Companies working with the government on geospatial intelligence projects say they have hundreds of unfilled positions, and the government\u2019s classification requirements are to blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have 15 open positions right now that I can\u2019t fill,\u201d said Stephen Gillotte, president and CEO of Reinventing Geospatial, Inc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe issue that faces us is the government is requiring TS\/SCI [Top Secret\/Sensitive Compartmented Information] clearances for me to put engineers in unclassified space working on unclassified test data,\u201d said Gillotte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gillotte\u2019s comments came during a United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation event Sept. 28 when startup founders discussed the challenges they faced in the GEOINT community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simply put, GEOINT employers want agencies like the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to make more concerted efforts to carve out work that can be performed by uncleared personnel within their contracts. Instead, they claim the government is requiring cleared employees for projects that involve significant amounts of unclassified work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Companies face two major challenges and meeting this requirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, it often takes more than a year after hiring an employee to get through the clearance process, Gillotte said. During that time, those employees are prevented from working on major contracts and can act as dead weight on payroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That leads the second problem, which is there simply aren\u2019t enough prospective employees with the requisite clearance for employers to hire. And as more startup companies enter the GEOINT space, they\u2019re left fighting over a limited pool of cleared talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRecruiting costs right now are in between $30,000 and $40,000 a head, which is astronomical,” said Gillotte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a shortage in some respects, especially in the cleared space there is a lot of recirculation of talent,\u201d said David Sterling, founder and CEO of Royce Geospatial Consultants Inc. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a ton of openings and we can\u2019t spend enough on recruiting, but at the same time, you can\u2019t pour every dollar you have into it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem, however, goes beyond startups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patrick Biltgen, director of analytics offerings at Perspecta, says his company of 14,000 employees is unable to fill hundreds of positions because of DoD requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have 950 unfilled positions,\u201d said Biltgen. \u201cAbout 600 of those positions require clearance. I personally believe approximately 250 of the positions are unfillable because the requirements are written in such a way to backfill a retired person that has 40 years of experience and a specialized skill and clearance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While a contract might require an employee have decades of experience in a hyper-specific area of satellite imagery, a broad workforce with that type of background doesn\u2019t exist. Many workers have retired, and companies are not incentivized to develop their own employees with that skill set, said Biltgen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo one is willing to hire the intern and start them from scratch,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a huge problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n