On September 30, 2019, Karsun Solutions celebrated its 10th anniversary. Leadership recognized this monumental accomplishment with teams in Oklahoma and Virginia. Team members celebrating their tenth through fourth years of service at Karsun were recognized. From the formation of popular employee teams to key contract wins team members shared their favorite memories. Below is a look back at some of the most significant milestones over the past ten years.
Celebration of Service at Karsun Solutions Herndon HQ
Sundar Vaidyanathan and Kartik Mecheri founded Karsun Solutions LLC in September 2009 to fill a need in the marketplace for small business vendors providing information technology and business modernization expertise to federal agencies. Through Karsun Innovation Center, they combined emerging innovations and experience from existing delivery engagements into a set of core capabilities. Karsun pursues several innovation initiatives to prototype current and real-life business challenges using leading-edge technologies. Karsun provides opportunities and resources for employees to participate in explorative initiatives that solve problems for customers using new methods, techniques, tools, and technologies.
Co-Founders with Vision
Sundar Vaidyanathan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Karsun. He executes the overall strategic direction of the company and drives business results. He embodies Karsun’s commitment to modernizing enterprises through technology innovation. Sundar is a proven leader with expertise in developing strong customer relationships, building high-performance teams, and delivering excellence. Before founding Karsun, he held leadership roles at Unisys Corporation and KPMG Consulting, driving strategy and implementation of complex multi-million-dollar IT programs. In February 2017, Karsun Solutions was selected among Washington SmartCEO’s Future 50 award winners. This program recognizes 50 of the region’s fastest growing, mid-sized companies. These companies represent the future of the region’s economy and embody the entrepreneurial spirit critical for leadership and success. The winners are chosen based on a three-year average of employee and revenue growth. SmartCEO publicized their interview with Sundar where he discusses Karsun’s strategy of seeking out niche IT modernization opportunities and then delivering solutions to customers with high satisfaction. The key to his strategy was bringing together talented teams through a collaborative environment and innovative culture. Sundar is active in the federal IT community and has served in leadership positions at technology-focused industry organizations such as the American Council of Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC). He currently serves on the board of the Industry Advisory Council Executive Committee.
Kartik Mecheri is Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Karsun. He sets the vision for using technology and innovation so support client enterprise transformation efforts. He is a leader applying modern software development, cloud solutions, microservices and asset re-use to design transformation and modernization solutions. Kartik helps large agencies move away from traditional waterfall development to Agile and other methods that stress communication, collaboration, and use of the cloud. He is a trusted advisor to senior government executives on applying emerging technologies to improve efficiency. He is a renowned thought leader in the Federal Information Technology industry and has published studies, journals and white papers. For 27 years, the Federal 100 Awards have annually recognized government, industry, and academic leaders who have played pivotal roles that affect how the federal government acquires, develops and manages IT. Kartik was featured in Federal 100 March 2015 for making General Services Administration (GSA) more Agile. His influence extended to GSA’s Agile delivery team and innovation lab 18F. Kartik and his team created a robust repository of proven, free code for federal agencies to reuse.
Early Success
As an emerging small business specializing in IT, consulting services company, innovation, and enterprise modernization, Karsun first bid on and won new Task Order work on various contract vehicles including Alliant Small Business (SB) GWAC , GSA IT Schedule 70, FAA eFAST, Seaport-e, EAGLE II, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) One OIT building a growing portfolio of federal agencies and commercial clients.
In May 2010, Karsun was awarded its first major $25M five year subcontract with Lockheed Martin supporting General Services Agency (GSA), Federal Acquisition Systems (FAS) on the Federal Acquisition Services (FAS) Application Maintenance & Enhancements (FAME) Contract.
In September 2010, Karsun was awarded its first $2M prime contract by Headquarters, Department of Homeland Security to support the implementation of its Balanced Workforce Strategy. Karsun programmed, tested, and deployed BWS Balanced Workforce Assessment Tool (BWAT) to help DHS conduct thorough, repeatable, risk analysis to make workforce-planning decisions. It is part of an enterprise-wide transformation effort to improve BWS business processes and new software development.
In December 2013, Karsun Solutions earned its first publicized recognition. CIO Review magazine rated Karsun Solutions among the 20 Most Promising Government Tech Companies. The selection criteria considered a vendor’s capability to support core business processes of all government verticals including innovation areas related to advanced technologies and smart customer management. They also looked at capabilities related to cloud, Big Data analytics, mobility and social media.
In January 2014, Karsun received its ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems Certification. This was the first of many awards and certifications to follow including a DCAA Approved Accounting System, CMMI Level 5 (DEV) appraisal, and ISO 20000-1:2011 and ISO 27001:2013.
First $100+ Million Contract Win
In June 2014, Karsun was awarded a five-year $110M prime contract by the GSA, Federal Acquisition Systems (FAS), under the CIO Application Maintenance, Enhancements, and Operations Small Business (CAMEO SB) contract. Karsun Solutions provides comprehensive transformation management support to General Services Administration (GSA) Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) to modernize and streamline the GSA Federal Acquisition Services (FAS) portfolio, reduce the dependencies where possible of systems and environments, and to improve efficiencies and align the application portfolio with the business needs of the organization. The transformation focus includes operationalizing adaptive and agile development to increase efficiency and reduce O&M costs over the period of performance, achieving cost savings through a more efficient portfolio of applications, and architecting solutions that maximize the reuse of GSA’s software assets and platforms and develop “Cloud-Ready” applications. This was the first of many future GSA awards including the $4M Business Intelligence Professional Support Services (BIPSS) and the $35M Database and Middleware Systems (DMS) Task Order.
To add much-needed capacity for the company’s steady growth, Karsun grew into a second Herndon, Virginia office location in April 2016. Karsun recently expanded into a new 75,000 square foot headquarters in Worldgate Metro Plaza to support its 350 employees.
GoLean.io Launched
In May 2017, Karsun launched a GoLean.io, a lean management toolkit. This solution enables unprecedented facilitation of modern software development with a central focus on continuous governance. Using Karsun GoLean.io, organizations capitalize on evolving technologies, identify innovative outcomes, engage transparently with customers, and enter new markets rapidly. The solution provides on-the-fly DevOps performance and diagnostic insights at the highest level of granularity. It delivers detailed views of Key Performance, Health, and Diagnostic metrics across the dimensions of Progress, Code, Quality and DevOps. The solution’s visualizations ensure real-time predictive visibility into code development, deployment, and operations. Using Karsun GoLean.io enables organizations to rapidly and cost-effectively develop quality software, minimize failure rates and enable frequent releases with new features almost instantly to their customers as needed.
Employee Teams Find Opportunities to Serve the Community
Karsun Solutions is a regular sponsor of Bridges to Community’s Annual Raise the Roof fundraiser held at Top of the Town in Arlington, VA. Bridges to Community’s mission is to build a more just and sustainable world through service learning and community development by engaging volunteers to work in developing countries, building community and changing lives. The Raise the Roof fundraiser provides the Federal IT contracting industry an opportunity to contribute to community development projects in Nicaragua. In addition to supporting communities abroad, Karsun offers employees the opportunity to form local service focused teams. These teams include a neighborhood beautification team and a running club that participates in local races for charity.
For example, Karsun team members recently supported children’s education at a fundraiser for the Organization to Provide EducatioN (OPEN). Founded in 2003, the 501(c)(3) charity has granted more than $950,000, benefiting more than 33,000 children and 105 schools. OPEN provides educational opportunities to children and young adults in India. These educational projects include scholastic aid, supplemental classes and the funding of libraries and other extracurricular programs. Held near its Herndon, Virginia headquarters, Karsun Solutions was the event sponsor for the annual OPEN Rasika concert. Karsun enabled critical educational opportunities for disadvantaged children in India. Performing in nearby Sterling, Virginia, the Rasika concert brought together musicians from across the United States in support of the non-profit OPEN organization. OPEN is one of several organizations regularly supported by Karsun Solutions. Karsun’s support of this event is one of many ways the company strives to connect local IT leaders with the global community. Mentorship within local organizations and schools is part of Karsun’s commitment to developing the next generation of IT leadership.
FAA and FEMA Programs Add to Karsun’s Growing Portfolio
In October 2017, Karsun won its $145M Software Solution Delivery (SSD) contract to provide technical support services for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Information Technology (FAA AIT). Karsun provides innovative, cost-effective and high quality enterprise software application and database development and operations and maintenance. Karsun enables the agency to seamlessly connect, interact, and respond to employees, customers, and other stakeholders more easily and reliably.
In April 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Karsun Solutions, LLC the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Grants Management Modernization (GMM) Program Agile development contract. GMM will consolidate FEMA’s ten legacy IT systems into a single grants management IT platform. The program will also consolidate FEMA’s grants operations, establishing a common grants management lifecycle and unifying business processes across grant programs where possible. These changes will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of FEMA’s grant operations, thereby strengthening the Agency’s ability to carry out its mission. This multi-year effort for IT modernization and transformation will better enable citizens and first responders to apply for and be awarded federal disaster and non-disaster grants.
Karsun Solutions experienced an extraordinary first 10 years. The entire team is honored and blessed to serve incredible customers throughout the company’s history. With the resources available at the new headquarters office Karsun Solutions is poised to serve the community for many decades to come.