MCP Insights

The concept of drones—also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or unmanned aerial systems (UAS)—dates back to August 1849 when Austrian soldiers attacked the city of Venice with hot-air balloons filled with explosives. The campaign largely was unsuccessful; in fact, ill winds blew many of the balloons back toward the soldiers who launched them.

Nearly a century later, in 1944 during World War II, Japan embarked on the little-known Fu-Go campaign that involved launching about 9,000 balloons laden with incendiary bombs; the balloons were supposed to waft across the Pacific Ocean and then start forest fires in the western United States to spark panic amongst the citizenry. This campaign also was unsuccessful.

Our clients’ mission has made this much more than a job

In previous posts, MCP Insights shared the memories and perspectives of two co-founders—Kevin Murray and Brian Bark—regarding the firm’s 10^th anniversary, which will be celebrated throughout 2019. In this post, the third co-founder, Len Kowalski, who today is MCP’s chief operations officer, shares his thoughts.

"MCP’s success ‘is all about good people doing good work every day"

A previous post offered the memories and perspectives of MCP chief executive officer and co-founder Kevin Murray in marking the firm’s 10^th anniversary, which is being celebrated in 2019. In this post, MCP Insights visits with another co-founder, Brian Bark, who today is the firm’s senior vice president/national sales director.

Insights: What were the biggest challenges faced in the beginning and how were they overcome?

Brian: The biggest challenge was setting up the company—we were starting flat-footed. We always knew what we wanted to be, and collectively the vision always was consistent. But we had to set up the banking and insurance, and get the accounting and legal support, all the things it takes to start a company. We knew that we didn’t want to be a three-person company, and growing MCP to the point where it was influential in the industry also was extremely challenging. We had many client contacts when we opened for business, but they all were under contract.

"There is nothing better than watching staff deliver great results to clients."

Mission Critical Partners (MCP) is celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year and to mark the milestone, MCP Insights visited with the three founders to capture their memories and perspectives. This installment features Kevin Murray, the firm’s chief executive officer.

Insights: What were the biggest challenges faced in the beginning and how were they overcome?

Kevin: The biggest challenge was starting from scratch. It was a tremendous amount of time and work. We worked every day, from sunup to sundown, for a year. You have to choose a name and logo, you have to set up bank accounts and get business insurance, you’re writing proposals and making sales calls. On the weekends you’re putting desk furniture together. We were scrounging and scraping with everything we did. Luckily, we had each other—the ultimate triangle team—and some pretty understanding spouses.

Being an early adopter in the public safety/emergency response community is a wonderful thing. It is exhilarating to be on the leading edge of technology innovation, especially when one is steeped in the belief that such innovation will save many more lives—which happens to be the public safety communications community’s business.

However, as with most things in life, there is a flip side to this coin, which is that it not always easy to be an early adopter. To pull it off one needs not only considerable vision and drive, but also an equal measure of fortitude.

Recently I moderated a panel discussion regarding a pilot project conducted earlier this year that explored how social media data could be leveraged to enhance emergency response. (If you missed this free webinar, it is archived here. I urge you to take the time to view it—a lot of great information was presented on a very interesting project.)