By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published May 11, 2009

What recession?

From James Ward’s vantage point, business is strong.

The senior vice president of Scientific Research Corp. is overseeing a 20,000-square-foot expansion of the company’s North Charleston facility and the planned hiring of an additional 100 employees by year’s end.

“We’ve experienced consistent growth over the last 20 years,” Ward said. “We’re growing our work force as we speak.”

Scientific Research Corp. is an advanced engineering company founded in 1988 to provide technology solutions to the U.S. government, private industry and international markets. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, but the bulk of its employees are in Charleston.

Currently, the company has a local work force of about 560. In the past year, the company added 125 local employees.

Ward has been with the company for about a year. He retired from the government last year after a 12-year stint as the executive director of Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Charleston.

He joined Scientific Research Corp. not long afterward.

Ward credits the company’s success to its innovative technology work and its relationship with the community and its employees.

The company has grown so large that it moved from Faber Place into a new 65,000-square-foot space off Remount Road last year. This year, it will expand into an additional 20,000 square feet in the same state-of-the-art building, to accommodate its expected growth during the next three years, Ward said.

“It’s so great to have a building that reflects the quality of the personnel,” Ward said.
The recession has impacted Scientific Research Corp. in one critical way. Although the company is growing, recruiting people has been a challenge, Ward said, because employees elsewhere are having trouble selling their homes.

The company is looking for high-tech software and network engineers, with a particular emphasis on people with military backgrounds and employees with security clearance.

Part of Scientific Research Corp.’s mission is to rethink the way technology solutions are packaged for the military, Ward said. The emphasis is on moving away from a “boxology” system, where one program is designed for every new application, to a system where one program can be easily reconfigured to meet a variety of defense needs.

That could mean taking existing programs — such as Google Maps — and retooling them to meet a military use. This new design is necessary, he said, to combat advancements in the asymmetrical war fighting capabilities of America’s enemies.

“These guys are hitting us six ways to Sunday,” Ward said.

With a change in national leadership, companies that do business with the government have kept a watchful eye on what President Barack Obama’s administration recommends in terms of defense spending. Ward said he hopes the government continues to dedicate money to the creation of high-tech software development. 

“I believe this area is the best investment government can make to increase efficiency and effectiveness,” he said.

Allen Chavis, a systems analyst, said a great thing about working at the company is the knowledge that his work is contributing to the safety of the soldiers and Marines in the field.

“To go home at night and turn on CNN and see what’s going on in the world, and to know you’ve spent your day making a difference — for sure, that’s a big thing,” Chavis said.

He celebrates his two-year anniversary with the company in August.

The company celebrated its 20th anniversary in September.

A year after Scientific Research Corp.’s 1998 founding, the company had 10 employees and $2 million in revenue. It closed the year in 2007 with $172 million in revenue and more than 1,000 employees.

“It’s been a growth story all the way,” said Marian Logan, the company’s human resources business partner. “There’s never a dull moment. It’s a really good group of people here.”

Reach Molly Parker at 843-849-3144.