May 2, 2025 • 28 mins
Rick Wagner is the Chief Executive Officer for Agile Defense, an innovative IT services and solutions provider. As CEO, Mr. Wagner leads Agile Defense through strategic transformation with intentional investments in mission-guided innovation and deliberate M&A to drive Agile to the forefront of the technology consulting market. Mr. Wagner formerly led Microsoft Federal, a $5B P&L supporting federal agencies of all sizes and scopes as they delivered mission-critical work and embraced technology to achieve objectives and serve citizens. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Wagner was President of ManTech Mission, Cyber & Intelligence Solutions (MCIS) Group, dedicated to advancing technological services to the United States Government’s Intelligence and Department of Defense communities.
Throughout his career, Mr. Wagner held management positions at Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and worked as a software engineer and project manager for the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Before joining ManTech in 2015, Mr. Wagner was the Chief Strategy Officer at TASC, Inc., where he led growth strategy and business development. Over his 16 years at TASC, he rose from program manager/systems engineer to Chief Strategy and Growth Officer. Mr. Wagner has been selected to the Washington 100 for six consecutive years. Washington Exec selected him as 2019 Intelligence Leader of the Year, and he is a 2021 Federal 100 awardee. He is a staunch advocate for veteran support efforts and has a passion for Early Childhood Education and STEM projects. Mr. Wagner is a member of the Human Better U Board of Directors. He is a commissioner and Vice Chair to the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Additionally, he is a member of INSA, AFCEA, and the Wash Exec Leadership Program. Mr. Wagner earned a Master of Engineering Management from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
Throughout his career, Mr. Wagner held management positions at Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and worked as a software engineer and project manager for the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Before joining ManTech in 2015, Mr. Wagner was the Chief Strategy Officer at TASC, Inc., where he led growth strategy and business development. Over his 16 years at TASC, he rose from program manager/systems engineer to Chief Strategy and Growth Officer. Mr. Wagner has been selected to the Washington 100 for six consecutive years. Washington Exec selected him as 2019 Intelligence Leader of the Year, and he is a 2021 Federal 100 awardee. He is a staunch advocate for veteran support efforts and has a passion for Early Childhood Education and STEM projects. Mr. Wagner is a member of the Human Better U Board of Directors. He is a commissioner and Vice Chair to the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Additionally, he is a member of INSA, AFCEA, and the Wash Exec Leadership Program. Mr. Wagner earned a Master of Engineering Management from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank presents CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You should know Howard by Iheartmadia.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Let's meet Rick Wagner.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
He is the CEO for Agile Defense and IT and
cybersecurity company based in McLean, Virginia that provides advanced digital transformation,
data analytics, and cyber solutions primarily for national security and
civilian missions. Before we talk more with Rick about his company,
I first asked him to talk a little bit about himself,
where he's from, and his origin story.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So I was born in a small town in Pennsylvania
called Saint Mary's and one of the funny stories about
it is that it was founded by Benedictine nuns. And
my dad always told me the story that before they
even built a monastery, they built a brewery. So it's
the Strabs Brewery. It's been around since eighteen seventy three.
It's one of the oldest breweries in the country. It's
kind of the landmark for my hometown. It's a factory town,
(00:50):
you know, during World War Two and then after the
car industry lots of growth, so there was engineering there
and I got excited about engineering. My dad worked in
one of the factories and always told me the engineers
were the successful ones, and so I went to the
University of Pittsburgh and studied electrical engineering, and I think
at the time my desire was to build space shuttles,
(01:13):
right that was the time when space shuttles were coming
into use. And I didn't end up going that route,
but I enjoyed my time at the University of Pittsburgh
and got a great degree there, and it set me
up for a really nice career.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well what do you want to do going out of school.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, like I said, it was like I was going
to build space shuttles. But in the end what ended
up happening was I took a job with the Navy
as a civilian, and I worked on test and evaluation
of missile systems. I did software programming. I went out
and rode Navy ships and analyzed how well those systems operated,
(01:55):
helped train the crew. I spent thirteen years doing that.
We're from radars to missile systems, and it kind of
gave me my sense of giving back a little bit,
right because I got to see how the sailors lived
and it's kind of a tough life being out there
(02:15):
at sea, and so that set me up to being
in a career where I wanted to support the war fighters.
I wanted to do things that made their lives better,
that made them secure and safe and what they did.
And so that was the beginning of my career, that
first thirteen years.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well that's a good segue because as I took a
look at your huge resume has some amazing things you've done.
It's always been about defense, cybersecurity, and protecting and I
just love that. I'm always in a people to do
that because I know there's a lot that goes behind it,
especially when we sleep at night, Rick, and we're going
to talk a lot about agile defense and being CEO
and what you're doing right now. So as I took
(02:54):
a look at your resume and all that you've done,
and I can see why you want wanted to be
a part of this current company. And it's going into
a year and seven months, so you've been doing this.
What did you see in them that wanted to join
the company, because I know what they saw on you
and your resume. Well, but what said you know, this
is a company I need to be in charge of
(03:14):
and run.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, So after I left civil service and became a
contractor for a few years I did test and evaluation
system engineering, and then around nine to eleven got involved
in supporting the intelligence community and that became about data information.
If you think about what happened during nine to eleven,
(03:36):
and it's hard to believe it's been as long as
it's been.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
But it was a situation where there was enough information
available to know what was happening, but it wasn't in
the hands of the right people. It wasn't in a
form in which people could digest it and understand it.
So from that point forward it became kind of my
mission to look at how do I get involved with
(04:01):
companies where they can manage data, They can secure that data,
but then even more than that, they can drive value
in that data. They can get it to the right
people at the right time, in the context so that
people could make great decisions. And so I moved from
you know, a company task and North for Brummen and
all these other companies. I ended up at Mantec, which
(04:24):
was a very strong cyber company, started thinking about how
do I drive them into becoming a data and then
an AI company. It led me to go to Microsoft
and I learned a lot of things there, and so
I had been looking at becoming a CEO during the
timeframe at Mantec, and I said, all right, how do
(04:44):
I how do I create something where I can take
this the thoughts that I have around these ideas and
really bring them to fruition. I met Enlightening Capital along
that way. They're are private equity firm that's heavily focused
on the government space gupcom space, and so they understand
what it takes to sell to the government. And along
(05:08):
the way, I learned about Agile Defense, and Agile Defense
had a very strong digital modernization focus. They provided great
IT services and they had recently acquired a cyber company
and I said, hey, here's a company that's on the
path what I want to do, so and I felt
like I could come in and then I wanted to
add data in a AI to that mix. In January,
(05:31):
we acquired in Telebridge and so that kind of fleshed
out that full scale capability where we can manage the data,
we can protect the data, and then we can drive
the value of that data to help make better decisions.
And so that's the journey I've been on over the
past say ten years, and I feel like, now I
have a company that can do.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That outstanding well. When it comes to agile defense. What's
the mission statement?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
The mission statement is really kind of what I've been
talking about. It's support to the war fighters, support to
those who like on our civilian side that support the citizen.
How do we bring value there? How do we help
them better serve the citizens? How do we protect the
war fighters? How do we create decision advantage? You know,
how do we get the intelligence to the right place
(06:17):
at the right time. Now, with the DOGE and some
of the things that are gone, how do we help
them understand where waste brought an abuse, where those things exist.
It's but it's really about data. And when I think
about data, like I said, I'm shaped by nine to eleven.
It was. It was a huge event because I was
I was in the intelligent community when it happened, and
(06:39):
I could see the things that we could have done
better and where different capabilities can make a difference. And
I started looking at data and I say, so, you've
got a piece of data and that's really just ones
and zeros and they're sitting in a computer somewhere. You
turn it into information when you put it into a
format that a human can digest. It becomes knowledge when
(07:00):
you create a context around it, and then finally at
the end, it becomes wisdom. Right. Consider that DoD decision advantage.
Intelligence community calls it intelligence, but at any rate, it's wisdom. Right.
It's something where you understand the data, you can make
a decision around it that's going to make a difference
in the lives of a person or the safety of
(07:21):
the country. And so that's our mission, right, is to
do that all along the way, to be the best
at managing the data for the customer and being one
hundred percent sure of the secure and then just constantly
improving the value of that data and helping them to
perform their mission.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Very good, appreciate all that, Rick, Now you're starting to
talk about it. But for our listeners who aren't associated
to know much about the company, if you were to
give just a thirty thousand foot view and tell them
about what exactly you do, what would you say?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, So, like I said, digital monernization, that's things like
migrating customers to the cloud. The cloud has created a
lot of ability to to save money while we're performing
the mission of managing the data. So we've got contracts
where we do it, services where we migrate to the
cloud where we're helping them develop software. Then we've got
(08:14):
a second portion of our business, which is really about
how do you protect that data. We've got offerings like
a virtual security operations center where we can go in
where a customer doesn't maybe have the budget to build
a full soock, we can manage that for them. We
use their tools and we do it. We've got a
(08:36):
kind of a patented way in which we approach that
and it makes it both efficient and effective for them.
And then, like I said, with the acquisition of Intellibridge,
we've brought in that data AI focus. We've got a
tool called Workforce where we take our customer's data and
we bring that value to it of putting it in
(08:57):
the context to help them make decisions and helping them
to understand things about it that aren't a parent And
that's really where the AI portion comes in.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And Rick, as I read about kind of the three
buckets when it comes to capabilities digital transformation, data analytics,
and cyber can you expand on those just a little
bit for us?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah, So the digital transformation is how do we take
things to the next level for our customers, right if
they're sitting in a data center, we bring them to
the cloud. If they've got old waterfall techniques in their software,
how do we help them to move into agile software development?
(09:40):
I talk about in cyber I can add in that
we've got a product called Duro Suite. The DoD has
a process by which they ensure that their systems are secure,
and the Duro Suite automates that process. It's a lot
of manual work of reviewing data to looking at aspects
(10:01):
of the software and hardware, and we've got a tool
that helps to automate that, and then we'll even automate
the uh, the implementation of changes they need to be
more secure. And you know, to me, I think when
you talk about AI, there's there's a lot of promise there,
but the early parts of AHI are really just automating
things that humans do. Uh. It's it's like, how do
(10:24):
you how do you take all that information and put
it together in a way that that gives you better
context and and so much much of the tools that
we have kind of focused on that area and we're
you know, we we we're working hard on the AI
side to try to be part of how do we
bring that to the government and how do we bring
it to the mission that they that they have.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So Rick, I don't want to assume that there's other
companies that they do exactly what you and your team do.
But with that said, when it comes to competition, how
do you differentiate yourself with your clients?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, this is actually why I picked the company I'm at.
What I find is there's a broad spectrum of companies
and sizes and capabilities and approach to how they deliver things.
And you know, if you start at one end, small
businesses are extremely important. You know, the incubators. They it's
where future companies come from. But they're a little limited
(11:18):
in what they can do. They can't boil the ocean.
They can't like you know, we bring that full scale.
You know, from end to end of capabilities. Small businesses
tend to focus on one aspect or another. You might
have a small cyber company or a digital monerization company.
And then at the other end of the spectrum you
have the super large companies who have full capabilities. But
(11:41):
at the same time, they they they're they're they're highly motivated,
motivated in growing the company they're they're maybe not as
able to be as nimble, and so I think adele
defense kind of brings that the efficiency of having recently
been a small company and under standing how to operate efficiently,
(12:02):
but also having full capabilities so I can provide the
full capability to our customers at a very efficient cost.
And so that gives me a way to discriminate between
the very small companies where I can provide more or
the very large companies where they can tend to be
a little more expensive.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Well, I'm glad you talked about this, and this I
think is a great teaching lesson for our future entrepreneurship
people that want to run companies. Because that's all well
and good, but those are words. So what I'd like
to ask you is how do you get that message
across to new clients that don't know anything about what
you and your team do that you can do exactly
what they need.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
How how do you get past that market?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, it's a that is the critical portion of what
we're doing, and it really comes down to creating that
customer intimacy, right, and so I hire people who have
you know, either been with a certain customer set or
in a certain customer set who have that have relationships
and have understanding of the mission. I think one of
(13:01):
the maybe mistakes that some CEOs make is they make
it all about that relationship. It's like, if I hired
this person that has a relationship, then that translates It's
not really about the relationship. The relationship has to give
you insight into what's really important with the customer. And
so that's what I focus on. Can I find people
(13:21):
who truly understand that customer's mission. For instance, in my career,
I was a government civilian spent over about a ten
year period, probably spent a year or so at sea
with sailors understanding how their lives work and what the
mission really is. Then in the intelligence community in the
(13:42):
skiffs for seven eight years and again, so I mean,
even though I'm a CEO now and I don't day
to day get involved in that, I have that basis
of over the years having sat with customers late at
night or early in the morning, working on a mission
problem and understanding what they really means well.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And I'm also glad you talked about team And once
again I'd like to articulate this to our listening audience,
because anytime I've talked to CEOs that have success like
you have, Rick, it's about team. It's been hiring the
right It's kind of like a sports team. If you
want to have success as an owner, you buy your team,
You hire the right people, and you let them do
what you hire them to do, and let them do
it well and try not to put your finger in
the pie. To the point hiring the right people, trusting
(14:23):
them to get the job done with your vision. Talk
about that because I think that's ultra important here.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, So I have been looking kind of culturally how
do I create a leadership team And we kind of
coined a phrase my marketing person and I called leading
with care and care stands for collaboration, accountability, results, and empowerment.
And if you think about that, it's you've got the
(14:48):
collaboration and empowerment right. So it's like, I want my
people to collaborate and I want to empower them to
do that. So I empowered each and every one of
them to go do the things they need to do.
At the same time, I kind of reinforce that they
have to do it together because nobody exceeds alone. And
(15:08):
then at the same time, you've got the accountability and results.
Right to me, I believe accountability is what drives results,
and accountability simply means that you know what it is
you're trying to achieve. You understand the goals that are
in front of you, and you have a plan to
go do that, and then you're accountable for that. There
(15:31):
may be other people who are responsible. People tend to
infuse accountability and responsibility. You may delegate somebody to be responsible,
but you never delegate accountability. So as a CIO a CEO,
I am one hundred percent accountable for everything that happens
in this company, and then through empowerment and collaboration, I
delegate that responsibility for each of them to succeed. I
(15:54):
spend a lot of time thinking about who are the
right people to fit into the team because I've been
in team sports my whole life, and so collaboration was
always a huge piece for me. I wanted somebody who
was more focused on the team outcome than on their
personal outcome. It's kind of how I've lived my life
(16:14):
and it served me well. I think because I've taken
that focus, it's allowed me to create great relationships. I
learned a lot from people who have come before me,
and that set me up to be successful.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Well, I'm glad you talked about the rick. You know,
my wife is in sales, I'm in programming. We both
work in radio and we butted heads over the years.
But what we've found out besides sharing each other's life
experiences and now she talks more sports and I talk
more business when we in our meeting. So we've appreciated that.
But we're all talking about culture, and I think that
(16:49):
sounds like that's ultra important to you.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Oh. Absolutely, yeah. Culture is everything in a company. There's
I think it was Drucker who said that that culture
each strategy. Forfast you have to have a strong strategy,
but if you don't have the right culture to go
with it, it can die. They'll just fall flat.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Agile Defense has had a great culture over the years,
and then we've always looked for companies to acquire and
add into that who also had that culture. And so
first and foremost it's about that mission focus, right, I mean,
everything we do is either national security or some kind
of safety and security focus to it, and I think
(17:33):
that drives kind of a connection for our employees. They
feel good about being part of that. We think, I
think in terms of the kind of the flywheel of
take care of your employees that take care of your customers,
and the customers will drive business results. So I connect that,
but I also say leadership is what turns that flywheel.
(17:57):
If you apply the right leadership to that flywhere of employee,
customer business results, it will spin. And as you as
you create the business results, you can put more into
the employees. I think that's something that you know, the
founder of this company was very focused on the employees
and we've continued that even after he's left, and it's
(18:18):
that focus on how do we take care of the employees,
how do we help them develop in their careers, and
because if they're successful, they tend to be better employees
to the customers, and that drive customer success.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, agreed. Well, let's talk about challenges.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
And I know there's some things that you can talk
about when it comes to clients and what you do,
but just maybe overall in general terms, the kind of
challenges present in the industry right now.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, I mean, we we've all of us have had
the challenge of growing a business in the government environment
where you know, there can be delays there, you know,
budget seqrustration, We've encountered all those things. We've frankly really
haven't encountered anything like DOGE now. I mean, I want
(19:04):
to get overly political on this because I know that
people have different opinions on it. I like the idea
that the federal government is looking at ways fraud and
abuse and trying to decide what is most important. You know,
It's kind of how I run this company. It's how
I focus our business. I want to focus on things
that really matter. But it is certainly causing uncertainty in
(19:26):
the business. And so those are those are some of
the challenges I have here. There's a challenge that exists
and has existed for some time of finding quality people
with the right clearances to do the jobs we do.
So we put a lot of work into our recruiting teams,
and uh we encourage our employees to suggest hires for
(19:47):
us that fit our culture and bring the capabilities we need.
So that's a that would be a second thing that
we that we from time to time have to work through.
You know, I think in in the end, the biggest
challenge is how do you bring a team together and
keep them focused in the long run, which is you know,
(20:07):
that's what I want to do. There have been great
companies who have come and gone, but the companies that
can exist. Agile Defense has been around for twenty five years.
That's a long time, and you know, I want to
set this company up to be here for another twenty
five years and do the great things that they do
for our customers.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Let's put a pin in work just for a second.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Talk about philanthropic and charity work and whether it has
to do with work or you personally, what do you
like to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, So, when I was looking, it's actually that challenge
of people and having enough people in the DC area.
You would think it's a large area, there's lots of people,
but there's so much growth. There's actually forty seven thousand
open jobs in Northern Virginia alone right now, and mostly
(20:55):
in the environment in which I work. And so I
started thinking about that and saying, you know, one of
the things that I've been involved in that that I
that I felt good about and could contribute. I had
done some mentoring of high school aged students back this
is back in my government days, all the way back,
and uh, done presentations at middle schools and tried to
(21:15):
get people interested in STEM because I saw that there
was a need for you know more, We needed more engineers,
more technologists, and so I've continued that and I'm I'm
I'm on the board of an organization called Human Better
Edge you b EDU short for education, and it's it's
really about how do we how do we develop people
(21:38):
to become you know, full citizens of the you know, uh,
bringing that capability of STEM and having people meet their
full potential. And so I tend to be it's education
is is a big portion of what I do, and
then if I can connect that to the warfighter in
some way, So lots of lots of different things where
(21:59):
we support the war fighters, and so I tend to
I'm a golfer, so you know, I love to get
involved in any kind of golf event that's supporting somebody
like the war fighter. But I really have kind of
focused on that education mission and it's a big thing
that I drive within the company of people to think
about their career and think about what kind of education
(22:20):
they need to for their career.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Uns standing.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I appreciate you sharing that. I did want to talk
about leadership just for a moment, if you could indulge
me before we get some final thoughts from you. And
I realize Rick that you know your journey is very
personal to you and very specific. But we have a
lot of future leaders. We have a lot of current
leaders that listen to the series about leadership, and we've
talked about a lot of the same words that come
up about culture, about team and all those things that
(22:44):
come to leadership and leading a company that is really epic.
It doesn't matter what size is. Leading a company is
a big deal. It's hard, and it takes some time
to get all those things to come together. As you
see leadership and as you work with your team specifically,
what's the leadership.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Mean to you?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
When I think about leaders it's really about enabling others
to breach their full potential because I can't do I mean,
there's only so much time in a day. There are
only so many things I can personally do. But I
have two thousand people working for me, and if I
can build future leaders, if I can enable my leaders
to be successful, they can then take that to the
(23:21):
next level. One of the things I always tell my
leaders is your progression in your career is generally not
a straight line. I think you come out of college
and you think, all right, I'm going to get job A,
and then I'm going to get promoted to the next level.
I'm promoted to the next level. That didn't happen for me.
(23:41):
As a matter of fact, I got promoted, but I
really stayed in the same role for about fifteen years
of being an individual contributor and working on the mission.
And it really wasn't until I was close to my
forties that I got involved in management and leadership. I'll say, actually,
let me say management, because I'm always the leader. Like
(24:04):
in college, I ended up being the captain of my
rugby team and actually became the person who ran the
whole team, even though I only learned rugby while I
got to college. And I found that that's what ended
up happening with me, is that because I was willing
to take on leadership, there's always people who will step
back and let you do that. And I said, I'll
(24:24):
take advantage of that, right, I want to be the leader.
And that meant that I took chances and sometimes I
you know, maybe I didn't fully succeed at what I did,
but I always learned something from it. The other aspect was,
like I said, not a straight line. So I at
one time was I'm all about the DoD. Then I
went to the intelligence community and somebody said, we need
(24:45):
you back in the DD business. Okay, I'm there. Somebody
else said along the way, said we really want you
to take this role that's all about the internal functions
of the company. And I'm like, no, I'm a mission guy,
I'm a customer guy. But I I'm so glad I
took that job because it helped me learn how a
company works, how a corporation works. And by taking these
(25:06):
different roles, I was able to build kind of a
broader base. It gives me a way of I mean,
I feel like I can understand different aspects of the
business or different people in the business, and when they
tell me something, I know whether it's like real or
made up. So as a leader, don't be afraid to
take a role that seems completely out of your norm,
(25:28):
because those may be the best things that ever happened
to you.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, I'm so glad you talked about this, Rick, and
it's great advice. And you know, just from my standpoint
as a father, my daughter just graduated from school last year.
She's an aspiring filmmaker in New York now, and she
asked me about the business when she was still in
high school. And all I said was, try and do
everything on set. If you want to be a DP
(25:52):
director of photography, that's what turns you on. You're good
at it, that's fine. But learn how to do lighting,
Learn how to do the boom, learn how to do
the blocking, watch the director. Learn how to be a PA.
Because once you learn what everybody's doing around you, it's
going to make you better at your position, but give
you more clarity when you're on the job.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
And that's exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I mean that's what allows for really effective collaboration. Yeah,
is when people understand where the other one is coming from.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, don't pigeonhole yourself into one gig, folks, It's just
not the way to go. Listen, some people succeed at it.
That wasn't my experience. It sounds like it wasn't ricks,
and I think it's great advice. Well, Rick, listen, I
really enjoyed the conversation, but I do want to get
some final thoughts about what we talked about and about
your company. So, sir, the floor is yours, and we're
also going to get the website and find out if
you're hiring.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, yeah, So thank you for giving me this time.
I really wanted to talk about the capabilities company. I'm
super excited about what we're doing. I think we can
bring things of real value to our customers at a
really compelling price. We've got that full spectrum capabilities across
it cyber and data and AI. We're focused on the
(26:59):
things that are important to the country and so I
just look forward to the years coming up. Yes, we
are hiring. We're a growing company and that means we're hiring.
The website is www dot Agile, dash Defense dot com.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Rick, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your
time because I know you're busy, and I always say
this to people like you that are running companies like
you do here in the DMV. I'm always appreciative of
all the work you do, especially while you were asleep
at night, because I know that you're doing a lot
of super secret stuff that protects us. I know that, folks,
the world seems on fire at times than it probably is,
but things are moving quickly. But because of people like
(27:38):
Rick and his team doing what they do, it makes
us a little bit safer.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So we can't sleep at night in the United States,
which I always think is very cool. So Rick, thank
you for that.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Thank you to your team, and we really appreciate you
joining us on CEOs.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
You should know, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs, you
should know. Is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed.
M and T Bank presents CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You should know Howard by Iheartmadia.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Let's meet Rick Wagner.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
He is the CEO for Agile Defense and IT and
cybersecurity company based in McLean, Virginia that provides advanced digital transformation,
data analytics, and cyber solutions primarily for national security and
civilian missions. Before we talk more with Rick about his company,
I first asked him to talk a little bit about himself,
where he's from, and his origin story.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So I was born in a small town in Pennsylvania
called Saint Mary's and one of the funny stories about
it is that it was founded by Benedictine nuns. And
my dad always told me the story that before they
even built a monastery, they built a brewery. So it's
the Strabs Brewery. It's been around since eighteen seventy three.
It's one of the oldest breweries in the country. It's
kind of the landmark for my hometown. It's a factory town,
(00:50):
you know, during World War Two and then after the
car industry lots of growth, so there was engineering there
and I got excited about engineering. My dad worked in
one of the factories and always told me the engineers
were the successful ones, and so I went to the
University of Pittsburgh and studied electrical engineering, and I think
at the time my desire was to build space shuttles,
(01:13):
right that was the time when space shuttles were coming
into use. And I didn't end up going that route,
but I enjoyed my time at the University of Pittsburgh
and got a great degree there, and it set me
up for a really nice career.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well what do you want to do going out of school.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, like I said, it was like I was going
to build space shuttles. But in the end what ended
up happening was I took a job with the Navy
as a civilian, and I worked on test and evaluation
of missile systems. I did software programming. I went out
and rode Navy ships and analyzed how well those systems operated,
(01:55):
helped train the crew. I spent thirteen years doing that.
We're from radars to missile systems, and it kind of
gave me my sense of giving back a little bit,
right because I got to see how the sailors lived
and it's kind of a tough life being out there
(02:15):
at sea, and so that set me up to being
in a career where I wanted to support the war fighters.
I wanted to do things that made their lives better,
that made them secure and safe and what they did.
And so that was the beginning of my career, that
first thirteen years.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well that's a good segue because as I took a
look at your huge resume has some amazing things you've done.
It's always been about defense, cybersecurity, and protecting and I
just love that. I'm always in a people to do
that because I know there's a lot that goes behind it,
especially when we sleep at night, Rick, and we're going
to talk a lot about agile defense and being CEO
and what you're doing right now. So as I took
(02:54):
a look at your resume and all that you've done,
and I can see why you want wanted to be
a part of this current company. And it's going into
a year and seven months, so you've been doing this.
What did you see in them that wanted to join
the company, because I know what they saw on you
and your resume. Well, but what said you know, this
is a company I need to be in charge of
(03:14):
and run.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, So after I left civil service and became a
contractor for a few years I did test and evaluation
system engineering, and then around nine to eleven got involved
in supporting the intelligence community and that became about data information.
If you think about what happened during nine to eleven,
(03:36):
and it's hard to believe it's been as long as
it's been.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
But it was a situation where there was enough information
available to know what was happening, but it wasn't in
the hands of the right people. It wasn't in a
form in which people could digest it and understand it.
So from that point forward it became kind of my
mission to look at how do I get involved with
(04:01):
companies where they can manage data, They can secure that data,
but then even more than that, they can drive value
in that data. They can get it to the right
people at the right time, in the context so that
people could make great decisions. And so I moved from
you know, a company task and North for Brummen and
all these other companies. I ended up at Mantec, which
(04:24):
was a very strong cyber company, started thinking about how
do I drive them into becoming a data and then
an AI company. It led me to go to Microsoft
and I learned a lot of things there, and so
I had been looking at becoming a CEO during the
timeframe at Mantec, and I said, all right, how do
(04:44):
I how do I create something where I can take
this the thoughts that I have around these ideas and
really bring them to fruition. I met Enlightening Capital along
that way. They're are private equity firm that's heavily focused
on the government space gupcom space, and so they understand
what it takes to sell to the government. And along
(05:08):
the way, I learned about Agile Defense, and Agile Defense
had a very strong digital modernization focus. They provided great
IT services and they had recently acquired a cyber company
and I said, hey, here's a company that's on the
path what I want to do, so and I felt
like I could come in and then I wanted to
add data in a AI to that mix. In January,
(05:31):
we acquired in Telebridge and so that kind of fleshed
out that full scale capability where we can manage the data,
we can protect the data, and then we can drive
the value of that data to help make better decisions.
And so that's the journey I've been on over the
past say ten years, and I feel like, now I
have a company that can do.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That outstanding well. When it comes to agile defense. What's
the mission statement?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
The mission statement is really kind of what I've been
talking about. It's support to the war fighters, support to
those who like on our civilian side that support the citizen.
How do we bring value there? How do we help
them better serve the citizens? How do we protect the
war fighters? How do we create decision advantage? You know,
how do we get the intelligence to the right place
(06:17):
at the right time. Now, with the DOGE and some
of the things that are gone, how do we help
them understand where waste brought an abuse, where those things exist.
It's but it's really about data. And when I think
about data, like I said, I'm shaped by nine to eleven.
It was. It was a huge event because I was
I was in the intelligent community when it happened, and
(06:39):
I could see the things that we could have done
better and where different capabilities can make a difference. And
I started looking at data and I say, so, you've
got a piece of data and that's really just ones
and zeros and they're sitting in a computer somewhere. You
turn it into information when you put it into a
format that a human can digest. It becomes knowledge when
(07:00):
you create a context around it, and then finally at
the end, it becomes wisdom. Right. Consider that DoD decision advantage.
Intelligence community calls it intelligence, but at any rate, it's wisdom. Right.
It's something where you understand the data, you can make
a decision around it that's going to make a difference
in the lives of a person or the safety of
(07:21):
the country. And so that's our mission, right, is to
do that all along the way, to be the best
at managing the data for the customer and being one
hundred percent sure of the secure and then just constantly
improving the value of that data and helping them to
perform their mission.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Very good, appreciate all that, Rick, Now you're starting to
talk about it. But for our listeners who aren't associated
to know much about the company, if you were to
give just a thirty thousand foot view and tell them
about what exactly you do, what would you say?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, So, like I said, digital monernization, that's things like
migrating customers to the cloud. The cloud has created a
lot of ability to to save money while we're performing
the mission of managing the data. So we've got contracts
where we do it, services where we migrate to the
cloud where we're helping them develop software. Then we've got
(08:14):
a second portion of our business, which is really about
how do you protect that data. We've got offerings like
a virtual security operations center where we can go in
where a customer doesn't maybe have the budget to build
a full soock, we can manage that for them. We
use their tools and we do it. We've got a
(08:36):
kind of a patented way in which we approach that
and it makes it both efficient and effective for them.
And then, like I said, with the acquisition of Intellibridge,
we've brought in that data AI focus. We've got a
tool called Workforce where we take our customer's data and
we bring that value to it of putting it in
(08:57):
the context to help them make decisions and helping them
to understand things about it that aren't a parent And
that's really where the AI portion comes in.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And Rick, as I read about kind of the three
buckets when it comes to capabilities digital transformation, data analytics,
and cyber can you expand on those just a little
bit for us?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah, So the digital transformation is how do we take
things to the next level for our customers, right if
they're sitting in a data center, we bring them to
the cloud. If they've got old waterfall techniques in their software,
how do we help them to move into agile software development?
(09:40):
I talk about in cyber I can add in that
we've got a product called Duro Suite. The DoD has
a process by which they ensure that their systems are secure,
and the Duro Suite automates that process. It's a lot
of manual work of reviewing data to looking at aspects
(10:01):
of the software and hardware, and we've got a tool
that helps to automate that, and then we'll even automate
the uh, the implementation of changes they need to be
more secure. And you know, to me, I think when
you talk about AI, there's there's a lot of promise there,
but the early parts of AHI are really just automating
things that humans do. Uh. It's it's like, how do
(10:24):
you how do you take all that information and put
it together in a way that that gives you better
context and and so much much of the tools that
we have kind of focused on that area and we're
you know, we we we're working hard on the AI
side to try to be part of how do we
bring that to the government and how do we bring
it to the mission that they that they have.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So Rick, I don't want to assume that there's other
companies that they do exactly what you and your team do.
But with that said, when it comes to competition, how
do you differentiate yourself with your clients?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, this is actually why I picked the company I'm at.
What I find is there's a broad spectrum of companies
and sizes and capabilities and approach to how they deliver things.
And you know, if you start at one end, small
businesses are extremely important. You know, the incubators. They it's
where future companies come from. But they're a little limited
(11:18):
in what they can do. They can't boil the ocean.
They can't like you know, we bring that full scale.
You know, from end to end of capabilities. Small businesses
tend to focus on one aspect or another. You might
have a small cyber company or a digital monerization company.
And then at the other end of the spectrum you
have the super large companies who have full capabilities. But
(11:41):
at the same time, they they they're they're they're highly motivated,
motivated in growing the company they're they're maybe not as
able to be as nimble, and so I think adele
defense kind of brings that the efficiency of having recently
been a small company and under standing how to operate efficiently,
(12:02):
but also having full capabilities so I can provide the
full capability to our customers at a very efficient cost.
And so that gives me a way to discriminate between
the very small companies where I can provide more or
the very large companies where they can tend to be
a little more expensive.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Well, I'm glad you talked about this, and this I
think is a great teaching lesson for our future entrepreneurship
people that want to run companies. Because that's all well
and good, but those are words. So what I'd like
to ask you is how do you get that message
across to new clients that don't know anything about what
you and your team do that you can do exactly
what they need.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
How how do you get past that market?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, it's a that is the critical portion of what
we're doing, and it really comes down to creating that
customer intimacy, right, and so I hire people who have
you know, either been with a certain customer set or
in a certain customer set who have that have relationships
and have understanding of the mission. I think one of
(13:01):
the maybe mistakes that some CEOs make is they make
it all about that relationship. It's like, if I hired
this person that has a relationship, then that translates It's
not really about the relationship. The relationship has to give
you insight into what's really important with the customer. And
so that's what I focus on. Can I find people
(13:21):
who truly understand that customer's mission. For instance, in my career,
I was a government civilian spent over about a ten
year period, probably spent a year or so at sea
with sailors understanding how their lives work and what the
mission really is. Then in the intelligence community in the
(13:42):
skiffs for seven eight years and again, so I mean,
even though I'm a CEO now and I don't day
to day get involved in that, I have that basis
of over the years having sat with customers late at
night or early in the morning, working on a mission
problem and understanding what they really means well.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And I'm also glad you talked about team And once
again I'd like to articulate this to our listening audience,
because anytime I've talked to CEOs that have success like
you have, Rick, it's about team. It's been hiring the
right It's kind of like a sports team. If you
want to have success as an owner, you buy your team,
You hire the right people, and you let them do
what you hire them to do, and let them do
it well and try not to put your finger in
the pie. To the point hiring the right people, trusting
(14:23):
them to get the job done with your vision. Talk
about that because I think that's ultra important here.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, So I have been looking kind of culturally how
do I create a leadership team And we kind of
coined a phrase my marketing person and I called leading
with care and care stands for collaboration, accountability, results, and empowerment.
And if you think about that, it's you've got the
(14:48):
collaboration and empowerment right. So it's like, I want my
people to collaborate and I want to empower them to
do that. So I empowered each and every one of
them to go do the things they need to do.
At the same time, I kind of reinforce that they
have to do it together because nobody exceeds alone. And
(15:08):
then at the same time, you've got the accountability and results.
Right to me, I believe accountability is what drives results,
and accountability simply means that you know what it is
you're trying to achieve. You understand the goals that are
in front of you, and you have a plan to
go do that, and then you're accountable for that. There
(15:31):
may be other people who are responsible. People tend to
infuse accountability and responsibility. You may delegate somebody to be responsible,
but you never delegate accountability. So as a CIO a CEO,
I am one hundred percent accountable for everything that happens
in this company, and then through empowerment and collaboration, I
delegate that responsibility for each of them to succeed. I
(15:54):
spend a lot of time thinking about who are the
right people to fit into the team because I've been
in team sports my whole life, and so collaboration was
always a huge piece for me. I wanted somebody who
was more focused on the team outcome than on their
personal outcome. It's kind of how I've lived my life
(16:14):
and it served me well. I think because I've taken
that focus, it's allowed me to create great relationships. I
learned a lot from people who have come before me,
and that set me up to be successful.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Well, I'm glad you talked about the rick. You know,
my wife is in sales, I'm in programming. We both
work in radio and we butted heads over the years.
But what we've found out besides sharing each other's life
experiences and now she talks more sports and I talk
more business when we in our meeting. So we've appreciated that.
But we're all talking about culture, and I think that
(16:49):
sounds like that's ultra important to you.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Oh. Absolutely, yeah. Culture is everything in a company. There's
I think it was Drucker who said that that culture
each strategy. Forfast you have to have a strong strategy,
but if you don't have the right culture to go
with it, it can die. They'll just fall flat.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Agile Defense has had a great culture over the years,
and then we've always looked for companies to acquire and
add into that who also had that culture. And so
first and foremost it's about that mission focus, right, I mean,
everything we do is either national security or some kind
of safety and security focus to it, and I think
(17:33):
that drives kind of a connection for our employees. They
feel good about being part of that. We think, I
think in terms of the kind of the flywheel of
take care of your employees that take care of your customers,
and the customers will drive business results. So I connect that,
but I also say leadership is what turns that flywheel.
(17:57):
If you apply the right leadership to that flywhere of employee,
customer business results, it will spin. And as you as
you create the business results, you can put more into
the employees. I think that's something that you know, the
founder of this company was very focused on the employees
and we've continued that even after he's left, and it's
(18:18):
that focus on how do we take care of the employees,
how do we help them develop in their careers, and
because if they're successful, they tend to be better employees
to the customers, and that drive customer success.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, agreed. Well, let's talk about challenges.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
And I know there's some things that you can talk
about when it comes to clients and what you do,
but just maybe overall in general terms, the kind of
challenges present in the industry right now.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, I mean, we we've all of us have had
the challenge of growing a business in the government environment
where you know, there can be delays there, you know,
budget seqrustration, We've encountered all those things. We've frankly really
haven't encountered anything like DOGE now. I mean, I want
(19:04):
to get overly political on this because I know that
people have different opinions on it. I like the idea
that the federal government is looking at ways fraud and
abuse and trying to decide what is most important. You know,
It's kind of how I run this company. It's how
I focus our business. I want to focus on things
that really matter. But it is certainly causing uncertainty in
(19:26):
the business. And so those are those are some of
the challenges I have here. There's a challenge that exists
and has existed for some time of finding quality people
with the right clearances to do the jobs we do.
So we put a lot of work into our recruiting teams,
and uh we encourage our employees to suggest hires for
(19:47):
us that fit our culture and bring the capabilities we need.
So that's a that would be a second thing that
we that we from time to time have to work through.
You know, I think in in the end, the biggest
challenge is how do you bring a team together and
keep them focused in the long run, which is you know,
(20:07):
that's what I want to do. There have been great
companies who have come and gone, but the companies that
can exist. Agile Defense has been around for twenty five years.
That's a long time, and you know, I want to
set this company up to be here for another twenty
five years and do the great things that they do
for our customers.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Let's put a pin in work just for a second.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Talk about philanthropic and charity work and whether it has
to do with work or you personally, what do you
like to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, So, when I was looking, it's actually that challenge
of people and having enough people in the DC area.
You would think it's a large area, there's lots of people,
but there's so much growth. There's actually forty seven thousand
open jobs in Northern Virginia alone right now, and mostly
(20:55):
in the environment in which I work. And so I
started thinking about that and saying, you know, one of
the things that I've been involved in that that I
that I felt good about and could contribute. I had
done some mentoring of high school aged students back this
is back in my government days, all the way back,
and uh, done presentations at middle schools and tried to
(21:15):
get people interested in STEM because I saw that there
was a need for you know more, We needed more engineers,
more technologists, and so I've continued that and I'm I'm
I'm on the board of an organization called Human Better
Edge you b EDU short for education, and it's it's
really about how do we how do we develop people
(21:38):
to become you know, full citizens of the you know, uh,
bringing that capability of STEM and having people meet their
full potential. And so I tend to be it's education
is is a big portion of what I do, and
then if I can connect that to the warfighter in
some way, So lots of lots of different things where
(21:59):
we support the war fighters, and so I tend to
I'm a golfer, so you know, I love to get
involved in any kind of golf event that's supporting somebody
like the war fighter. But I really have kind of
focused on that education mission and it's a big thing
that I drive within the company of people to think
about their career and think about what kind of education
(22:20):
they need to for their career.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Uns standing.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I appreciate you sharing that. I did want to talk
about leadership just for a moment, if you could indulge
me before we get some final thoughts from you. And
I realize Rick that you know your journey is very
personal to you and very specific. But we have a
lot of future leaders. We have a lot of current
leaders that listen to the series about leadership, and we've
talked about a lot of the same words that come
up about culture, about team and all those things that
(22:44):
come to leadership and leading a company that is really epic.
It doesn't matter what size is. Leading a company is
a big deal. It's hard, and it takes some time
to get all those things to come together. As you
see leadership and as you work with your team specifically,
what's the leadership.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Mean to you?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
When I think about leaders it's really about enabling others
to breach their full potential because I can't do I mean,
there's only so much time in a day. There are
only so many things I can personally do. But I
have two thousand people working for me, and if I
can build future leaders, if I can enable my leaders
to be successful, they can then take that to the
(23:21):
next level. One of the things I always tell my
leaders is your progression in your career is generally not
a straight line. I think you come out of college
and you think, all right, I'm going to get job A,
and then I'm going to get promoted to the next level.
I'm promoted to the next level. That didn't happen for me.
(23:41):
As a matter of fact, I got promoted, but I
really stayed in the same role for about fifteen years
of being an individual contributor and working on the mission.
And it really wasn't until I was close to my
forties that I got involved in management and leadership. I'll say, actually,
let me say management, because I'm always the leader. Like
(24:04):
in college, I ended up being the captain of my
rugby team and actually became the person who ran the
whole team, even though I only learned rugby while I
got to college. And I found that that's what ended
up happening with me, is that because I was willing
to take on leadership, there's always people who will step
back and let you do that. And I said, I'll
(24:24):
take advantage of that, right, I want to be the leader.
And that meant that I took chances and sometimes I
you know, maybe I didn't fully succeed at what I did,
but I always learned something from it. The other aspect was,
like I said, not a straight line. So I at
one time was I'm all about the DoD. Then I
went to the intelligence community and somebody said, we need
(24:45):
you back in the DD business. Okay, I'm there. Somebody
else said along the way, said we really want you
to take this role that's all about the internal functions
of the company. And I'm like, no, I'm a mission guy,
I'm a customer guy. But I I'm so glad I
took that job because it helped me learn how a
company works, how a corporation works. And by taking these
(25:06):
different roles, I was able to build kind of a
broader base. It gives me a way of I mean,
I feel like I can understand different aspects of the
business or different people in the business, and when they
tell me something, I know whether it's like real or
made up. So as a leader, don't be afraid to
take a role that seems completely out of your norm,
(25:28):
because those may be the best things that ever happened
to you.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, I'm so glad you talked about this, Rick, and
it's great advice. And you know, just from my standpoint
as a father, my daughter just graduated from school last year.
She's an aspiring filmmaker in New York now, and she
asked me about the business when she was still in
high school. And all I said was, try and do
everything on set. If you want to be a DP
(25:52):
director of photography, that's what turns you on. You're good
at it, that's fine. But learn how to do lighting,
Learn how to do the boom, learn how to do
the blocking, watch the director. Learn how to be a PA.
Because once you learn what everybody's doing around you, it's
going to make you better at your position, but give
you more clarity when you're on the job.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
And that's exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I mean that's what allows for really effective collaboration. Yeah,
is when people understand where the other one is coming from.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, don't pigeonhole yourself into one gig, folks, It's just
not the way to go. Listen, some people succeed at it.
That wasn't my experience. It sounds like it wasn't ricks,
and I think it's great advice. Well, Rick, listen, I
really enjoyed the conversation, but I do want to get
some final thoughts about what we talked about and about
your company. So, sir, the floor is yours, and we're
also going to get the website and find out if
you're hiring.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, yeah, So thank you for giving me this time.
I really wanted to talk about the capabilities company. I'm
super excited about what we're doing. I think we can
bring things of real value to our customers at a
really compelling price. We've got that full spectrum capabilities across
it cyber and data and AI. We're focused on the
(26:59):
things that are important to the country and so I
just look forward to the years coming up. Yes, we
are hiring. We're a growing company and that means we're hiring.
The website is www dot Agile, dash Defense dot com.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Rick, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your
time because I know you're busy, and I always say
this to people like you that are running companies like
you do here in the DMV. I'm always appreciative of
all the work you do, especially while you were asleep
at night, because I know that you're doing a lot
of super secret stuff that protects us. I know that, folks,
the world seems on fire at times than it probably is,
but things are moving quickly. But because of people like
(27:38):
Rick and his team doing what they do, it makes
us a little bit safer.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
So we can't sleep at night in the United States,
which I always think is very cool. So Rick, thank
you for that.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Thank you to your team, and we really appreciate you
joining us on CEOs.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
You should know, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs, you
should know. Is part of their ongoing commitment to building
strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses within them.
As a bank for communities, M and T believes in
dedicating time, talent, and resources to help local businesses thrive
because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed.
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