The GovCon Report Newsletter

An interview with Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Danya International, Inc.

Danya International, Inc. was awarded the Contractor of the Year in the category of firms with annual revenues between $25 million and $75 million at the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce’s Annual GovCon Awards Gala.

Your company’s vision is “Innovative solutions for social impact” and your mission is “To provide innovative health and education technology-enabled solutions.” How long did it take you to come up with both of these and how successful have you been in meeting them?

From the founding of Danya in 1996, our vision has been to have a positive impact on social and health issues around the world. We began with developing Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects funded mainly by the National Institutes of Health to create health education programs on drug abuse, tobacco addiction, HIV prevention, and other health areas. These were small innovative projects but with limited impact. Over time, we were able to win larger contracts, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Head Start Monitoring Support contract and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Prevention Information Network (NPIN) for HIV, viral hepatitis, STDs, and TB contract, which had more of a national and international impact. Our vision and mission statements have evolved over the years but have had the same essential meaning, and we remain committed to this mission.

Your company was founded on the guiding principles of Integrity, Quality, and Creativity. You claim that Danya’s overarching aim is to help to create a better world for everyone. How important is it for growing government contractors to have such principles and aims? What might other government contractors strive for?

I think it is critical for companies to have strong values that define the culture and norms for the company, whether they are government contractors or not. These three principles have been a source of grounding and guidance for the company over the years. We do not expect to be perfect in any of these areas, but we strive to maintain the best balance possible. Other values that are important are a strong focus on the customer, providing a healthy and supportive working environment, and contributing to the community.

How have you seen the government customer change over the years and what changes to do you foresee in the future?

Over the past several years, the government has become more and more stretched and has to accomplish more with fewer resources, including experienced staff. This has led to a heavier reliance on government contractors to do substantive and even policy-oriented work that in the past would be done typically by government employees. On the positive side, it has led to a more collaborative relationship between the government and contractors. I believe that in the future, as has been indicated by President Obama, there will be an increase in hiring Federal government staff to run programs and manage contracts. This should have a positive affect on improving accountability and cost-efficiency. However, I hope that the more collaborative relationships will continue between government employees and contractors, given the ultimate shared goals and values.

Employee retention is very important for government contracts, and it is a constant challenge. Your most valuable resources and strengths are in the talent of your employees as a service-providing contractor. It is challenging because contracts tend to be short-term (2–5 years), and people generally like to have more stability and security. Furthermore, some of our best employees are recruited by our government clients—which benefits the government but also poses challenges for maintaining highly qualified staff. We have a wide range of employee benefits that we try to keep attractive to employees, with increasing leave and vesting of retirement benefits over time. In addition, we have always emphasized paying a high percentage of health insurance premiums to ensure that health insurance is affordable for all employees. But most importantly, we try to treat everyone with respect, listen to concerns, and provide meaningful work and a supportive work environment.

Danya has engaged with the Government on many interesting projects. What are some of the ones you’re most proud of?

That is a tough question, given that we have so many exciting projects in so many areas. I am definitely proud or our Head Start work, where we began providing primarily logistics but over time, took on more responsibilities to help improve the overall monitoring of Head Start programs around the country. We developed a national centralized system that allowed for more fair, systematic, and consistent monitoring of programs that ultimately improved services provided to children and their families in need. Our work on NPIN has been very rewarding, helping as it has to disseminate information on the prevention of serious infectious diseases to help organizations and partners become more effective at delivering services, promoting testing, and preventing the spread of infections. This work also led to our providing HIV and TB prevention and support services in Africa, which has been extremely engaging and rewarding over the past few years. One of my personal passions is reducing the use of tobacco— the leading cause of preventable deaths—which we support through our prevention and cessations programs, as well as by organizing the National Conference on Tobacco or Health June 10–12, 2009, at the Phoenix, Arizona, convention center. We are also very proud of our work in educating parents, teachers, and professionals about childhood disorders such as autism, mental health problems, addictions, and other health issues. We are most gratified when we receive feedback from people whose lives we have affected in some small or significant way.

Fred Diamond is President of DIAMOND Marketing and is the "go-to" marketing consultant for high-tech and professional firms in the DC metro area, including Virginia and Maryland. He has helped dozens of companies in many industries formulate winning and reasonable strategies that help companies accelerate the road to profitable marketing. He can be reached at fdiamond@freddiamond.com.

The GovCon Report is produced by the Greater Washington GovCon Council’s communications committee: Co- chairs: Anne Crossman (Completed Systems) and Dave Lundsten (Cherry Bekaert & Holland LLP.) If you wish to submit an article for consideration by the communications committee, send them to govconarticle@fccc.org.