Chris Van Metre, CEO Of Advance Technology International (ATI)

Chris Van Metre, CEO Of Advance Technology International (ATI)

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
iHeart Media presents CEOs you should Know. Chris van Meter is CEO of ATI
Advanced Technology International. Prior to joiningATI, Chris had a twenty year career
in the United States Navy, wherehe served in a variety of leadership and
management positions in both staff and operationalassignments, including command of a nuclear powered

(00:21):
submarine. Mister van Meter earned Navydesignation as a Specialist in nuclear engineering and
as a Master Training Specialist in curriculumdevelopment. Welcome to CEOs you should know,
mister Chris van Meter. Thank youvery much, Michael, it's a
pleasure to be here. I'm reallyhonored that you've asked me to talk to
you today. Well, I appreciateyou taking the time out to talk to

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us. So let's start by explainingto our listeners what exactly it is that
ATI does well, I'll try.Advanced Technology International is at its simplistic state
of collaboration management company. We bringtogether companies academia, small and large,
some of the biggest companies you've heardof, and companies that you never would
have heard of around a particular technologyarea, and then we collaborate with them

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and among them and the government todevelop requirements and ultimately deliver solutions to those
requirements that solve challenges national challenges likeshipbuilding, affordability, health challenges, medical
technologies, vaccines, therapeutics. Itruns the gamut. We are not a
technology company per se. We arefacilitating the collaboration of these companies with the

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government to deliver the best solutions possibleto the challenges we face. New technology
has been a game changer and almostto every industry. What's one of the
most exciting things that the research anddevelopment team at a ANDI has worked on
as far as it involves new technology, Well, I think the one that
comes to mind when people talk aboutATI and the technologies we've developed is during

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the pandemic, we were involved inbringing the companies together deliver solutions both from
a diagnostic perspective. In the earlydays when there was no rapid means to
detect whether someone had the COVID orI'm sorry, I had the COVID infection,
we were part We were bringing teamstogether to develop rapid diagnostics and developed

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one of the really fast ones.We also brought teams together to deliver the
therapeutics and also the vaccines. Sothat's the one that's probably most obvious,
But there are a ton of technologiesthat have been brought to bear on the
people that need them most in arapid fashion. So I wouldn't say anyone
is a particular favorite. I justtry to point one out that most people

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would have heard of, because alot of these are small, but they're
delivering at the right time for theright reasons. As you've said, it's
your job to create and nurture collaborationsamong everybody, from federal agencies to industries
to universities. Now, that seemslike a daunting task to me. What

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goes into that process and what aresome of the challenges that you've faced having
to kind of herd cats like that. Well, it's a daunting task,
and I think hurting cats is oftentimesthe phrase we hear, but it really
starts at the beginning from recruitment.You need to go out and find companies
that have technologies or have an interestin delivering solutions based on some of their

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research and development they've already done,and then bring them to bear with people
who have either like technologies or complementarytechnologies. So it's about it's about bringing
them together and creating a common ruleset that they're willing to work under to
ultimately deliver solutions. It's about figuringout how they can communicate with each other,

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how they can do research together,how they can protect their own interests
while still contributing to a team effort. I think it's like any team and
that's probably what excited me most whenI jined Ati was about building teams,
and so I think probably if Istep back and said, what's the hardest
part, it's explaining to a companythat's never done work for the government how

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they're going to work for the governmentand still make a difference for themselves and
their families. So it's a dauntingtask, but it's one that's very much
worth doing, and it's akin toteam building, and it makes it really
satisfying to do. And we havean incredible team that does it. So
it's not as much as hurting catsas you might think. But I think

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a lot of people think of itas that. Yeah, I mean it's
kind of hard for me to wrapmy head around the process when you have
say it's shipbuilding, or say it'ssomething like you were talking about with the
COVID vaccine, not only research butroll out after it's been developed. So
what is the first when you're facingsomething like that, what's the first task

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that you have to complete? Youhave to do a problem definition. The
first thing you always have to doin research and development is what do you
need? What do you want?What is it that you're looking for?
And once you get that on paper, you can start to do the recruitment
that's necessary to find people who eitheroffer a solution to that requirement or that
need, or offer a piece ofthe solution. And I think oftentimes that's

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what we're trying to do, isput the puzzle together. So once you
have a requirements definition, then youhave to go out and do the hard
work of recruitment and find people who'veeither completed some research and development in that
particular area or have done something that'sadjacent to it, and then figure out
if they're willing to tweak that andthey're willing to work to others to put
it together as a more holistic solutionthan their individual technology itself. Well,

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for lack of a better way toput it, do you ever find yourself
working backwards in the process where,like you said, it's a puzzle and
you have some of those pieces,and maybe you get towards the end and
you find a piece. Do youever find yourself working back to a solution.
I think you find yourself working backwards, forward, sideways to sideways,

(06:01):
all different directions. It depends onwhere. Like any journey, it begins
where you start right, and sometimesyou have to break down what already exists
to figure out what the component partsare and figure out if one of those
component parts is something that can contributeto a different solution. So certainly we
do find ourselves working backwards. Butsomeone once said, once you've seen one
of these projects, or once you'veseen one of these collaborations, you've seen

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one of them, because no touralike. And we do find ourselves trying
to be creative in building the teamsand delivering the solutions. Now, I
imagine it would take a lot offocus. I heard just in the hallway
and the office building today what apparentlywas a big problem for somebody and they
were kind of going off on it, and I heard, you know,

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the other parties say, all right, well, now that we know that's
what the problem is, how dowe find a solution, what's the next
step? And that is really theexciting part of our work is once the
requirements defined, typically build these teamsand they can have anywhere from one hundred
companies and universities involved to twelve hundredcompanies and universities. We'll put that out

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to the team and say who thinksthey have a solution, and if they
do, they can reach out tous, either in the form of a
conversation or a white or some sortof written response, and then we'll collate
those and we'll gather teams together andtalk more about it and start to have
what really is the meat of ourbusiness, the collaboration part, the actual

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communication. You can't collaborate if you'renot meeting, and so what we try
to do is bring the pieces andparts together so that you get a much
more holistic solution. I've always believedin the value of teams, and if
you leave a single problem to asingle solution provider, you're going to get
a solution, but it might notbe optimum. So the ability to bring
teams together is what really is wherewe really derive the value out of the

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work that we're doing. Now,we've talked about ATI always talk about you
personally a little bit. As CEOyou know, you were in the Navy
for twenty years. Did you serveup board a nuclear powered submarine where you
said you were in command of it? Yes, I've served on four different
submarines throughout my career. As amatter of fact, my first tour was
at the old Navy base in thelate eighties and that's where I met my

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wife. Wow. So what doyou find similar and totally different from being
in the Navy to what you're doingnow. That's a great question. And
I think what attracted me to ATI, and I said it a little bit
earlier, was the camaraderie and theteamwork. I've always believed that a team

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can deliver more than the sum ofits parts, and I always saw,
you know, in the Navy.What excited me about being part of that
was the teamwork and the fact thatit was all for one and one for
all. And in this building andleading teams, I see people come together
to deliver a bigger and better solutionthan what their individual part would deliver.

(09:03):
So teamwork is the first thing thatdrove me to it. The other thing
is ATI was a really small companywhen I joined it, probably thirty five
people, very close to one another, and the camaraderie among those people,
the willingness to do what it tookto get the job done, really excited

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me about joining the company when Imoved to Charleston. And as we've grown,
I think we've done a pretty goodjob of keeping that team spirit,
that willingness to work together. We'reblessed at ATI to have an incredible team
of people who've been there fifteen twentyyears and people who've been there two to
three years, and they all seemto work together, and they all contribute

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and they all get along, whichhas really been the hallmark of our success.
Now, you mentioned that's where youmet your wife. Did your wife
serve with you? Now? Shewas Actually I met her many years before.
I spent a couple of years growingup here in Charleston, and we
swam on a swim team together.And so when I came back to the
Charleston area, I didn't know anybody, and so I reached out to some

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people I had known previously when i'dlived here in my much younger years,
and she was graduating from college andI had just gotten here, and so
that's where I so I re mether. I should say I actually met
her when I was fourteen and shewas twelve and we were on a swim
team together. I see, now, did you grow up in a military

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family. My father was a submariner, and so I spent we lived here
a couple of different times in Charlestonand then mostly up and down the East
Coast. What is it that drivesyou each day? What's your philosophy?
And I know you kind of touchedon that and you love the camaraderie and
the team building exercises and the challengepresented to you. But you know,
if you had to put it ina meme, what is the overall philosophy

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that drives you each day? Well, my personal philosoph he is leadership by
the golden rule. Treat each otheras you would want to be treated.
And I think by doing that andunderstanding that we all have a role to
play. Whatever our title is doesn'tmatter as much as the role we have
to play and the fact that togetherwe can deliver more than any one of

(11:16):
us by ourselves. And I tryto instill that throughout the company, and
I think we've done a pretty goodjob of that. And so that philosophy
has got me a long way I'venever really really thought of the role or
the title as much as I've thoughtof what can I contribute? And I
think everybody in our team thinks that, and that is really what's driven our

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success more than anything else. Ithink that's a great approach. Now explain
a little bit on the other side, on the back side of the process.
How is it that you come towork on these projects so you have
to form the collaboration. Does oneof these industries or universities or whoever it

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may be, come to you andsay, we've got this task that we
have to complete and we should surecould use your help in guidance, in
collaboration, informing the teams to tacklethis project. Is that how it works?
It works? That is one waythat it works. It certainly can
where industry starts to feel like theproblem is bigger than they can solve,

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or a particular partner a group ofpartners figures that the problems that exist are
bigger than solved by themselves and theywould rather take a portfolio approach. So
they ask us to bring together ateam and recruit the companies that are interested,
and then present themselves as a collaborationthat is ready to do business and

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solve challenges. Oftentimes it's the governmentthat realizes that the portfolio and the challenges
that they face are too big todo it project by project, piecemeal,
So they look to get an enduringcollaboration and together and they ask us to
form that for them. They goout and that they ask us to recruit
all the companies that might be interestedboth geographic diversity, size diversity, technology

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diversity. They ask us to bringthose all together to and then once we're
formed, they try to they bringtheir problems to the collaboration. So it
happens. Industry can start it.It can be industry initiated, it can
be ati initiated because we see problemsout there, we think a team bringing

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teams together would be valuable for Butmore often than not, it's the government,
having understood the value of the collaboration, decides they want to do one
of their own, and whoever thesponsor is starts to see that it's a
better way to solve their challenges thantrying to do it project by project,
piece by piece. No, Idon't mean to put you on the spot,

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but do politics ever get in away, you know, it's an
interesting question and no, frankly,we've had very limited political pressure or challenges.
I mean, I think certainly ourpoliticians understand what we're doing, or

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at least are aware of where theprojects are being done. But our collaborations
represent all fifty states, we havemembership throughout the country. So no,
not really, I don't think politicsare part of our solution. We've tried
to keep it out of it.It's not something that we think. It's

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more important to get to the rightsolution, and I think by and large
we've been to our left on ourown to work with the government customers to
get to the right solutions. SoI would say no, I understand the
question, and I understand why manypeople might think that, But because of
the diversity of the geographical diversity ofour collaborations, politics has not been a

(14:58):
big part of it. Well that'sgreat, and yeah, I would imagine
people may feel that way, Butyou know, politics can get in the
way. Just because you're dealing withthe government doesn't mean it's necessarily going to
be a political problem. Right.You can run into political problems in any
company out there, right, noquestion about it. So if people wanted
to learn more, I suppose thatthere's a that maybe you can't share all

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of the information because it's sensitive onsome of the things that you're working with.
But if people want to find outmore about ATI or even a career
with ATI, what should they do? Where should they look? So the
best way to learn most about us, And like you say, some of
the projects themselves, the specifics ofthem are sensitive, but at a very
high level, most of what we'redoing is pretty well explained on our website

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and you can go to our websiteat www dot ATI dot org org and
through on that web page you canlearn a lot about the collaborations that we've
built. You can find a phonenumber or an email to get more information,
and there's a careers page and we'realways looking to hire. Well that's
great and I find what you dovery interesting and important work. So thank

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you for being on CEOs you shouldknow, mister Chris van Meter, CEO
of Advanced Technology International ATI, thankyou very much. Michael, it's been
my pleasure. You've been listening toiHeart Radios. CEOs you should know,
heard every Tuesday and Saturday morning righthere on this iHeart Radio station.