What's Next For MAXIMUS?
MAXIMUS Federal’s recent acquisition of Acentia pushes the company into new federal territory. We caught up with MAXIMUS Federal president Tom Romeo at the Falls Church HQ about life after the $300M acquisition and what’s next.
MAXIMUS Federal has grown fourfold in the last five years, specializing in health and human services work for federal agencies, says Tom. (MAXIMUS processes over 1 million Medicare, Medicaid and group health benefit and enrollment appeals per year.) Acentia’s specialty has been systems modernization, software development, program management and other IT services. (Acentia's revenue was $210M last year; MAXIMUS Federal projected an additional $110M in revenue from Acentia for its FY15.) The acquisition also brings MAXIMUS new customers like NOAA and IRS and new contract vehicles like CIO-SP3 ($20B ceiling) and NOAALink, as well as a different kind of IT expertise.
Tom, chatting with SVP Tom Naughton, has been attempting to meet nearly all of Acentia’s 1,000 employees and getting to know their projects. Like most execs post-acquisition, he’s focused on company culture and integrating Acentia with MAXIMUS Federal's 3,000-person workforce. It’s a challenge given that Acentia is the product of several acquisitions and mergers over the years. Tom says the companies will focus on growth through potential synergies between IT and business process management work. For now, the Acentia brand will remain, but Tom says the name will eventually be phased out.
Tom says another big challenge is too many of these cakes. The federal retirement wave has officially started and it means a drain on seasoned federal leadership, which is putting pressure on agencies and their ability to manage contracts and deliver them the right way. Another challenge is the pressure on federal agencies to hire small businesses. Tom says a lot of contracts that need the muscle of larger organization are going to small businesses.
Fun facts about Tom: He worked at IBM, building its international CRM business and traveling all over the world. With a young family at the time, he asked to be transferred to the federal business and fell in love with solving big complex problems. He grew up in upstate New York in a town called Massena, which is 90 miles from Montreal. He met his wife in college and they picked DC, a city neither of them had ever been, as a temporary place to live after graduation. It’s been 30 years. They have two sons and a daughter. Tom, showing us souvenirs from his travels, took the family two years ago to France, where they rented a three-bedroom houseboat on the Canal du Midi. The next trip will be to Alaska.
