An Important Milestone: 10 Years of Mission Critical Partners

This month is very special for Mission Critical Partners: it’s the month we celebrate 10 years of being in business.

A decade ago, our co-founders—Kevin Murray, Brian Bark, and Len Kowalski—started the firm in makeshift offices above their garages and in their basements. They were joined shortly thereafter by David F. Jones and Dave Boyce. Together, the team of five worked countless hours and weekends to build a company consisting of innovators, engineers, subject-matter experts, former emergency responders and 911 center managers, and project managers, who share a common passion—improving life-safety outcomes. Since their humble beginning in 2009, the founders had a vision of growing the firm to 75 employees, the size they believed would give it influence in shaping the future of public safety communications.

10 Years of MCP: An Interview with Brian Bark, Co-Founder

"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.

10 Years of MCP: An Interview with Kevin Murray, CEO and Co-Founder

"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.

MCP + Athena: The Leading Provider of IT Services for Public Safety

Earlier this week, we announced that Mission Critical Partners (MCP) has acquired Athena Advanced Networks, enhancing our IT service offering and reinforcing our position as the industry leader in providing independent, holistic services for public safety infrastructure and operations.

The public safety industry is going through a time of unprecedented change. Our future will involve an increasing number of shared and integrated systems and networks. With that evolution comes greater complexity, more vendors, and most importantly, higher risk that must be managed in order to achieve and maintain reliable and efficient networks and operations.

Over the past several years, clients have expressed their need for more support to manage this complexity. MCP joining forces with Athena will significantly expand our ability to help our clients have real-time visibility and control over their public safety systems.

These are the benefits we expect our clients to realize from this partnership:

Life at MCP: Meet Jackie Mines

Our people and culture make Mission Critical Partners (MCP) a great place to work. Our "Life at MCP" series introduces our team members, the role they play in our organization and their passion for helping the public safety industry thrive.

Walt Disney is well-known for his famous quote, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Jackie Mines, Project Manager at Mission Critical Partners, has learned this a time or two during her 30+ years working in public safety communications.

She lived this firsthand back in 1998 when she and her team of stakeholders completed what seemed like the impossible task of leading the effort to deploy wireless enhanced 911 (E911) in a fourteen-state Midwest region at the US West telephone company (US West later became Qwest Communications International and was purchased by Century Link).

Twenty years later, her work embodied this philosophy again in her role as the director of emergency communications networks for the State of Minnesota, when she led the team responsible for rolling out text-to-911 statewide in 2017. As part of that multi-year, very complex project, not only did the 30-year old 911 system in Minnesota undergo a major upgrade that dramatically improved emergency response capabilities for the people and visitors of Minnesota, it also extended new capabilities to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

Life at MCP: Meet Todd Johnson, P.E.

Our people and culture make Mission Critical Partners (MCP) a great place to work.

Our "Life at MCP" series introduces our team members, the role they play in our organization and their passion for helping the public safety industry thrive.

It's all in the family

Todd Johnson, PE, a senior technology specialist at MCP, is a second-generation mission-critical communications expert. During his childhood, he spent countless hours by his father’s side—a major source of inspiration for him—dabbling with electronics and wiring at his technician’s workbench. For Todd, telecommunications is far more than an occupation, it’s family business.

His father served in the Navy during Vietnam and later played an instrumental role at Motorola in developing new communications platforms. His love for public safety communications and his passion for the mission began in his early years.

“I bring a unique perspective to my projects,” Todd says. “I’ve been fortunate to wear many different hats throughout my career. I’ve worked in the vendor community on large-scale communications networks, I spent time at the city of Houston working as an assistant director implementing the largest urban trunking system, and now, I’m rounding out my experience as a consultant at Mission Critical Partners (MCP).”

Life at MCP: Meet Nick Falgiatore

Nick Falgiatore is a senior technology specialist at Mission Critical Partners (MCP) who brings a decade of industry experience to the table. His prowess includes land mobile radio system assessment, design, procurement, and implementation support, FirstNet planning, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensing, propagation modeling, interoperability planning, and data gathering among others. He’s also one of the public safety communications sector’s rising stars – he was recently honored with an award as a leading professional charting a course in the industry in the years to come.

Team first mentality

Nick came to MCP in 2013 and was quickly entrenched in projects of all shapes and sizes implementing public safety communications systems. He has supported more than 50 clients with designing and deploying new radio and wireless broadband solutions such as Project 25 (P25) Phase I and Phase II systems. In the last two years, he’s been heavily engaged with the rollout of the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network, being implemented by FirstNet, working shoulder-to-shoulder with several state and local clients as they build their strategy to build out their network.

'A' Player Traits and How to Spot Them Using a Prescreen Interview

A previous post presented, on a high-level, the approach we take to finding the A players for our public safety communications careers, known as “Topgrading,” a methodology developed by Dr. Brad Smart, who is considered by many to be the world’s foremost expert on hiring practices. This article will explore some of the nuances of Topgrading, and contains tips for public safety leaders looking to find A players to add to their organization.

Unlike the yeti, the A player is no mythical creature. Indeed, the A player—who is defined as a person among the top 10 percent of professionals in his or her chosen field—has numerous discernible traits such as:

• Best-in-class achievements—A players are results driven, exhibit consistently excellent performance, and often are award winners
• Superior problem-solving abilities—A players are quick studies and able to perform complex analysis
• Outstanding leadership skills—A players not only are self-starters, but also self-leaders; typically, you give them a direction, and then get out of their way; they are highly adaptive, they execute needed change, and they inspire others to higher levels of performance
• High passion and energy—A players are driven to succeed and work at a fast pace; they will do whatever it takes—within the bounds of ethics—to get the job done.

Having a roster of A players is vitally important to every organization, but none more so than public safety agencies, which every day encounter situations where lives are on the line and every second counts. So, how does one identify the A players in the public safety sector? It all starts with the Topgrading prescreen interview.

How to Find ‘A’ Players: An Intro to ‘Topgrading’ for Public Safety Leaders

It is essential that MCP’s subject-matter experts (SMEs) provide exemplary service, expertise and advice to our public safety clients, because when lives are on the line and seconds count, their mission truly matters. A key element in assuring that we serve our clients at the highest levels is to hire “A” players, i.e., the top 10 percent of talent in the public safety sector. While such a determination might seem subjective, it really isn’t. In fact, we use an objective approach known as “topgrading” to accomplish this goal. It is an approach that every public safety answering point (PSAP) manager can leverage to attract the most knowledgeable and passionate talent available.

Topgrading Basics

Topgrading is a methodology that was developed by Dr. Brad Smart, who widely is considered the world’s top hiring expert. We describe topgrading as a structural approach to interviewing candidates, and we use it to fill every position. Here's a quick overview of how the topgrading process works for us.

Tip 1: Don't underestimate the importance of a pre-screen.

We start with a pre-screen interview to initially identify candidates who possess “A player” characteristics and eliminate those who do not.  Candidates generally will meet with us by phone or in a live environment.  The pre-screen interview generally will run up to 90 minutes.  During the interview we ask each candidate to state their career goals, identify their best professional attributes, and acknowledge their weaknesses.  We discuss the individual’s work history, the core values at MCP—persistence, integrity, trust, accountability and prudence—and team-oriented characteristics the individual can bring to our company.

Life at MCP: Meet Bonnie Maney

Bonnie Maney, vice president and director of facilities and operations services with Mission Critical Partners, has been working in public safety dispatch centers for more than twenty-five years. She’s always had a passion for making an impact on the first-responder mission since the early days of her career working in public safety answering points (PSAPs) in Florida.

Coming to the "other side"

Bonnie spent most of her career working in the public sector. In 2015, she decided to make a significant career switch by pursuing an opportunity in the private sector when a close colleague recommended she join Mission Critical Partners. “I started consulting in 2010 for a national non-profit consortium where I worked for federal, state and local clients on various levels. I always wanted to try consulting and after this experience, I knew I had found a new calling that added another layer to my already satisfying career.” said Maney.

Since then, she continues to work on project of many shapes and sizes.

One of the most rewarding aspects of her job is, “Every project is as equally important to every client regardless it's size. The work we’re doing plays a critical role helping them advance their mission, and that’s where I find the greatest satisfaction.”

Even early in her career when she worked her way up from a telecommunicator to a PSAP manager, Bonnie has always been passionate about making an impact on public safety—whether it be for technology initiatives or working one-on-one with the staff helping to improve operations and promote a positive work environment.