I have been spending some time lately putting together a time line of key events in SAIC’s history for the book. It has been good to consider the many remarkable things we accomplished together, and I think our readers will find value in it. My question for you is this: What do you think are the key events in SAIC history? This might be the award of a certain contract, or the acquisition of a particular company, or the opening of an office or new business unit, or any number of other events. Please provide what the event was, when it occurred, and why it was important to the company.
Click on the comments link to share your thoughts.
– Bob
Here are comments on some of your responses:
Barry Shillito (Week 3): I feel that by and large the contributions from individual board members were solicited, and they endeavored to support us with help on our difficult board and management decisions. And we had a lot of difficult decisions. Towards the end of my tenure on the board, things got rather complicated. Although I tried to be helpful and made many recommendations to the board, the majority of its members was clearly not in sympathy with my recommendations. As a result, SAIC has changed — and will continue to change. SAIC is an incredibly strong company, and it seems to be weathering the new environment. I hope SAIC will do well as a public company and staff will remain as dedicated and supportive of the line management as they always have.
Hemmo Alting-Mees (Week 4): I believe that the accomplishments of the Electronic Vision Division are included in the book. If they’re not, I’ll see what I can do to include them. The development of the digicon was something unique to be proud of. Others had tried it and failed.
Scott Fiero (Week 7): STRATCOM is one of my favorite organizations and, over time, I have had the pleasure of working with a number of people like you who are equally interested in the mission of the command. The stock reward program in SAIC of course was designed to recognize such efforts, and I’m pleased to see you were part of it. I always felt that with STRATCOM, the work we were doing was especially important.
Duane Hove (Week 8): By now, I have responded to a number of blog comments about SAIC, and these comments vary considerably. The most prevalent attribute of SAIC that we run into is of course employee ownership. However, you’re right — lots of people are happy just to have the privilege to work in a good environment where the management was supportive in encouraging and recognizing achievement.
Jeff Van Fleet (Week 11): I’m glad SAIC helped you. What was the biggest thing employee ownership allowed you to do? Maybe some people don’t value it highly. I’m wondering why you value it so highly, although I’m glad you do.
Chris Rowe (Week 11): I have a couple of questions for you. First, please explain “CCOE practice.” And, second, please include the name of your new company so we can add it to our list.
Cecelia McCloy (Week 11): We’ll make sure you’re included as a spin-off of SAIC — it sounds like you are doing well and have the right idea on priorities for running your employee-owned business. Long-term customer relationships and high quality are indeed in my experience the most important things to focus on in a company, whether large or small.
Rich Crawford (Week 12): Your description of the employee participation methodology is right on target, and we are addressing this in the book.
William Grossman (Week 12): Your view of SAIC describes the unique culture we tried to build at SAIC, and it is beautifully written.
Charlie Stevens (Week 12): Good to hear from you, Charlie. You and Gerry Pomraning made a big contribution to retirement plans and the stock bonus system at SAIC. Those early days set the stage for the continued expansion of the ways we could reward stock to employees, while further expanding their stock ownership potential. It’s interesting how many different plans we ended up having.