AMTI to lead TOPOFF-4 exercises
Company defeats Northrop and Lockheed in winning the $24 million contract; planning for the ten day event will take eighteeen months; bid accepted on the strength of AMTI’s presentation, as well as on strong performance in earlier TOPOFF events
Here is some good news for San Diego, California-based Science Applications International Corporation. Just last month it announced it would purchase Virginia Beach, Virginia-based Applied Marine Technology (AMTI), and now we hear the company has won a $24 million DHS contract to take the lead role in designing, casting, and operating the the TOPOFF 4 terrorist response exercises to be held in late 2007. AMTI beat out such well-known industry giants as Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman and Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp.
Founded by special operations veterans, AMTI was an active participant in two of the three previous TOPOFF exercises. Observers say that among AMTI’s advantages in winning the lead role this time was a submitted set of flawless responses to the two scenarios DHS judges assigned in order to test the companies hoping to plan and coordinate the exercise. “We won because of our technological approach and staffing,” AMTI’s Cary Ellis said. “We have a proven team.”
Each TOPOFF exercise involves a two-year cycle of planning, seminars, exercise and training activities leading to a “Command Post Exercise” in the first year and a full-scale exercise in the second year. The 2007 AMTI-led version, however, promises to be larger and more complex than any of its predecessors, with 15,000 participants stretched across North America, Europe, and the Pacific Ocean. AMTI expects the ten day event will require eighteen months of preparation. “There are a lot of moving parts that have to be coordinated,” Ellis explained. “This is no cakewalk,” he added. “It is real.”
-read more in Josh Martin’s GSN report
