If the mind-blowing growth of the Hispanic-owned Intuitive Research and Technology Corporation is any indication, the year 2008 -- though a tough time for most of us -- was a stellar year for the missile industry.
Majority-owned by Puerto Rican-American Rey Almodovar, the Alabama-based defense contractor's revenue exploded in 2008, tripling to $43.4 million from $15.6 million in 2007.
The 10-year-old company's good times continued this week, when the federal Small Business Administration named it the "small business prime contractor of the year" -- complete with a handshake from President Barack Obama himself. The event was part of the SBA's National Small Business Week celebration.
"I got interviewed for CNN-Spanish, and they were insisting I tell them how bad it is for small businesses," Almodovar told HispanicBusiness.com with a chuckle, speaking by phone from Washington D.C., where he'd just picked up the award and met the president. "But we haven't been affected. We are doing very well."
The engineering- and programmatic-support company also made an astonishing leap on Hispanic Business Magazine's soon-to-be-released yearly list of the 500 largest Hispanic-owned companies in the United States. Last year, it fared 305th. This year's list will be released in June.
The company's golden goose client is the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, which nominated Intuitive Research and Technology Corporation for the award.
But Almodovar insists that the success of his company isn't because the missile industry is taking off.
"There is no or very little new work in missile systems right now," he said. "We have won the work away from other companies."
Maybe so. However, Intuitive Research and Technology Corporation isn't the only missiles team that is thriving. Raytheon, the nation's largest producer of guided missiles, also reported a solid year in 2008. In January, the Massachusetts-based missile giant posted a growth in sales of 9 percent. This was primarily due to "growth on U.S. Army Programs," according to iStockAnalyst.com.
As for Intuitive Research and Technology Corporation, the company is apparently also a pretty good place to work.
In April, the company was awarded the 2009 Best Places to Work Award for
Huntsville/Madison County.
Almodovar attributes much of this to profit sharing.
"Last year we passed out over $1.2 million in bonuses," he said. "At the end of the year, if it's a good year, everybody gets a piece of the action."
Also, in a tip of the hat to his native Puerto Rico -- where every company is legally required to give employees a Christmas bonus -- Almodovar always does the same for his team of 150.
"I put a little of the Puerto Rican tradition in the company," he said.
The company was co-founded in 1999 by Almodovar and Harold Ray Brewer, both of whom have worked for the federal government as engineers.
Almodovar, a missile production and manufacturing expert, got the ball rolling in 1999 by starting the firm as a small technical services company, providing product and manufacturing support for the government's missiles programs. Current co-owner Brewer, a systems engineer with an expertise in acquisitions, came on 10 months later.
Over the years, their close friendship and complementary skills have been a winning recipe for branching into other aspects of the business.
This year, the company landed a couple plum programmatic prime contracts with the company's biggest client, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command.
In addition, the company is set to expand even more this year, because it won another huge prime technical contract. In terms of money, this means the company's annual earnings are expected to grow, before year end, to $70 million from $43.4 million earned in 2008.
