[Satellite News 08-08-08] EMS Technologies (EMS) is growing aggressively, backed by a booming wireless market.
    Perhaps that is why the company appointed Neil Mackay COO and executive vice president in July. Not only does he have 15 years of experience with EMS, he played a pivotal role in a series of acquisitions for the Atlanta-based company in his previous role as executive vice president of strategy.
    EMS has been active in growing through acquisitions, adding such companies as D’Space and Sky Connect. In absorbing technologies and companies, since the start of 2008, EMS has hired nearly 60 defense & space systems segment staff and 80 satcom segment staff, growth complimented by the company’s retention rate of 95 percent in defense and space and 98 percent in satcom.
    Satellite News News Editor Jeffrey Hill spoke with Mackay about his new role at EMS and the company’s future.

Mackay: I am still focused on the growth of the company. My role with EMS is to focus on which areas of the market EMS should be in and how to enter those areas. For example, EMS Satcom acquired a company in the United Kingdom called Ottercom and that was fundamental in helping our satcom group grow. What was also important in getting my growth strategy in place was finding nuggets of technology that can leverage each of our business groups.

Mackay: Our three groups — defense and space, LXE and satcom — all have strengths in terms of bringing efficiencies to their own particular group. I’m looking to see how we can leverage some of those strengths from one group to another and share the good ideas. In addition, I’m setting up what you could call a “profitability champion task force,” which will try to get the best from each of these groups to improve our profitability and productivity.

Mackay: We look at the aeronautical communications side of the satellite business as having a lot of opportunity and potential, especially in communications with commercial, private and military aircraft. We acquired SkyConnect to add to our Inmarsat capability within our EMS satcom group so that we are spanning a larger piece of the waterfront. We want to remain the leader in aeronautical satellite communication.

Mackay: The Ottawa satcom group is one of our fastest growing groups, and they are working very hard on the next-generation Inmarsat handset and core modules. Because this is a high-volume product, we realized we needed to do more testing and some more engineering and put a couple of million dollars more worth of resources into its development. More research and development means less profits, so it will only affect the second quarter.

Mackay: My prime responsibility is to ensure we meet our growth forecast for the year — top line and bottom line profitability as well. I’m spending a lot of time ensuring that we meet shareholder expectations. The third and fourth quarter of 2008 are extremely important for us in terms of meeting our financial goals, as we are focusing more and more on the mobile satellite industry. It is a rapidly growing market segment for EMS. We are going to be looking very closely into leveraging some of the technologies we have in the defense and satcom group together to attack some of these new markets opening up. We are preparing for that this year so that by 2009 we will be able to attack other growth markets.