MCP in the News: 5 Questions with a Happy Valley CEO Kevin Murray

This article recently ran in Happy Valley Industry's online publication and can be read in its entirety here, or below.

R.Kevin Murray is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Mission Critical Partners, LLC (MCP), which is headquartered in State College, PA, also known as Happy Valley. MCP supports communications networks with a mission to improve public safety, justice, healthcare, transportation, and utility markets.

Happy Valley Industry recently sat down with Kevin and talked shop. We cover how MCP is changing their industry, the unique solution that MCP provides for clients, why customers choose and trust MCP, how Happy Valley contributes to MCP’s success, and career advice for anyone looking to grow and succeed in their business and/or industry. Kevin Murray is founder, chairman and CEO of Mission Critical Partners (MCP), which is headquartered in Happy Valley. Founded 12 years ago, MCP today serves public safety and justice agencies from coast to coast. The firm has 150-plus subject-matter experts who advise their clients on a wide range of topics related to technology, operations, security and governance.

HappyValley Industry: What is the unique solution your business provides to your clients?

Murray: Mission Critical Partners provides data integration, consulting and network and cybersecurity solutions that are designed to support mission-critical communications networks and transform them into integrated, next-generation communications ecosystems to improve outcomes in the public safety, justice, healthcare, transportation and utility markets.

HappyValley Industry: Why do you think your customers choose and trust you?

Murray: There are numerous reasons. First and foremost, we always do what we say that we’re going to do. Another important reason is our vendor-neutral philosophy, which ensures that our recommendations result in our clients receiving best-of-breed solutions that align with their individual needs. Another is our roster of subject-matter experts, which is unparalleled in the public safety and justice communities.

We tell our clients what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear.

Also important are the core values—prudence, integrity, trust, accountability and persistence—that we all embrace companywide. We also embrace the concept of truth over harmony—we tell our clients what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear. All of this results in our clients trusting that what we tell them is solid advice that is offered with their best interests in mind.

HappyValley Industry: How are you changing or hope to change your industry?

Murray: Our consulting division is leading the effort to implement broadband technologies that will transform emergency response by making exponentially more actionable data available to public safety and justice agencies. This in turn will improve emergency response outcomes and keep responders safer. It also will result in more arrests and convictions, and more importantly, will help to prevent crime.

Meanwhile, our lifecycle management services (LMS) division is leading the way in helping our clients better integrate data into their daily operations. This means capturing data effectively and efficiently; ensuring that it flows seamlessly between agencies, departments and field personnel, and between disparate networks and systems; and ensuring that it is actionable, so that it can inform the decision-making process and be made available to any authorized user whenever they need it. In addition, the LMS division is transforming the cybersecurity postures of our clients to prevent cyberattacks that are increasing tremendously in number and evolving almost by the hour.

HappyValley Industry: How does the Happy Valley industry/tech ecosystem contribute to your company’s success?

The ability to mine the forward-looking perspectives and insights of some of the nation’s leading technology and business minds is critical to informing our strategies, which leads to better decisions in terms of how we evolve our business.

Murray: The ability to mine the forward-looking perspectives and insights of some of the nation’s leading technology and business minds is critical to informing our strategies, which leads to better decisions in terms of how we evolve our business.

HappyValley Industry: What is your best career advice?

Murray: Find something that you’re passionate about and then make it your life’s work. Everyone who works at MCP is passionate about the mission of the public safety and justice community, and it shows in their efforts every day.