Thursday, June 02, 2005
Martinsville branch of MZM may get funds
The latest from The Ticker blog
Companywide, MZM Inc. needs a few good "counter-IED specialists" - with IED being the notorious improvised explosive device.
Based in Washington, D.C., MZM also needs media exploitation specialists, translators, geospatial intelligence analysts and other "highly talented individuals."
The high-tech, national security information technology firm's operations in Martinsville, Va., sound less sexy. But who knows, really, what MZM's 30 employees are up to in the company's office in Martinsville's Clearview Business Park.
MZM officials tend toward being tight-lipped. Company literature reports MZM helps government agencies and private industry solve "enigmatic problems" and "complex challenges in a changing environment." Complex challenges including counterterrorism, "foreign visitor tracking" and "threat analysis for government and commercial VIPs."
According to Caryl Clubb, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Security Service, about 14 members of MZM's Martinsville staff work under a DSS contract to run a Foreign Supplier Assessment Center on Clearview Drive. Clubb said the center completes background checks, in effect, on foreign firms that are suppliers to the Department of Defense.
U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced last month that the committee had recommended federal funding of $10 million for the Foreign Supplier Assessment Center in Martinsville. Warner's press office did not respond when asked why the committee believed the $10 million would be a good use of taxpayer dollars.
U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Rocky Mount, was instrumental in MZM's decision to locate an office in Martinsville, according to a press release from Gov. Mark Warner.
MZM was the top campaign contributor to Goode in 2004, according to Web site opensecrets.org.
According to Robert Beals, a spokesman for MZM, roughly another 16 employees in Martinsville focus on data storage related to the firm's other national security programs. Beals said he anticipates MZM's Martinsville office eventually will have about 150 employees. That was the three-year employment target emphasized when MZM and state and local officials announced in November 2003 that MZM would purchase a shell building in the Clearview Business Park and establish a field office there.
Beals acknowledged that the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent "war on terror" have been a boon to many defense contractors and companies operating in the arenas of intelligence gathering and national security.
According to MZM's Web site, the company's revenues tripled in 2004 and its staff nearly quadrupled. Beals said MZM has about 600 employees companywide.
MZM made Washington Technology's 2005 list of the top 100 federal contractors. Founded in 1993, MZM has offices in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Charlottesville, Tampa, Fla., Martinsville and San Diego, as well as Seoul, South Korea, Stuttgart, Germany, and Baghdad.
On the Net:
News researcher Belinda Harris
contributed to this report.
