2020 also marks 30th year as an employee-owned company
March 2, 2020 — Chantilly, VA — AMERICAN SYSTEMS, a government IT and engineering solutions provider and one of the top 100 employee-owned companies in the U.S., is marking the 45th anniversary of its founding this year. The company plans to celebrate the occasion with a company-wide video teleconference celebration on Thursday, March 5, in honor of company founder H. Thomas "Tom" Curran’s birthday. Curran, who passed away in 2014, founded AMERICAN SYSTEMS (formerly American Communications Corporation) in 1975 with a focus on providing technicians to telecommunications firms. In 1976, Curran joined forces with Forrest “Woody” Ramsey, and the company's initial focus was expanded to include systems engineering for U.S. submarines.
Today, the company, under the leadership of President and CEO Peter Smith, is a broad-based provider of IT and engineering services and solutions to government customers in support of national priority programs and has grown to include more than 1,400 employees and annual revenue in excess of $375 million. Smith first joined AMERICAN SYSTEMS 40 years ago to work on the TRIDENT submarine program.
From its early years supporting the U.S. Navy, the company has expanded its strategic business areas to include virtually every federal agency in the areas of Defense, Intelligence, Federal Law Enforcement, U.S. Outreach, and Healthcare. The company now supports several hundred programs globally, with a diverse workforce at 30 locations in the U.S. and in 15 countries overseas.
“For four-and-a-half decades, AMERICAN SYSTEMS has focused on delivering services and solutions that exceed our customers’ expectations in a cost-efficient manner while building a culture that rewards accountability and promotes growth in our workforce,” said Smith. “As we move forward, we expect to build on that legacy with our customers and employees. We adopted the tagline “Forty-five and thriving” in connection with our anniversary, as we are enjoying our strongest years of growth and, consequently, our highest shareholder value.”
In 1990, AMERICAN SYSTEMS established an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). AMERICAN SYSTEMS is now one of the largest 100% employee-owned ESOP companies in the U.S. and will be celebrating its 30th anniversary as an employee-owned company during National Employee Ownership Month in October of this year.
Twice named a Government Contractor of the year, AMERICAN SYSTEMS is nationally recognized as a veteran-friendly company and a Virginia Values Veterans (V3) company. The U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded the company the 2019 HIRE Vets Gold Medallion which recognizes employer efforts to recruit, employ, and retain veterans.
