Celebrating Two Key Acquisition Anniversaries — and Looking Forward to More

Mission Critical Partners strives to add new capabilities that enable it to provide new and better service to its clients. This is especially important because the environment constantly evolves in the public safety and justice ecosystem where our clients live, often at warp speed. This means that our clients encounter new challenges and opportunities regularly, and we need to be in a position that helps address them. We also know that our clients need the added help now, and one of the fastest ways to add capabilities in far less time and effort is through acquisitions.

Over the last four years, MCP has brought six companies under its umbrella: Athena Networks, Black & Veatch Public Safety, URL Integration, MTG Management Consultants, SecureHalo™, and RKV Technologies. Each company we’ve acquired brought unique capabilities that enabled MCP to add new tools to its toolbox. As any homeowner knows, the better the tools in the toolbox, the better the finished product.

Introducing SecureHalo, MCP's Cybersecurity Center of Excellence

Let’s consider the Secure Halo acquisition as an example. The professionals who came to us from Secure Halo specialize in physical and cybersecurity solutions for local, state, and federal organizations, including the Department of Defense. Today, these professionals augment MCP’s existing cybersecurity and IT professionals delivering unrivaled experience through our SecureHalo cybersecurity center of excellence.

Key cybersecurity services provided by MCP include NetPulse® network and system monitoring and NetInform® network and system assessments. The center also performs penetration testing and vulnerability scans in-house. It also provides virtual chief information security officers (CISO), training services, and third-party risk management to thwart smart, motivated, and persistent cyber attackers increasingly targeting the public sector.

One of many examples of this team’s work concerns the state of Tennessee’s migration to Next Generation 911 (NG911) service, which involved implementing a statewide emergency services Internet Protocol network (ESInet). Like any IP-based network, ESInets are vulnerable to cyberattacks. MCP cybersecurity experts conducted comprehensive assessments at each of the state's 100 emergency communications districts (ECDs) and then presented strategies for addressing the identified vulnerabilities. The program has been so successful that TECB was recognized with an ASTORS platinum award in 2022.

Introducing the DataHalo Family of Data and Software Integration Solutions

Now let’s consider the RKV Technologies acquisition. The experts who came to MCP from RKV specialized in software implementation services, which is a powerful combination with our data-integration services to create the DataHalo™ family of data and software integration solutions.

Data integration — achieved by establishing real-time exchanges between disparate networks and systems to automate the bidirectional flow of mission-critical information — is critically important because it enhances situational awareness, which leads to better public safety and justice outcomes. The DataHalo team is leveraging three innovative solutions:

• DataScape™, a data analytics solution designed to compile raw data from multiple sources and make sense of it.
• DataLink™, which creates interfaces that enable seamless, automated bidirectional data flow.
• DataSphere™, which creates data hubs that enable all authorized entities within an enterprise to exchange and manage data effectively in real-time seamlessly.

One of many examples of this team’s impact concerns implementing an information-exchange system that has resulted in Georgia’s criminal justice and law-enforcement communities experiencing a dramatic improvement in workflows and business processes, considerable time savings, and reduced errors.

This team also develops and implements various software solutions for our clients. Some are customized, some leverage commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, and some center on software as a service (SaaS), a concept that leverages cloud-based solutions — with the selected approach based solely on each client’s need and budget.

A recent example of this team’s work concerns the Missouri Department of Transportation, which needed a way to harness rich data to enhance its decision-making and improve the efficiency of its maintenance operations. Our subject-matter experts designed and implemented a new web-based data collection-and-management system. The results were so spectacular that the project’s first phase received the Missouri Governor’s Award for Quality and Productivity, which recognizes service excellence, efficiency, innovation, process improvement, and employee ingenuity. The second phase has been nominated for this prestigious award.

Of course, MCP also provides consulting services, which have served as the firm’s foundation since its inception 14 years ago. Our consultants are still thriving as they provide subject-matter expertise to clients who are implementing innovative technologies, enhancing their operations, updating their policies and procedures, strengthening their staffing and training issues, and finding new funding sources.

Introducing the "MCP Halo Effect"

Our three strategic families of services, which we have branded as SecureHalo, Consulting, and DataHalo — combine to provide our clients with a holistic and vendor-neutral approach to enhancing and evolving their critical communications systems and operations across the entire ecosystem. We call this the “MCP Halo Effect,” which reflects our comprehensive, integrated series of services and solutions that dramatically improve collaboration, situational awareness, decision-making, and public safety and justice outcomes.

We’re not done yet — not by a long shot. We will continue to grow organically and, where it makes sense, inorganically to help our clients meet their ever-changing needs. So, stay tuned.

Darrin Reilly is chief executive officer and president of MCP. Email him at  DarrinReilly@MissionCriticalPartners.com.