For more than 40 years, ManTech International has served U.S. government agencies with software and services that support national security efforts. For example, ManTech has provided advanced technology support to the U.S. Army in conflicts from Desert Storm to Afghanistan and Iraq.

ManTech professionals developed A-Space, a social networking and collaboration solution similar to popular Internet applications, that is designed to encourage the sharing of ideas and information among members of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the 13 other U.S. intelligence services. A-Space was named one of the 50 best inventions of 2008 by Time magazine.

ManTech's business has grown steadily, and its performance has received wide recognition. In 2007, ManTech was named one of BusinessWeek.com's fastest growing tech companies; to Business 2.0 magazine's 100 fastest growing technology companies list for the second year in a row; and to the Deloitte & Touche list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in Virginia.

In 2008, G.I. Jobs magazine named ManTech one of the top 10 military friendly employers for the third year in a row, Forbes.com ranked ManTech as one of the 400 best companies in America, and BusinessWeek magazine chose ManTech for its 2008 "InfoTech 100" listing of the best performing tech companies in the world. The company was ranked 77th overall, 16th best in shareholder return on equity, and 33rd highest in revenue growth.

Focusing on the high-end defense and intelligence markets has helped ManTech continue to grow. Revenue reported in the third quarter of 2008 was $486.1 million, up 27 percent compared with the same period in 2007.

Robert Coleman has been president and chief operating officer of ManTech since 2004. He joined the company when it acquired Integrated Data Systems Corporation, a computer security and enterprise architecture company he founded in 1990.

Coleman was nominated in April 2008 as the Corporate Executive of the Year for 2007 by the Association for Corporate Growth National Capital Chapter in recognition of two major successful acquisitions ManTech made in 2007 - SRS Technologies for $199 million and McDonald Bradley for $79 million. In December 2008, he was named by Washington, D.C., area publication ExecutiveBiz magazine as one of the "Top 20 People to Watch in 2009."

In this interview, Coleman talks about the role of training and employee development in creating ManTech's success.

ManTech has experienced rapid growth in revenue and operating income since 2001. What contribution did employee learning and development make to that growth?

In terms of learning and development, I believe our success stems from a unique approach. First, to turn a popular phrase on its head: employees aren't the most important asset in a company - employees ARE our company.

All the rest - computers and labs, business unit organizations, benefits packages, legal structures, training and education programs, and other resources - are assets that exist solely to enable and enhance our people's support to our customers.

As a mission-driven company, every day, we come to work to help deliver unique best-value solutions, consulting services, and technologies that meet our clients' mission-critical needs. So when our people learn and grow in their capabilities, our company learns and grows its core competencies.

In mid-2005, we recognized the increasing need in our industry to provide employees with opportunities and resources to grow both professionally and personally, so we stepped up our investments in training programs and educational benefits.

In January 2006, we formalized this effort by creating ManTech University, and as we look back on its contributions throughout almost three years, we've seen a remarkable value - from both individual and organizational learning perspectives.

Working with our strategic business units, we've developed more than 400 courses, both with ManTech copy-boldject matter experts and through the use of vendors. These courses involve project management, program management, leadership, supervision, business ethics/compliance, and a host of other copy-boldjects that are helping us institutionalize a high-performance culture - one of our strategic objectives.

Since ManTech University was founded, we've experienced more than 25,000 enrollments in various programs, and we've delivered more than 40,000 hours of training, with a majority of the training occurring during evenings or on weekends through the enterprise learning management system, which is our virtual university available 24/7 to all employees.

For example, project management skills are critical in our industry because we're often asked to manage large, complex programs in support of critical national security missions. Using certification training available via ManTech University, in association with the Project Management Institute (PMI), we've increased the number of certified project management professionals (PMPs) in ManTech, enabling us to provide better customer service and enhancing our competitive edge.

We now have 102 project management courses approved by PMI to grant professional development units, making us one of the only firms in our industry in which our people can use our corporate university to maintain this certification without taking any outside training. We're looking to expand this portfolio to additional

company certifications.

How have changes in the national security industry in recent years driven the need to manage ManTech's talent differently than in the past?

The competition in our industry for qualified professionals, with the knowledge of the federal marketplace, the skills to support critical national security missions, and the ability to comply with government contracting rules and regulations, is very strong. Because of the dynamic nature of national security missions, these needs often change. So training and education available from ManTech University helps our people keep up with different technologies and trends.

Also, as we seek to provide innovative solutions to national security challenges, our people must have a solid understanding of information technology, systems engineering and integration, intelligence analysis and security, and logistics and supply chain management disciplines.

Leveraging the academic community's expertise in these areas, we've been able to expand our educational course offerings and training opportunities through university alliance partnerships with Bellevue University, Capella University, Colorado Technical University Online, National-Louis University, Stevens Institute of Technology, Kaplan University, and Strayer University.

In addition to the discounted tuition and fees arranged by ManTech University, employees can take advantage of the ManTech tuition reimbursement program when attending these schools.

Maintaining appropriate security awareness and compliance has always been a concern for many of the federal government customers we support, but it has received heightened attention since the events of 9/11. We offer courses through ManTech University regarding appropriate security procedures and possible threats to our information.

Further, in the critical areas of cyber security and systems engineering, we invest significantly in education and training to keep our professionals on the leading edge of developments in their fields.

Another post-9/11 development is an increased need in the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies and departments for information sharing and collaboration. We offer courses through ManTech University that help our employees understand the latest information-sharing and collaboration tools available. Our training programs and educational benefits are key to maintaining our thought leadership in areas such as cyber security and service-oriented architecture (SOA).

How do you measure the performance of the company's learning function and its top learning officer?

One concrete way to monitor ManTech University and the chief learning officer's contribution is financial, and here I mean more than just accurately forecasting costs and meeting budget. It's easy enough for us to calculate the cost avoidance achieved by bringing annual recertification training inside the company for our PMPs, versus using outside vendors.

Or, we can look at the cost savings that ManTech University has enabled, by coordinating training requirements and using the leverage of the entire enterprise's purchasing power to achieve course discounts and other favorable terms.

For either of these return-on-investment issues, I can turn to our Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Phillips, for complete data and thorough analysis. However, I'm equally interested in contributions to non-financial strategic objectives and operational goals.

This year, I've asked all corporate staff support leaders to write a value-add service level agreement (SLA) to govern their relationships with operations. As I've said many times, the worth of a support staff is derived from the value it adds to operations, and how it helps the enterprise achieve its mission and vision.

For example, as inputs to the ManTech University SLA, we can measure tangible results such as the number of courses developed, the number of employees enrolled, and the number of training hours delivered to our people. Also, our CLO has developed an ROI evaluation for every course we sponsor.

Employees are asked to complete this evaluation 30 days after they've completed the course, allowing them to evaluate the course, and more importantly see the effect that the course has had on their job performance. Going forward, as we look at the nonfinancial contributions made by ManTech University, I'll rely more heavily on my Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), Ed Glabus. The CSO will use our balanced scorecard to measure the performance of the learning function and trace its contribution to the learning and growth perspective, the customer perspective, and the internal perspective.

As a sanity check, I'll also consider external indicators to judge our progress compared to our competitors. ManTech University is a publically recognized corporate leader in individual and organizational learning, and in the three years of its existence it has enabled ManTech to win three consecutive Learning in Practice awards from Chief Learning Officer magazine - the 2006 Gold Award for Achieving Impact, the 2007 Gold Award for Leadership, and the 2008 Gold Award for Business Impact.

Externally, our CLO sits on the board of directors for the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Education Foundation and the editorial advisory board of CLO magazine as well as Training Industry Quarterly.

How would you articulate the value of employee learning and development at ManTech?

Learning and development's value is significant, and it will help position us to weather the exodus of baby boomers and the relatively small number of Generation Xers available to assume their positions, plus cope with the declining number of U.S. students graduating with IT, engineering, and other science and math degrees.

ManTech University is helping ManTech become an employer of choice in our industry, as our company works to build employee engagement, enhance retention, and recruit people to join the ManTech team. ManTech University is prominently featured on our careers webpage, illustrating for prospective employees the positive effects that a career at ManTech can have on their professional and personal growth.

Internally, our senior operations executives point out that the courses offered and their availability 24/7 through our LMS have had a positive impact on morale and employee engagement. I've been so encouraged by our progress in individual learning, that I embedded a formalized knowledge management (KM) function in ManTech University to enable organizational learning.

In 2009, I have high expectations for the KM function's value-add, starting with ManTechpedia and our communities of practice, and following up with social-networking projects and even better initiatives.

What's your role in initiatives such as succession planning, executive development, or other employee development?

The first of our four strategic objectives is to institutionalize a high-performance culture here at ManTech, and I think my earlier answers show my sustained level of involvement in employee development. Executive development and succession for key positions are every bit as important.

As the president and chief operating officer, I spend a significant amount of my time and energy on all three issues. Advancing our executive development progress is one of my key priorities for 2009. Recently, I charged our CLO and CSO to work with our strategic business unit executives to create and deploy a completely new, integrated leader development program (LDP).

The new LDP will address all leaders in the company, from front-line supervisors to senior profit and loss executives, from operations program managers to support functional managers, and those people we identify as high-potential future leaders within ManTech.

The new LDP will reflect "ManTech PRIDE," which incorporates the personal and professional qualities we value in ManTech's best leaders. ManTech PRIDE is represented by

• P for passionate: Our leaders are passionate about what they do, and to them, work is more than just a job. They're helping build something special at ManTech. That passion shows, and it is infectious.

• R for responsible: Our leaders take responsibility for their actions and are accountable for the performance of their organizations. They credit others when their team succeeds, and shoulder responsibility when the team falls short, while resolving to learn how they can do better next time.

• I for inspirational: Our leaders know that achieving sustainable performance is impossible without inspiration, and they inspire those around them to collaborate to accomplish our mission and achieve our vision through their words and actions.

• D for driven: Our leaders are driven to succeed but know that success isn't just a numbers game. It is reflected in the quality of your relationships and successes of your people. Our leaders are dedicated to ManTech's mission and success, past, present, and future, and therefore, to leaving a legacy that endures.

• E for execution-oriented: Our leaders know that it's not enough to have a good plan, but that it takes execution by the entire team - everyone doing their part - to deliver the expected results.

Our new LDP will be a core element of the ManTech way. Only by developing both our current leaders and our leaders of the future can ManTech become our customers' most trusted industry partner, integral to their success. With the right leadership team, we can become an even more successful enterprise, a mission-driven company and a strategy-focused organization, operating as one ManTech.

We'll know the team has succeeded when we're valued by our clients, esteemed by fellow employees, embraced by teammates, respected by competitors, prized by shareholders, and appreciated by our communities. t+d