Angie Lienert was 19 when she took the lunch break from her job at a gas station in Frankfort, Ky., to join some high school friends who were home from college. And it was there, at a picnic table with a chili dog in hand, that it dawned on her:
Gas station. Chili dog. Friends soon returning to college. It was time to start her real life.
After a talk with her father, Angie called the local Air Force recruitment office the next day.
Within a month, she was in Texas for basic training, then headed to California to study Arabic. After six years of working as a linguist in the Air Force, she got her MBA and took a job with a British defense contractor in the U.S. intelligence community.
In 2007, according to Inc., she and nine colleagues took a deep breath and started a workplace founded on transparency, a moral compass, and a culture in which "We want to work every day."
Today their big-data analytics and cybersecurity firm, IntelliGenesis, boasts the U.S. Department of Defense as its primary client. Moreover, it has helped the entire U.S. military make sense–and develop critical intelligence–from tons of complex data.
As Angie Leinert says now, "We help the good guys catch the bad guys."
Her firm's mission-driven perception of government contracting–defend your country, earn a good living–has spawned offices in Maryland, Georgia, and another to come in Texas. And of course, it's a lodestone for veterans and their families. Almost 95 percent of IntelliGenesis employees have government security clearance.
Lienert's company benefits for her workers and their families are not redundant with those carried by 65 percent of her workforce who are veterans. Those who opt-out of her health benefits because of their continuing military benefits get a $10,000 bonus each year. She also offers unlimited education-expense reimbursement–which can be used in tandem with G.I. Bill benefits.
As a government contractor with headquarters in two states and so many employees embedded in the DOD, Angie Leinert's IntelliGenesis prospers with a culture inspired by deliberate communication, continuous online chitchat, numerous social functions–and the occasional on-the-house, corporate escape for all.