Weekly Business News Digest

Times four: Tysons-based Booz Allen Hamilton reported quarterly profits that more than quadrupled from a year ago in congruence with a growing demand from the Defense Department and other government agencies for its consulting services, WTOP reported. The company also continued to add thousands of consultants and other employees to its payroll. Booz Allen had a fiscal third quarter net income of $146.6 million, up from $31 million in the same quarter a year ago. It had a fiscal third quarter revenue of almost $2.6 billion, up 12.9 percent. Booz Allen ended the year with almost 34,000 employees globally, adding 2,700 jobs to its total head count in 2023, or an increase of 8.6 percent. About 700 of those new jobs were added in the final quarter of the year.

Raising the roofs: Herndon-based Beacon, a Fortune 500 roofing and building supply distributor with a market cap of $5.35 billion, isn’t slowing its acquisition spree in 2024, Washington Business Journal reported in subscriber content. The company closed its acquisition of Greensville, South Carolina’s Roofers Supply. It is Beacon’s first acquisition of 2024 after closing nine such deals across 2023. Roofers Supply has two branch locations in North Carolina — in Charlotte and Raleigh — in addition to its South Carolina headquarters. Beacon serves nearly 100,000 customers at more than 530 branches throughout all 50 states and six Canadian provinces. It opened more than 20 distribution centers last year.

Walkable village: In 2021 the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors adopted a plan to redevelop McLean’s 230-acre downtown, to include zoned density and increased height requirements closer to the town’s core to transform it to a walkable village, Virginia Business reported. The largest-yet phases of that transformation were approved by the Supervisors in October 2023, including the Astoria, a seven-story, 130-apartment mixed-use building that will include 3,000 square feet of office and retail.  Next door, Mars, the largest privately held company in Virginia, is expected to begin an expansion of its headquarters, from 53,000 square feet to 125,000 square feet. “The major motivation was people moving to the area and feeling like we lacked a sense of community because we didn’t have a place where the community could gather,” Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust said.

New HQ: ImageX, a woman and minority-owned small business specializing in secure information management solutions, relocated its headquarters to a new office location in Reston. The move underscores imageX’s commitment to its clients, the local community, and the burgeoning technology sector in Reston, according to the company. ImageX has been serving federal government agencies, the healthcare industry, and businesses with secure information management solutions for over 30 years. “We are thrilled about our new office location in Reston,” said Carol Steinmann, owner and CEO of imageX. “This move represents an exciting chapter in our company’s journey. We are committed to continuing to deliver exceptional services and innovative solutions to our clients, while also investing in new technology and infrastructure to further enhance our capabilities.”

Favored interface: A satellite refueling nozzle developed by Falls Church-area based Northrop Grumman is the first to be selected as a preferred standard for U.S. military satellites, SpaceNews reported. In a move that could shape the in-orbit satellite servicing market, the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command designated Northrop Grumman’s Passive Refueling Module (PRM) as a favored interface to enable future in-space refueling of military satellites. The PRM has a docking mechanism to allow a refueling vehicle in orbit to transfer propellant to another satellite to extend its useful life. The adoption of Northrop Grumman’s PRM, while not exclusive, marks the first time the Space Force has publicly identified a preferred system.

Where to next? United Airlines is adding new routes, bringing back others and dusting off seasonal flights at Washington Dulles International Airport to meet travel demand, reported InsideNova. United will add a new nonstop flight to Anchorage, Alaska, this spring. United will also resume seasonal service to Vancouver on May 2. Dulles will also be adding to other domestic destinations this spring, including Phoenix, Kansas City, San Antonio and New Orleans. Due to customer demand United will start seasonal flights to European destinations from Dulles earlier than usual. The airline will resume service Feb. 15 to Barcelona, Lisbon and Rome. It will add a second daily flight between Dulles and Rome starting in May. United operates more than 230 daily flights at Dulles to more than 100 destinations.

Climbing higher: Herndon-based ePlus, a technology services provider, acquired certain assets of Denver-based data center services company Peak Resources. Founded in 1991, Peak delivers various professional services, as well as data center, networking and cybersecurity products. ePlus said the acquisition will help bolster its engineering, sales and service delivery capabilities in the Mountain West region. “As we actively work to grow our sales and services reach in fast growing geographies, PEAK has an excellent reputation, a very capable workforce, and a solid customer base that will benefit from ePlus’ broad solutions portfolio,” said Mark Marron, CEO and president, ePlus. “We welcome our new PEAK colleagues to the ePlus family and look forward to serving our new customers in the mountain west region.” Potomac Tech Wire carried the release.

Cyber fox hunting: Herndon-based Forcepoint Federal, a developer of cybersecurity technology for the federal government, changed its name to Everfox. The news comes four months after TPG Capital completed its $2.45 billion acquisition of Forcepint’s Global Governments and Critical Infrastructure (G2CI) business from owner Francisco Partners. Everfox CEO Sean Berg said the rebranded company, which recently announced a partnership with Microsoft to develop cloud offerings for federal agencies, “will continue to protect government, critical infrastructure and regulated industries against the most complex cyber challenges.” GovConWire has more.

Irreversibly Transformed: Herndon-based ManTech and Atlanta-based Trust Stamp are combining their capabilities to create a privacy-first identity management technology powered by artificial intelligence, according to ExecutiveBiz. Trust Stamp said that it entered into a teaming agreement to integrate its Irreversibly Transformed Identity Token into ManTech’s analytics and other product offerings. The Irreversibly Transformed Identity Token uses AI to generate probabilistic zero knowledge proof, analyzing digital identities without the risk of data breaches. “Trust Stamp’s privacy-first technology has many use cases for the federal government and its implementation within ManTech’s product offering is a tremendous opportunity to accelerate adoption,” Trust Stamp President Andrew Gowasack said.

Hopping in the sky: Tysons and Medford, Mass.-based MITRE and the Office of Naval Research have developed a small unmanned aerial vehicle prototype that could be used in maritime surveillance, search and rescue and detection of meteorological events. The drone, dubbed Hopper, comes with small solar cells that could recharge the system while at rest and in flight. ONR and MITRE used advanced simulation software, computer-aided design and 3D printing technique to design and build the drone, which could be deployed in swarms to perform signals monitoring, marine-life biological research and other maritime missions. “This technology works primarily to augment existing maritime surveillance platforms,” said Conor Mahoney, expeditionary group leader at MITRE. “Where normally you’d have to risk a crewed asset or an expensive uncrewed asset to maintain cognizance over a wide ocean area, Hopper can do so at a fraction of the cost—and free up those other assets.” ExecutiveGov has more.

Affordable housing: The former Sheraton Tysons Hotel is officially getting turned into permanent housing, reported InsideNova. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a plan on Jan. 23 to convert the vacant hotel at 8661 Leesburg Pike in Tysons West into 544 residential units. The units are expected to be small studios, but because the developer is repurposing an existing building instead of constructing a new one, they will provide a “naturally occurring” affordable housing option for Tysons, according to Walsh Colucci land use attorney Robert Brant, who represented JBG Tysons Hotel at the public hearing.

Best specialty hospitals: Three Fairfax County-based hospitals were among those ranked the best in their area of specialty in Virginia in a new ranking by Healthgrades, an online physician and hospital locator, Ashburn Patch reported. Inova Fairfax Hospital, Falls Church was ranked among the best for Cardiac Care, Cardiology; Gastrointestinal Care, Gastrointestinal Surgery; Neurosciences; and Stroke Care. Inova Fair Oaks Hospital, Fairfax ranked among the top hospitals for Critical Care; Gastrointestinal Care, and Gastrointestinal Medical. Reston Hospital Center, Reston placed among the best for Joint Replacement: Orthopedic Surgery; and Surgical Care. Healthgrades evaluated 4,500 hospitals across more than 30 common procedures and conditions to determine the 250 that received 2024 America’s Best Hospitals Awards. At the same time, the organization ranked hospitals in 32 states across 18 specialty areas to determine its Specialty State Rankings.