DMV Cleared Roles & New Contracts

After more than 8 years with SMX, the biggest thing that kept me engaged is, if you come up with an idea, there’s always someone willing to listen. I’ve never had anyone shoot an idea down. I sometimes forget that not everyone at other companies has that. You don’t get siloed here. We give people opportunity and they have the ability to take the initiative and run with it.

We have a startup-type mentality, but with a bigger company supporting us. The way that people approach things, the way that we look at our customers, and the way that people are able to just reach out and talk to each other — it’s super important for me. And that’s honestly the types of things that’s kept me here for so long.

At my last employer, I felt like a number. I’d worked with SMX employees who had nothing but good things to say. They felt empowered in a way that I wasn’t. So I was definitely interested in the opportunity to come here.

Even when I was being recruited, some of the people in HR were talking with me well past 5:00, and that continued during onboarding. Being remote could be a bit overwhelming for a new employee. SMX leveraged the tools and made it easy to navigate all the information. Instead of a fire hose, it’s been a steady stream of information.

This has been a night and day experience from my last employer. I’ve worked with some really good people over the last couple of years and I will be trying to get them on board soon.

I’ve been on active duty, enlisted, for 21 years. I came into the military under 9/11, and now retiring under COVID. (DoD’s) Skilbridge is a great program; In 2014, there were 1,400 applicants DoD-wide, in 2020-2021, over 60,000 — it’s definitely caught fire.

As an SMX intern, they have a training plan for me. Now, I’m continuing on the same path. I’ve gone from satellite acquisition (for the Air Force) to missile defense, protecting the warfighter — this is important, and SMX puts a value on that.

I’m not a chase the money guy. I’m a quality of life person. My program manager is a retired Army officer, and he’s helping me make the transition. SMX is talking the talk and walking the walk.

I was looking to get with a company that is up-and-coming and had an opening for a compliance program. SMX did not have one, so I looked at that as an opportunity to come in and start up a robust compliance program from the ground up. And that’s exactly what I did.

SMX has that small company feel, but we obviously work as a large company. Our CEO stresses a team of teams approach; we are multiple teams working to accomplish the same common goal. When you have a team of teams approach, it makes everything more streamlined, without having all of the potential headwinds that some companies have internally.