Colorado Springs defense company acquires Cali manufacturer

From left: Tim Jones, CEO of Innovative Scientific Solutions & Analytics; Kevin O’Neil, CEO of The O’Neil Group; Rob Patterson, president of ONE Dev; and Tom Sheehan, director of operations for Innovative Scientific Solutions & Analytics, pose for a portrait on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2022. (Parker Seibold / The Gazette)

ONE Dev, the government contracting branch of local business tycoon Kevin O’Neil's investment company The O’Neil Group, acquired a California-based wireless transmitter producer, ONE Dev announced recently.

ONE Dev, a cornerstone of The Consortium, a network of defense and tech companies such as Bluestaq that collaborate to collect, analyze and share information within the warfighting domain, acquired Systems Engineering & Management Company (SEMCO) to complement ONE Dev's goals and grow SEMCO, ONE Dev President of Business Development Rob Patterson said.

"They (SEMCO) offer a lot of help to The Consortium," Patterson said. "But The Consortium helps them."

Started in 1984 by husband and wife Bill and Karen Tincup, SEMCO designs, tests and manufactures telemetry equipment. Telemetry equipment is used to send signals from airborne systems such as missile or spacecrafts to a ground antenna. That data is received, interpreted and converted into units that describe information such as temperature, voltage and positioning.

That equipment is primarily sold to Lockheed Martin and other defense companies with the U.S. government being the end user, Patterson said.

ONE Dev intends to grow SEMCO's sales and triple SEMCO's organic revenue in about a five-year timeline with the help of the company's new Vice President of Business Development Pierre Bastie, who comes with a 14-year background in the telemetry field and government contracting.

While ONE Dev announced the merger less than two weeks ago, SEMCO joined the company nearly a year ago, Patterson said. He attributed the lag in the announcements with ONE Dev's desire to bring SEMCO up to speed, a process still unfolding as ONE Dev aims to increase SEMCO's 25-person workforce to meet the demand of the company's anticipated growth.

The Tincups continue to operate SEMCO with minority positions in the company, Patterson said. SEMCO's workforce is based in California and Florida at the company's manufacturing and testing sites, he added.

But as SEMCO grows, ONE Dev aims to create a service dimension to the company beyond the products it sells, which would be based in Colorado Springs in sync with the Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation.

"We are glad to have SEMCO join The Consortium and they are already instrumental and under contract in support of Range of the Future program initiatives," Patterson said in a news release.

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Jessica is a reporter at The Gazette. Tips to [email protected] and @JessySnouwaert

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