WHO WE ARE

Our History

Founded in 1986 to provide secure IT services to a specific government organization, Vaxcom has evolved and expanded into a full-service Threat Mitigation and Security Services company serving a range of Intelligence Community and Defense Industry clients, as well as select commercial and high net worth customers.

From a small handful of network and system engineers who started the Vaxcom journey to more than 500 elite technical, communications, and physical security professionals today, Vaxcom’s singular mission has been to deliver high-quality, cost-effective, responsive professional services. We are extraordinarily proud of our role as a long-term, trusted mission partner to our customers—a reputation cemented over nearly four decades of exceptional customer satisfaction and good stewardship of customer resources. Our focus on service excellence, a mission-first culture and employee-centric corporate management, drives our success and industry-leading employee retention rates and longevity (average 13+ years), and steady, strategic growth year over year.

Our Values

Vaxcom operates its business around a core set of action-based values:

  • Adhere to the highest standards of ethics, honesty, and integrity
  • Do the right thing, the right way, for the right reason
  • Treat everyone with respect, and earn their respect by demonstrating quality of character and performance excellence
  • Operate according to a fairness doctrine where every employee is treated with equal dignity and respect
  • Provide career-enhancing opportunities and reward employees’ exceptional performance
  • Strive for 100% customer satisfaction in every action and communication
  • Evolve business relationships into long-term, mutually-beneficial mission partnerships through transparency and focused pursuit of common goals.

Our Mission

Across the full range of our government and commercial contracts, Vaxcom’s mission is to adopt our customers’ missions as our own and pursue them with integrity and energy. As a company, Vaxcom measures mission success by answering these five question at our monthly team meeting for every program we support:

  1. Is the customer 100% satisfied with our performance?
  2. Do customer leaders and stakeholders on this program know and trust our team?
  3. Have we succeeded in making something better for this customer recently based on our understanding of its mission, its requirements, or its operating environment?
  4. Are our personnel continuously increasing their knowledge, skills, and value to the customer as they perform their duties?
  5. Are our personnel supporting this program happy in their job and optimistic about their future within Vaxcom?

Vaxcom strives every day to achieve a resounding YES response to each question. That’s when we know we are achieving our mission objectives on each and every program, for each and every customer.

Leadership

Our Executive Team leads by example, demonstrating Vaxcom’s high standard of service excellence for the program managers and personnel who serve our customers onsite and around the world every day. Their vision and values are the foundation of Vaxcom’s team culture.

Wm. Schmale, President

Mr. Schmale has been supporting mission-critical national security initiatives for nearly three decades, within the government and as an Intelligence Community industry executive. After several years supporting U.S. Government (USG) activities on Capitol Hill and in The White House, Mr. Schmale spent 14 years supporting USG mission operations overseas, living and working in nearly 50 countries. His operational expertise and time in the field, combined with his Master’s degree in Security Policy and International Affairs, inform his management of Vaxcom’s diverse global portfolio of threat mitigation and security programs. From complex technical missions to principal protection teams, Mr. Schmale has been part of these operations. He understands from his time in government service the challenges our customers face in executing their missions, and he can put himself in the shoes of our personnel who are onsite every day helping our customers achieve their objectives. With his door open to every customer and every employee, Mr. Schmale exemplifies the involved, engaged leadership rarely found at the level of President.

Ken Wilkinson, Vice President of Operations

During his 30-year career dedicated to the Intelligence Community mission, Mr. Wilkinson led support teams in a range of domestic and international assignments for the USG, including tours in high-priority overseas locations. Following his retirement from the government’s Senior Executive Service, he brought his breadth of mission expertise, depth of operational understanding, and easy leadership style to industry where he relentlessly reinforces a Mission First approach to every aspect of Vaxcom operations.  Mr. Wilkinson spends every day supporting Vaxcom’s talented program managers, ensuring they have the resources they need to excel in all aspects of technical, contract, financial, and personnel management on their programs. He also interfaces directly with Vaxcom clients to ensure their full satisfaction with our PMs and their teams, and to drive home Vaxcom’s corporate commitment as a long-term, trusted mission partner.

David Lankford, Director

Mr. Lankford is a retired executive level federal law enforcement officer with more than 30 years of experience supporting domestic and overseas Intelligence Community missions.   A recognized SME across protective security disciplines, Mr. Lankford provides corporate and program-level leadership within Vaxcom’s security portfolio.  He is frequently sought by clients for help addressing operational and process challenges that create security risk. He insists his personnel engage in active problem solving, critical thinking, and continuous  improvement, as they grow individually and advance professionally under his leadership.

Adam Orff, Director

Mr. Orff is the onsite PM for Vaxcom’s largest security program and provides corporate leadership in business capture and development. The roots of his security expertise were planted during his time as a maritime law enforcement officer and later as part of the Secret Service, protecting our nation’s leaders at the highest level. Following his government service, Mr. Orff transitioned to the Intelligence Community as an industrial contractor, supporting sensitive USG programs and non-traditional operations. His range of experience and understanding of diverse customer mission objectives enables him to tackle mission challenges head-on and help our personnel implement high-impact, durable solutions for our customers.

Suzan Alves, Vice President, Human Resources and Industrial Security

Ms. Alves has more than 15 years of experience supporting sensitive and complex security and intelligence programs for a variety of sensitive customers. As the executive responsible for Vaxcom’s industrial and corporate security programs and human resources operations, she is known and trusted by every Vaxcom employee and respected by every Vaxcom customer. With her exceptionally effective management of corporate processes, combined with her expertise in security, quality assurance, personnel management, and organizational development, Ms. Alves is indispensable to Vaxcom’s corporate operations. All members of our Executive Team rely on Ms. Alves’ leadership and discernment on a daily basis.

Aaron Dobbs, Senior Director of Finance

Mr. Dobbs has nearly 20 years of financial and accounting experience at large and small companies, supporting the unique missions of a variety of government and commercial clients. He immerses himself in Vaxcom’s program operations and customer missions so he can provide the informed financial solutions our executives and program managers need in order to provide the superior service our customers expect. He is committed to transparent stewardship of our customers’ resources, developing accurate, timely, accessible financial reporting, implementing process efficiencies, and identifying client cost savings wherever possible. As a key member of Vaxcom’s senior management team and trusted business partner to the Vaxcom President, Mr. Dobbs is responsible for all company financial functions, and works side-by-side with every Vaxcom PM to ensure excellence in every aspect of their program’s financial management and reporting.