Jon Rucker has occupied the CEO role at Ultra Intelligence and Communications for exactly a year now and he says the thing he’s proudest of so far is putting together a cohesive and collaborative team built for success.
“We’ve had tremendous cultures at all the different locations, but this is now a team leading with one overarching culture for the business. And I think when you have one culture and one set of beliefs, it allows you to attack the business together as a team,” Rucker told GovCon Wire on the sidelines of the 2023 Baird Government and Defense Conference.
Rucker delivered a company presentation earlier in the day to a room full of eager onlookers, where he walked us through Ultra I&C’s many capabilities and gave a peek into some of its strategies going forward. The company commands just over $300 million in annual revenue; some of the “different locations” he mentioned include what he termed “familiar brands.” Among them, the Florida-based Prologic and the Texas-based Advanced Tactical Systems, which are both part of the organization’s portfolio.
Ultra I&C operates with a “rich history of research and development,” according to Rucker, primarily through the company’s Ultra Labs concept, which is its innovation hub. With Ultra Labs, the company’s personnel partner directly with members of academia and independent R&D organizations to develop their tools and offerings, such as the encryption-on-a-chip rescue architecture the company provides for the U.S. Army.
In conversation with GovCon Wire, Rucker additionally highlighted a unique tool the company offers: a satellite communications capability that can switch between orbits, moving between geospatial orbit, middle Earth orbit, or MEO, and lower Earth orbit, or LEO.
“When you start getting into MEO and then down into LEO, you need the ability to adjust how you’re tracking it because it’s moving across your field of views. You have to be able to adjust. So you need systems that are literally pointing the whole time,” Rucker outlined.
The Ultra I&C chief executive also previewed both an exciting new hire that he feels cements what has been an extremely effective year of team-building, as well as a new R&D effort, each due in Q1 FY24.
“We have a couple of really critical technology demos that are large, significant advancements for us that will be coming out the first quarter of next year,” Rucker commented.
