Military contractor calls Q-C home

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By Ed Tibbetts | Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:06 AM CST | () comments

In a small collection of offices in the Executive Square Building in downtown Davenport is the headquarters of a military contractor.

It’s not the kind of thing you expect to see in the Quad-Cities. Military contractors usually base their operations in and around Washington, D.C., close to the Pentagon and the decision-makers on billions of dollars of contracts.

So it might be surprising to find Vista International Operations here. But not to Craig Roberts, executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“We wanted to be where the action is,” he said.

For Vista, that means being close to the Army Sustainment Command, based on Arsenal Island.

The command, which streamlines logistics support to U.S. troops in the field, lets more than $9 billion contracts per year. And Quad-City economic development officials hope the command — as well as the headquarters of the 1st U.S. Army, which is expected to move to Arsenal Island by 2011 — will become a magnet for contractors eager to do business with them.

Vista, while a small company, is a prime example of what’s possible with the sustainment command and the 1st Army, said Fred Smith, a former top executive on Arsenal Island who chairs a group aimed at new and expanding missions on the island. “This is exactly what we want to happen,” he said.

Vista, which employs 120 people across the country, 60 in the Quad-Cities, moved its headquarters here last June. It had considered several other locations.

Vista’s parent, Bristol Bay Native Corp. is an Alaska-based firm whose shareholders are Eskimo, Indian or Aleut.

The company is certified for a federal government program that offers contract procurement advantages for minority and disadvantaged businesses.

Vista was formed nine years ago to provide information management services for the USDA.

It became a part of Bristol Bay in 2001 and now works with military installations across the country, as well as some government and commercial clients.

At the Arsenal, the company provides information technology, data management and other services.

Vista has $13 million in annual revenues, $8 million from the Arsenal.

Vista employees working on Arsenal Island have an average annual salary of nearly $54,000.

It’s those kind of high-paying jobs that local economic development officials hope to spin off the logisics elements on the Arsenal.

Thom Hart, senior vice president of public policy for the Quad-City Development Group, said it is working with the Arsenal to identify potential “connections,” especially among small and mid-sized companies.

“It’s a premier growth opportunity,” Hart said.

The Arsenal is the Quad-Cities largest employer, but the base closing process in 2005 emphasized its vulnerability when the military came close to shutting it down.

As it is, more than 1,000 jobs are expected to be lost with the move of the Army’s TACOM organization to Detroit and the loss of the Installation Management Command and Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Roberts, who has lived in the Quad-Cities since 1980, said it wanted to be close to the Arsenal and that played a role in locating here.

So did the Midwest’s central location.

In addition to Arsenal Island, Vista works with military bases in several states, including Texas, California and South Carolina, as well as the Balad Airbase in Iraq.

“We think there’s a viable growth capability on the Arsenal,” Roberts said. “Contractors have to support that, too, and participate in that growth.”

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.