Stu Shea, CEO of Peraton and 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, has commented on how the COVID-19 has disrupted the daily lives of Americans and the national economy, as well as how Peraton will combat the virus within the company, Peraton announced on Monday.
Shea noted how Peraton customers and program managers have switched to virtual financial reviews and board meetings. Shea stated, “Although I have been back to the office several times to work on some of our classified activities, I have tried to demonstrate through my own actions that each of us can contend with this new environment we find ourselves in through perseverance and agility.”
Peraton has recently announced new initiatives to combat the COVID-19 threat. “As a company,” Shea stated, “we took deliberate measures to protect our employees. Long before it became widely addressed by other companies or many in government, we took dramatics steps.”
In late January, Peraton began modeling and evaluating the threat to the company’s employees that travelled globally. traveling around the world. The company has also required employees who traveled to affected countries to self-quarantine upon their return home.
In February, Shea established a corporate-wide Business Continuity Team, composed of leaders from each of our business sectors and functional areas. He made the team responsible for the business curve. The team has evaluated potential employee exposures, customer and contract guidance, facility security and safety and benchmarks.
Shea added, “I also instructed our teams to install as quickly as possible hand sanitizers at our operating sites, and we began repeated cleaning of common surfaces at our sites to try to stay ahead of the virus’ spread.”
Peraton initiated social distancing practices and launched a comprehensive intranet section that is updated nearly every day with new information, video messages and new resources for employees. On March 12, Peraton officially encouraged all employees to telework.
To manage the change, Peraton integrated its cloud-based IT infrastructure, which is built to securely operate on any device, at any time, anywhere in the world. The infrastructure will allow employees to shift to working from home with minimal disruptions.
Shea noted that the work from home guidance has been easily adapted. “Every day, multiple times a day,” Shea stated, “our entire leadership team is engaged in active dialog, navigating our way through the unknown. We have tried to anticipate as much as we could. We have concentrated on using this time to make us smarter, more resilient, and more capable as an enterprise.”
As a part of a U.S. Critical Infrastructure sector, the Defense Industrial Base, Peraton’s work has been classified by the federal government as a mission essential, which has limited the company’s operating capacity. The company will continue to work on the funded contracts to support its customers’ missions and its 3,500 employees. Amid the restrictions, Peraton will continue to support current and future efforts to ensure success.
“Peraton is faring well through the crisis,” commented Shea. “As I look at the numbers and at our extensive business development pipeline, I see countless opportunities for us to grow as a company and increase our value as a trusted partner to a wide range of military and civil government agencies.”
“We will need to muster the energy and passion to address the opportunities that come with those changes,” Shea noted. “Even as we deal with adversity, we have an opportunity to evolve through these challenges to preserve and protect our workforce, our families, and our livelihoods. I am proud of how our team has responded to COVID-19, and I believe it bodes well for the short- and long-term future of the company.”
About Peraton
Peraton provides innovative, reliable solutions to the nation's most sensitive and mission-critical programs and systems. As a trusted provider of highly differentiated space, intelligence, cyber, defense, homeland security, and communications capabilities, Peraton is a critical partner to the Intelligence Community, Department of Defense, and select federal agencies and commercial entities. Headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, the company employs 3,500 people across the U.S. and Canada.
