything.

“They’re taking their time building. They’re our biggest challenge down the road, they’re our biggest challenge in the Pacific.’’

Retirement nears

With Shelby’s final Senate term com ing to a close, the state’s and city’s future is in the hands of first-term Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn football coach, and the heavi ly-favored general election Republican candidate Katie Britt, wife of former Ala bama and New England Patriot lineman Wesley Britt.

In a deeply red state, a local candi date for the House of Representatives, the aforementioned Strong who is also a Re publican, is likewise expected to win in the general election.

Britt has served as Shelby’s Chief of Staff and the senator has worked closely with Strong. He endorses both, as does Mayor Battle.

“We’ll miss him,’’ Battle said. “But, we’ve got two great senators coming be hind him.’’

Battle said Tuberville was ahead of most issues and is “doing fantastic.’’ Britt, he said, was “one of the best legislative leaders I’ve seen in a long time.’’

Shelby also complimented Tuberville

on “working hard’’ and said he was im pressed by Britt “as a fighter’’ when she first interned in his office as a press liai son and later as CoS. It turns out Shelby had no choice in bringing Britt aboard as his wife of 62 years Annette, a profes sor emerita at the University of Alabama, made sure it happened.

“She told me to hire her,’’ Shelby said. “She didn’t say interview her, she didn’t say talk to her, she said hire her. And I knew to do that.’’

Shelby’s retirement date is Jan. 3. Until then there are projects yet to be secured. At the forefront is Space Com mand, which was awarded to Huntsville but is still in limbo with Colorado Springs fighting to keep it there.

The relocation was made by the Trump Administration at the end of his term as President and was backed by the Department of Defense. But, as Shelby said, nothing is ever “final in Washing ton.’’

“Politics plays a role here. I think we have to be alert that it’s not here, yet. But we hope it will come and things are in place. The steps thus far are good.”

That fight could be the last major battle for Shelby until he leaves office, when thereafter he said he’ll “go home to Tuscaloosa and probably just go to the mailbox for my wife.’’

Until then, he’ll keep doing the job in the Congress that he’s done since 1978.

“I owe a lot of you a lot of gratitude, a lot of thanks, for letting me be one of your two U.S. Senators for a long time,’’ he told the breakfast crowd. “I’ve got a few more months left, and we’re hoping to go out pretty strong in the fall.

“If we do, Huntsville will know.’’ w

Pictured L to R: (Seated man?), Senator Richard Shelby, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, Madison Mayor Paul Finley, County Commission Chair Dale Strong

FINANCIAL

Corporate Tax Season is Coming: Are You Prepared?

For business owners in Hunts ville and beyond, tax season is likely high on their list of priorities right now as the end of year quickly ap proaches. The Huntsville Business Journal recently met with Huntsville CPA Jared Sharp of Warren Averett to discuss recent developments and pro tips for businesses as they enter the year-end planning period for the 2022 tax season.

According to Sharp, now is the time for businesses to focus on yearend planning in order to examine what they can do now for tax plan ning purposes that can help them save money when they file returns in 2023.

“If there’s anything you can do now, let’s go ahead and start doing it because after year end, it’s typically too late to save for taxes in 2022.”

Sharp stressed the need for con tinual communication between businesses and their CPAs as key to making sure they’re doing every thing they can to save. “Having that idea of when are you going to file, when are you going to be ready to file, how quickly can you have the books closed, if you’re getting a fi nancial statement audit done–the timing of that is important because you want to file your taxes after that’s completed.”

“Hopefully most people already have their CPA identified, but if not you should probably be talk ing to them now–it’s too late once you get into January and February because we’ve already laid out our schedule for that time frame. If you don’t have a CPA that you’re work ing with that needs to be number 1. Identify them now.”

Despite the negative perception of filing for an extension on taxes, Sharp explained that it can be ben eficial for a lot of companies due to the short time frame between the end of the year and filing deadlines.

“In January, you’ve got to close your books and file a tax return by March for a pass-through entity and

by April for a C Corporation,” he said, explaining that the additional time can provide businesses with the opportunity to more thoroughly prepare. ”Your CPA has more time to look at everything too. But hav ing those conversations now is probably good to get an idea of what you need to do.”

While there aren’t a lot of chang es from the previous tax year to this, Sharp noted that there is one major change that should be getting more attention than it currently is because of its potential impact on companies doing research and development.

While this change in the tax code took place in 2018, it does not take effect until 2022. Sharp explained that because it was five years out at the time of its enactment under the Trump administration, not a lot of people paid attention to it.

“Every time they make a tax law change you’re decreasing taxes here, but you gotta raise them somewhere else to budget it out,” he said. “Basi cally in 2018 when all those tax laws and tax cuts came in under Trump, this was one lever they had to push up to say ‘in 2022 we’ll recoup some of these costs by taxing the R&D costs by allowing it to be a deduc tion over 5 years versus today.’”

Under this code, Sharp ex plained, R&D expenses such as wages, supply costs, and anything else that goes into R&D efforts by

U.S. companies will have to be cat egorized and amortized for five years for tax purposes. For foreign-based companies, this period increases to 15 years.

“Before 2022, you actually could expense immediately any of those costs. So that’s a big change

By Dawn Suiter

for a lot of companies that may have R&D efforts that are heavy. Think about your biotechs, your software developers, for anyone that’s heavy into R&D that can be a big change,” Sharp said.

This translates to higher income on paper due to initial expenses not being deducted. Sharp added that there is talk in Congress to re verse this change before the end of the year, “which I think will be a good thing if they do because if you’re having to capitalize all of your R&D activity versus expense them, you’re kind of disincentivizing that spin on R&D.”

The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act will primar ily impact large corporations with over $1 billion in income, but Sharp noted that the energy cred its and green initiatives included within that package may have ben

efits for a broader range of people. “Those are out there, and I’d advise anybody that’s looking at buying a car or any type of home improve ment activity that there can be some credits,” he said.

Sharp’s first piece of advice for new business owners: “Hire a good attorney and hire a good CPA. That’d be step #1.” He admitted that while it can be hard to balance for startups concerned about cost, it’s important to “hire the best that you can afford.”

Building a relationship with a good CPA is an important step in building a healthy business: “We don’t want to see you just one time of year when it’s time to do taxes–we want to work with you throughout the year,” he said.

Communication is key, he ex plained, because it allows your CPA to think about how things apply to your business and to help create a game plan that will best benefit your company financially.

This is particularly important when it comes to preparing for tax returns. Early planning is criti cal, Sharp explained, because if steps are missed during the current calendar year it’s difficult to fix er rors retroactively.

“But if you’re talking along the way, planning opportunities, hav ing those regular conversations with your CPA to keep them updated, that’s probably the most beneficial thing you can do, and just keep them aware of what’s going on with your business.”

Make sure you can find the best you can afford, make sure you’re talking to them and planning, have regular conversations and let them know what you’re doing–that’s go ing to be the best thing you can do because of everything they can help you think about.”

Another valuable piece of advice: find a CPA and, for that matter, an attorney, who has exper tise in the particular industry you’re

working in. “If you’re a BioTech per son, a GovCon person, if that’s what your company is doing, you want to look for a CPA that has a back ground in that line of work because there’s a lot of industry-specific items that come with accounting and taxes,” he said.

Sharp noted that a general ac countant that works with a wide variety of businesses may not realize that a BioTech or GovCon com pany, for instance, can do different things when it comes to taxes than other businesses.

“I would say look for somebody who has expertise and spends time working with similar type clients.”

According to Sharp, while Warren Averett may not be the lowest-cost service, it provides val ue-added benefits that can bring real benefits to its clients. “We take a holistic approach to our clients–what that means is we’re not looking at just the tax stuff. You can hire us just to do your taxes but we’re also

going to be looking at what we can do to help your business overall–we have a lot of different services we of fer, so we want to make sure we’re introducing you to the right people inside the organization that can help you with any need you may have,” he said.

“For us, it really is about the relationships. We want to be work ing with our clients throughout the year, not just once a year. Anything that we can do to make sure we’re helping your business thrive, that’s our goal.”

Sharp described tax returns as “the byproduct that comes out of the relationship.”

Ideally, he added, there will be no surprises. “Hopefully you already have an idea because we’ve been working together on what that tax bill’s going to look at come April, what [you’re] going to owe…we’ve already been working towards that so it’s not a surprise when we go to file the tax return.” w

REAL ESTATE

Real Estate Update: August Report Shows Residential Trends Continuing

The Huntsville Area Asso ciation of Realtors has released its monthly report for the month of August, 2022.

Madison County homes spent an average of 11 days on the mar ket, a stark contrast to the national average of 42 days.

Despite the continued quick pace of sales in the county, Madi son County experienced a 100% increase in the number of residen tial units in inventory since August of last year. This has resulted in a slight dip in the average value of 6% since June, but the continued upward trend of prices still holds, as the average price is up 11% from

August of 2021.

The combination of that slight price dip and larger inventory of available units can make for a strong pitch for realtors looking to convince would-be buyers that this is a good time to buy; there is a wide variety of units available to suit the tastes of various clients, and while the market is beginning to settle from the pandemic, there is no reason to assume that prices won’t continue to rise over the long term - though more of a steady, holistic rise of a booming city’s expansion instead of an unstable, frenzied bubble.

According to realtor.com’s na

tional report, the national average listing price of $435,000 had de clined from the previous month’s high-water mark of $450,000. Madison County’s average price continues to slide in below that national average, with August’s average of $367,000 reflecting that 6% dip from July’s $391,000 benchmark, but that is still higher than August of last year’s price of only $330,000.

With many businesses looking to open branches or transfer opera tions to Huntsville, it will continue to be important to emphasize units with easy access to the growing business and research facilities in

By Marie Johnson / Graphics courtesy of Huntsville Area Association of Realtors

town. Redstone Gateway is current ly greenlit to begin construction on a new, multi-story office building on Rideout Road, and the Univer sity of Alabama is at the center of a massive renewal project. With both projects placing a strong empha sis on green space, beautification, walkable infrastructure and em ployee amenities, property around the two developments could well experience a rise in value specific to those locations.

As always, the Huntsville Busi ness Journal will keep its readership informed of these developments, and will continue to track real es tate trends for our fair city. w

Above left shows the real estate market of Huntsville Madison County. Above right shows the combined market of Limestone, Dekalb, Etowah, Cherokee, Jackson, Marshall, and Madison counties

Governor Ivey Helps Cut the Ribbon for Wellstone’s New $10 Million Mental Health Facility

It was a packed house on Mon day as seven state legislators, one governor, several news cameras and dozens of citizens from all over north Alabama gathered at the Wellstone campus on Memorial Parkway. Well stone CEO Jeremy Blair was joined by Gov. Kay Ivey and the state’s Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswell as they cut the ribbon on Wellstone’s new crisis center and welcomed a new era of mental health treatment across Huntsville, Madi son County and the entire state.

The new $10 million facil ity is a state-of-the-art crisis center that will offer citizens short term and long term care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Equipped with 16 beds, the crisis center provides new possibilities for mental health accommodations as the options before were limited to jails and emer gency rooms. The building itself is “more than just bricks and mor tar,” according to Blair. The CEO likened it to a symbol of hope and healing for the people it will serve regardless of zip code, gender or any other demographic.

Blair echoed sentiments made by state representative and House Ma jority Leader Nathaniel Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) as they both stressed that mental health is just as impor tant as physical health and should be treated as such.

“As Leader Ledbetter discussed, we can no longer separate mental health care and physical health be cause they are one and the same,” Blair preached. “When we neglect our mental health, eventually, we’re going to neglect our physical health. We’ve got to do a better job of under standing and realizing that. I think

more and more people are realizing that it’s OK to not be OK. And they are seeking that help.”

The center at Wellstone is one of six across the state that is either open or opening in the near fu ture. The crisis centers are a direct result of Ivey’s administration, the Alabama Department of Mental Health and the Alabama legislature appropriating necessary funds for the first major investment in state mental health services since the Wallace administration. In her re marks at the ceremony, Governor Ivey emphasized that it is well past time for Alabama to prioritize men tal health care.

“Often called a mental health

pioneer in Alabama, my mentor Lurleen Wallace (Alabama’s first female governor) laid the founda tion for mental health care which throughout the past three decades has been placed on the back burn er for way too long,” she remarked. “But it’s time. It’s been time for Alabama to prioritize mental health services and I’m proud to say we are continuing just that here today.”

Thanks to funding from the state legislature, crisis centers are opening soon in Birmingham, Montgomery, Dothan, Tuscaloosa and Mobile, in addition to the Huntsville location. For the Huntsville location, $5 mil lion of the funding came from state funds with the remaining $5 million being raised through donations and local government funds.

Wellstone is also opening a sep arate pediatric wing for the crisis center that will contain 24 addition al beds. Blair said the company will break ground on the pediatric wing in spring of 2023. w

By Noah Logan /

Photos by Jeff White & Noah Logan

“When we neglect our mental health, eventually, we’re going to neglect our physical health. We’ve got to do a better job of under standing and realizing that.”

“But it’s time. It’s been time for Alabama to prioritize mental health services and I’m proud to say we are continuing just that here today.”

Shelby Helps Celebrate U.S. Courthouse in Downtown Ceremony

It’s been two decades in the mak ing, but the long-awaited new federal courthouse is finally moving forward.

Senator Richard Shelby, who is finishing his sixth term in office be fore retiring, continued a “victory lap” in Huntsville as the keynote speaker during a groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Northern District Court house in downtown.

The appearance was his second in the city that day. Earlier, he gave his annual Washington Update dur ing a breakfast at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.

Both events were sponsored by the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber.

“Between Lynwood Smith and (the late Herman) “Buck’’ Watson, for years these two men worried me to death about this courthouse,’’ Shelby said. “And they didn’t give up. When one would call me, the other would be on the phone (later) to see

what I promised.’’

For years, all Shelby could say for certain was that the land at the inter section of Gallatin Street and Lowe Avenue would be purchased. The land was bought 20 years ago, and this week a celebration was held after years of lobby ing on behalf of the state’s most caseloaded court for a new facility.

Though Monday was the groundbreak ing, construction actually began in April. Completion of the project, estimated to cost around $100 million, is scheduled for com pletion in summer-to-late 2024.

The ceremony was the continua tion of a coronation for Shelby that began with the earlier breakfast. Local

By Mike Easterling /

politicians feted the long-time Wash ington, D.C. stalwart, who first went to the nation’s capital as a state rep

Photos courtesy of Huntsville/Madison County Chamber

“This is a need for our downtown area, it’s a need for North Alabama, it’s a need for the nation and that is one of the things Richard Shelby has brought to us time and time again’’

resentative in 1978 before eventually moving to the Senate.

He has served as a Congress man for a total of 44 years and is in the final months of his 36th year as Senator.

“When we open in late 2024, the beautiful landmark on the hill above us will stand for many generations as a legacy of Senator Shelby and his foresight and unequal service to our state and nation,’’ said Smith, a Se nior District Judge.

Smith also acknowledged Huntsville Mayor Battle and his ad ministration for their role in getting the project off the ground.

“I want to personally thank Mayor Battle and his very competent staff for their focus, commitment and assistance with this project,’’ Smith said.

Battle stressed the importance of adding a modern courthouse.

“This is a need for our downtown area, it’s a need for North Alabama, it’s a need for the nation and that is one of the things Richard Shelby has

brought to us time and time again,’’ he said. “If there was a need for the nation, Richard Shelby would step up and Richard Shelby would come in and say, ‘Where in Alabama do you want to put that?’’

“A need for this nation is a fed eral courthouse. A federal courthouse will give us a chance to make sure we have justice throughout this area, but it also gives us a chance to have a facility that reflects what this city is, what this state is, what this country is.’’

Battle said Smith and District Judge Liles C. Burke were both in strumental in making the dream a reality.

“They’ve been on point all along,’’ Battle said.

Deputy Commissioner Allison Azevedo represented the federal Gen eral Services Administration.

“I read about the great plans go ing on in this community,’’ she said, “but now I get to see it for myself.’’

The courthouse will have five courtrooms, six judges’ chambers and office space for other federal agencies.

Shelby added that Huntsville’s growth made the new courthouse necessary. He recounted a story about a couple from New Jersey in Washing ton that told him they were moving to Huntsville.

“Huntsville is a great city – it’s going to grow more,’’ Shelby said. “They’re coming from everywhere. You’re going to see more of this. So you needed this courthouse.’’ w

Huntsville Hosts Successful Demo of SAIC’s Counter Unmanned Aerial System

The 2022 Space & Missile De fense Symposium brought the best and brightest to Huntsville’s Von Braun Center last month, showcas ing the latest Missile and Aerospace Technologies being developed in the United States.

Businesses from the City of Hunts ville were also present demonstrating the latest in military and civilian tech nology. Companies such as SAIC and their Counter Unmanned Aerial Sys tem (CUAS) were key highlights of a successful event.

Last week, a team of SAIC from various locations across the nation returned to Huntsville for a series of demonstrations at SCI Technol ogy's headquarterss.

SAIC began with an overview of the CUAS system. SAIC engineers label the Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (CUAS) as a “drone security that is ready to integrate” itself into mainstream U.S. security systems.

Both for defense and civilian use, the CUAS defense system capabilities stretch from military bases, commer cial flights, border protection and detection, and even identification and threat mitigation.

In an interview with the Hunts ville Business Journal, SAIC engineers provided a brief overview of the four scenarios that followed:

Scenario 1 (Loitering Drone): The CUAS system provides detec tion, tracking and identification for situational awareness. Detecting the UAS requires the use of radio frequen

cy (RF) Sensors, Radars and electronic warfare (EW) sensors. To identify the UAS, the system uses visual camera sensors equipped with slew-tocue technology.

Scenario 2 (Inbound Threat): The CUAS system provides detection, tracking, identification and mitiga tion. To detect the UAS, the system uses RF sensors, Radars and EW sensors. To identify the UAS, the system uses visual camera sensors equipped with slew-to-cue technology. The threat is mitigated using a Blue Force Interceptor provided by our partner, SCI.

Scenario 3 (Multiple Threats): The CUAS system provides detection, tracking, identification and mitigation for multiple simultaneous threats. To detect the UAS, the system uses RF sensors, Radars and EW sensors. To identify the UAS, the system relies visual camera sensors equipped with slew-to-cue technology. The threat as mitigated using EW sensors, which

took control of the threat and returned it to point of origin.

Scenario 4 (Long Range Threat): The CUAS system can detect an in bound threat using RF Sensors, Radars and EW sensors. To identify the UAS, the system relies on visual camera sen sors using slew-to-cue technology. To identify the UAS, the system uses vi sual camera sensors equipped with slew-to-cue technology. The threat as mitigated using EW sensors, which took control of the threat and landed it at a point near the command tent.

With each scenario finalized, and the demo seemingly successful, the attention was turned toward the peo ple behind the project. In this case, according to Greg Fortier, Vice Presi dent, Aviation and Missile Defense of SAIC, the budget and number of Huntsville-based employees fluctuated for this project.

“Our Counter Unmanned Aerial System uses the best technology we can find to build the best systems and

By Gus Wintzell /

Photos courtesy of SAIC

components needed to detect, track, identify and defeat a threat posed by any unmanned aerial system. Using an open-systems approach means that our scalable (can be built for a small area or big area) and tailorable (the type of systems desired to detect, track, identi fy and defeat UAS) system-of-systems can be incorporated into a larger net work of systems to provide a defense in depth, layered counter to unmanned aerial system threats. This means the system can be mobile mounted on an off-road vehicle, into a large truck or vehicle, on a large storage container or box, or a fixed building site.”

Fortier also pointed out that the demo’s success, and the CUAS system, will benefit North Alabama as a whole in many ways.

“SAIC has been based in Hunts ville for decades. Beyond the physical involvement of our SAIC employees -- working alongside our Huntsvillebased partners such as SCI Technology – is that we can build, test, and man age the program near an area approved by the FAA for testing, like we did to day,” Fortier stated.

“Additionally, U.S. Army com mands based at Redstone Arsenal are invested in emergent technology and solutions that support and defend Soldiers in the field. Our support of those commands over the past several decades and through our current con tracts, allow us to understand what solutions are needed now and how we can work to make the system easily op erable for any user.”

Dr. Charles L. Karr Named President of The University of Alabama in Huntsville

The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees has unanimously named Dr. Charles L. “Chuck” Karr president of The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). University of Alabama System Chancellor Finis St. John recommended the appointment to the UA System Board of Trustees at its meeting on September 16, 2022.

“Furthering the success of UAH is a top priority for the University of Alabama System and the Board of Trustees,” Chancellor St. John said. “Dr. Karr’s sustained leadership will bring positive momentum and a stra tegic, unified vision to UAH as it continues its trajectory as a preemi nent doctoral research university in one of America’s fastest-growing and most robust regions.”

Chancellor St. John said Dr. Karr earned countless votes of sup port from faculty and staff, students, community leaders, elected officials and other constituents during his highly successful tenure as interim president. “The enthusiastic support within the institution and throughout the broader community is a proven testament to Dr. Karr and the suc cess he has already achieved at UAH,” said St. John.

One of Karr’s hallmark accom plishments as interim president has been his keen ability to strength en partnerships with leaders across the Huntsville area. Relationships with Redstone Arsenal, Cummings Research Park, business and the edu cation sector are flourishing under his watch.

“It is my highest honor to lead UAH as we work to fulfill our institutional mission as a premier research-inten sive university that is responsive to the needs of the community and beyond,” said President Karr. “I am grateful for this incredible opportunity and look forward to working with all those driving UAH toward unprec edented success, including the Board of Trustees, Chancellor St. John, our faculty and staff, students, and leaders throughout the Huntsville commu nity. There are many exciting things happening on the UAH campus, and I know there is much more to come

in our future.”

Earlier this year, UAH achieved the top level “R1 – Very high research activity” rank in Carnegie research classifications, which is the highest research activity designation among doctoral universities. Research at UAH is a vibrant and expanding func tion and underscores the University’s valuable position in Alabama as a lead ing engineering and science research institution.

Under Dr. Karr’s leadership, UAH received one of the most significant appropriations in University history for its engineering building project, which will allow UAH to advance its flagship program, foster innova

tive and impactful research efforts, and address critical STEM workforce needs. With 73% of alums residing in Alabama, UAH supplies a highly edu cated workforce to the state and fills the community’s workforce pipeline.

“Dr. Chuck Karr is quite possibly the most dynamic leader that I have ever been associated with, in higher education and beyond,” said Trustee Ron Gray, chair of the UAH Com mittee of the UA System Board of Trustees. “I am certain that under Dr. Karr’s leadership, UAH will not only reach its full potential but far surpass our expectations.”

Other significant accomplish ments achieved by Dr. Karr as interim

By Gus Wintzell & Lynn Lowe Cole / Photos courtesy of The University of Alabama in Huntsvile

UAH president include recruiting new faculty and strategic leaders as well as securing merit raises for eligible UAH employees in FY 2023. Institutional giving has doubled during his tenure.

Before being appointed interim president of UAH in November 2021, Dr. Karr had recently retired from The University of Alabama after 26 years of service.

“Dr. Chuck Karr has exhibited the highest degree of excellence in every stage of his extensive and im pressive academic career,” said UA System Board of Trustees President Pro Tempore W. Stancil Starnes. “The appointment of a campus president is one of the most impor tant actions taken by the Board of Trustees. We have the utmost confi dence in Dr. Karr and know he will be an invaluable asset to UAH, the Uni versity of Alabama System, and the State of Alabama.”

During his 16-year tenure as dean of the University of Alabama College of Engineering, Karr was credited with transforming the col lege into a research and academic powerhouse that ascended in na tional rankings. He more than tripled the College’s undergraduate en rollment with the recruitment of high-quality students, grew the faculty, supported the construction of new fa cilities to enhance academic programs, and expanded research activity by in creasing research awards more than $45 million.

He previously chaired UA’s aero space engineering and mechanics department and was the College’s as sociate dean for research and graduate studies. He spent seven years as a re search engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Mines before joining the UA faculty full time.

Dr. Karr is a three-time UA grad uate, earning a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. and Ph.D. in engineering mechanics. He has received numerous prestigious recog nitions for his academic and leadership achievements. A native of Gulf Breeze, Fla., Dr. Karr and his wife, Jodie, live in Huntsville and have two adult chil dren, Nathan and Noah.

Pictured L to R: UA System Chancellor Finis St. John, UAH President Dr. Chuck Karr, UA System Board President Pro Tempore Stan Starnes

LandrumHR Expands PEO Services to Huntsville

LandrumHR, a professional employer organization (PEO) that supports more than 1,800 business es and thousands of employees and job seekers across the country, now offers customized PEO services to businesses in Huntsville, Alabama, and its surrounding communities.

Katherine Grace leads Lan drumHR services in the greater Huntsville area as a business con sultant. With a record of success in sales, account management and marketing, Katherine is poised to help local businesses thrive through LandrumHR’s award-win ning HR outsourcing.

“I am excited to join the LandrumHR PEO team in my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, to help local businesses realign their focus back on the growth and the mission of their business by

offering unique HR solutions,” Katherine said.

“Huntsville is a place that is near and dear to my heart as I was born and raised here, along with several members of my extended family. Seeing the Rocket City grow at such a fast pace over the last several years has been exciting. I believe Lan drumHR can facilitate continued growth opportunities for Huntsville area businesses through the exper tise and solutions we offer.”

A graduate of the University

of Alabama with a degree in Busi ness Administration, Katherine has previous PEO experience and joins LandrumHR following three years at Cobbs Allen Insurance Agency in Birmingham, Alabama.

For most small businesses, HR administrative tasks take up an enormous amount of time and re sources that should be dedicated to producing revenue. To learn more about LandrumHR’s wide portfolio of services, please visit their website at www.landrumhr.com.

Photo courtesy of LandrumHR

“Huntsville is a place that is near and dear to my heart as I was born and raised here, along with several members of my extended family. Seeing the Rocket City grow at such a fast pace over the last sev eral years has been exciting.”

Three Progress Bank Staff Graduate from Alabama Banking School

A total of 36 students from across the state graduated from the Alabama Banking School on August 26. Held at The Renaissance Hotel in Montgomery, this year’s session was the 47th since the school first began in 1976.

First Community Bank of Central Alabama’s Chairman Tra Cosby served as this year’s com mencement speaker. Alabama Banking School Director Kent Howze awarded diplomas to the graduates. Howze is a member of the leadership team at Peo ples Bank of Alabama headquartered in Cullman.

Sponsored by the Alabama Bankers Association, the school is administered by a 26-member faculty comprised of bankers and industry professionals. Fac ulty members are dedicated to teaching the latest trends and best practices to help students become more knowledgeable bank employees.

The school’s staff consists of former graduates who are active bankers in the state of Alabama. Students attended three week-long sessions during a two-year period to complete the program. At the conclusion of each session, students must successfully complete two final exams. While not in session, students are required to complete extensive home study problems.

During the third and final session, students form teams and participate in a bank simulation program called BankExec. This program allows students to make strategic decisions for a virtual bank to offer a complete picture of how these decisions affect bank performance.

The three Progress Bank staff members are Sam Chambliss (Birmingham Credit Officer), Claudia Compton (Decatur Branch Manager) and Jeff Wad dail (Huntsville Credit Administrator).

Community Foundation CEO Earns Prestigious Accreditation

HUNTSVILLE, AL – Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville CEO and President Melissa Thompson recently received the prestigious recognition of Char tered Advisor in Philanthropy® designation by The American College of Financial Ser vices.

The Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® (CAP®) designation is a certification ensuring that its recipients share a common body of knowl edge to collaborate effectively with clients on all aspects of charitable gift planning. The cross-disciplinary curriculum synthesizes the arts and sciences of philanthropic planning, including taxation, finance, fun draising, purposeful planning, family philanthropy, psychology, and strategic philanthropy.

“We help donors be generous, however that looks for them. The CAP® program provides additional insights into philanthropic planning that will better equip us to guide donors on the path to generosity that is right for them. The sophisticated generosity strategies learned through CAP® will help our donors realize their philanthropic goals for them selves, their family, and their community,” said Thompson.

The rigorous CAP® program requires completion of three 14-week graduate-level courses and culminates in comprehensive exams prior to awarding accreditation.

President Biden Appoints Drake State’s Dr. Patricia Sims to National Infrastructure Advisory Council

President Biden announced this week his in tent to appoint Dr. Patricia G. Sims, President of Drake State Community & Technical College, to the President’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC). The NIAC advises the White House on how to reduce physical and cyber risks and improve the security and resilience of the nation’s critical infrastructure sectors. She joins 26 highly qualified and diverse industry and government leaders selected for this appointment and is the only Alabama representative.

Dr. Sims has been President of Drake State, a Historically Black Com munity College, since 2018. Under her leadership, Drake State has seen a significant increase in state and federal funding, has increased strategic part nerships, and expanded its program offerings.

The College was recently awarded a $2.4 million grant as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce and National Telecommunications and Informa tion Administration’s (NTIA), Connecting Minority Communities Pilot (CMCP) program, to help eliminate historical broadband and computer ac cess inequities in and around Madison County, Alabama. Drake State was one of the first five universities and the first Historically Black College and Univer sity (HBCU) to be awarded the grant.

Sims has more than 28 years of progressive experience in the field of Edu cation. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Alabama State Port Authority, the Alabama Partnership for Children, and the Alabama For ever Wild Land Trust.

“It’s an honor to be asked to serve on this much-needed council,” said Sims. “Our work at Drake State is always about improving the lives of indi viduals for the betterment of our community. We address workforce needs in key areas of technology and healthcare that play a role in cyber security and disaster preparedness.

New Member Appointed to Von Braun Center Board of Control

HUNTSVILLE, AL – The Von Braun Center (VBC) has announced the addition of Lynn Troy as the newest member of the Von Braun Center Board of Control. Ms. Troy was appointed by the Hunts ville City Council and began her post on August 28, 2022.

Ms. Troy is the President of Troy7, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yulista Holding, LLC. Troy7 is focused on telemetry, missile design and analysis, guidance and control, intel, range operations, and directed energy.

“I’m truly honored to have been appointed to serve the City as a member of the VBC Board of Control,” remarked Ms. Troy. “I am excited to work with the other board members and the outstanding VBC staff to continue to improve this vital asset to our community! Thank you for this opportunity!”

In addition to Troy7, Ms. Troy was one of the founding owners of Rocket Republic Brewing Company, a local craft brewery from 2013-2020.

Lynn currently serves on several non-profit Boards: Huntsville Chamber Executive Committee (Chair Elect), Habitat for Humanity (Past President), Community Foundation (Treasurer), American Heart Association’s Heart Ball ELT (2021 Chair). She also serves on the Women’s Philanthropy Society’s Advi sory Board (Grant Chair), the UAH College of Business Advisory Board, and she is a Hudson Alpha Ambassador.

Ms. Troy was honored by Yellowhammer News as one of 20 Women of Im pact for the state of Alabama in 2021. In 2018, Ms. Troy received the Russell G. Brown Executive Leadership award and was recognized as one of Alabama Media Groups Women Who Shape the State. In 2013, she received the Technol ogy Award from WEDC’s Women Honoring Women. Ms. Troy is a graduate of Leadership Alabama – Class XXXI, Leadership Huntsville’s Flagship Class (L29), and the 2019 FBI Citizens Academy.