Unsustainable - Software Engineer CUBRC Employee Review

Thank you for taking the time to submit a review regarding your work at CUBRC. It is wonderful to hear that you approve of my efforts as CEO, having led CUBRC to 16-fold increases in revenue and 48-fold in staffing over my 24 years at the helm. Likewise, it’s great that after only working a year or two at CUBRC, you appreciate our “work hard, play hard” culture. Such technologically challenging work, while being tremendously rewarding, at times, can be stressful, especially given the mission and time criticality of our work to the Nation’s Defense, Intelligence, Space and Health initiatives. That is why we enjoy having company outings such as skiing, curling, Bills’ games, Bison’s games, Sabres’ games, Shea's tickets, golfing, kayaking, bowling, a Family Picnic (hosted at my home), Sky High, holiday party and happy hours throughout the year. We’re particularly pleased that you recognize that, in CUBRC and its subsidiary Avarint, you are surrounded by “smart employees”; indeed, our best and brightest staff include many of the top experts in their respective fields of aerospace, modeling and simulation, ChemBioMed sciences, artificial intelligence and machine learning IN THE NATION. All that said, I must admit to being quite puzzled by your speculation that our business may be “unsustainable”. CUBRC, founded in 1983, is approaching its 40th year as an independent, scientific not-for-profit corporation performing exciting and important research, development, testing and systems engineering projects that are so valuable to our ever-growing customer base. Such an assertion by you made in April of 2022 is even more puzzling as we are coming off our STRONGEST YEAR EVER in which CUBRC’s and Avarint’s 2021 performance highlights included, but were not limited to: • Delivered record combined Revenues of $57.6M, a full $10M (+22%) over 2020; 116% of previous record despite the most difficult macro business and social environment ever and still faced due to the unrelenting COVID pandemic, highly variable and at times contradictory guidance and Federal mandates. • Achieved and maintained record combined staffing at 164 permanent employees despite highly competitive local, regional and national environment; expect/need to hire ~15 more staff in 2021. • Achieved record Payroll (salary + incentives) of $20.2M (+11%). • Achieved record milestone for combined contract Direct Labor at $10M. • Secured solid 2021 Year-end Funded Backlog of $33.5M, with which to start 2022. • Maintained and enhanced core competencies and customer bases in every business unit, and significantly further upgraded F&A, IT, Security and Contracts functions. • Earned a record ~$1.9M in Net Income, 3x that of 2020; increased year-end Fund Balance by 16% to a record ~$13.5M. I completely agree with your suggestion that management should try to be more transparent. As just one recent example of CUBRC’s leaders striving to be 100% transparent in all matters across the spectrum of employees and executive colleagues to members of CUBRC’s Board of Directors, the exact same information listed above was reported to our Board in mid-December and then shared with our entire staff population at All-Hands meetings in January. Please COME SEE ME; I’d be very happy to have the chance to discuss anything about CUBRC with you that you may wish. My door is always open! Regards, Tom Mc