Science Applications International Corporation
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:Small saicblue.jpg Science Applications International Corporation (usually known as SAIC) is the largest employee-owned research and engineering firm in the United States. It was founded by Dr. J. Robert "Bob" Beyster in 1969 in La Jolla, California, as Science Applications Incorporated. As of 2005, SAIC employed over 43,000 employees and reported $7.2 billion in revenues, making it a Fortune 500 company.
Although SAIC is a large technology firm with numerous federal, state, and private sector clients, its traditional expertise has been supporting the United States Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, including the National Security Agency. In fiscal year 2003, SAIC did over $2.6 billion in business with the DoD, making it the ninth largest defense contractor in the United States.
From 2001 to 2005, SAIC was the primary contractor for the FBI's disastrous Virtual Case File software project. The failure of the project was a blow to SAIC's prestige, although much of the blame was attributed to mismanagement of the project by the FBI. SAIC also lost over a million dollars after the acquisition of IMAPS, LLC in September 2005, which lead to many lay offs and projects being lost.
Dr. Beyster founded SAIC on the principles of employee-ownership - those who grow the company should share in its profits. On November 3, 2003 Kenneth C. Dahlberg was named the CEO of SAIC, ending Beyster's 30+ years of leadership. In May 2005, under the new CEO, the company replaced its external An Employee-Owned Company tagline with From Science to Solutions, retaining the former for internal communications.
On September 1, 2005, SAIC announced that its Board of Directors has decided to conduct an initial public offering of common stock worth in excess of 1.7 billion USD, with a proposed NYSE listing under the symbol SAI. After the proposed IPO, existing employee-owners would retain between 80 percent and 90 percent of the new company, meaning that the fundamental 'employee-ownership' ethos should be preserved.
