ON A DIME
But there are some new challenges to telework in 2020. Strauss and his wife have two school-age children. Tough they’re both very used to working from home, “What we’re not used to is having kids run around and not be occupied during the day,” he said. “So that was certainly a big change.” Strauss and the compa- ny’s other leaders wondered how to keep employees focused on the mission amid all the distractions. “Tings like trying to work through distance learning [with a child] when you’ve got meet- ings and phone calls and interviews and client things going on … we are much more focused on the outcomes and the deliver- ables and not nearly as worried about what time of day someone is on their computer. What we’ve realized, frankly, is that we’re just as productive, if not more.”
In fact, Strauss said Connected Logistics has submitted more proposals and received more contract awards since March than at any other point in the company’s history. “Tis change is not only going to drive our behavior during whatever the remainder of COVID is, but for a long time in the future,” he said. “We don’t need to be sitting side by side looking at the same screen or looking at the same projection on the wall to be productive. We can be just as effective as anywhere else when we are all flexible and available as needed.”
Looking ahead, Strauss hopes that remote work arrangements will become part of DOD culture. “If we as a company have the flex- ibility to hire more remote employees for DOD contracts, then we can ultimately offer a better product to our clients, often at a lower price.” Tat’s not just idle speculation—Connected Logis- tics has contracts with the Defense Logistics Agency, staffed by a remote team that is spread across the country. “We’ve got a program manager who is great in that environment, working with people across time zones, and it’s a very well-oiled machine,” he said. “Tat flexibility allowed us to recruit, hire and retain the most qualified people for the job, not the ones who happen to live closest to the office.”
“We’re in the process now of relocating the entire company to a new office that is designed around both maximum spacing for people and ventilation.”
136 Army AL&T Magazine Fall 2020
MEGAN LACY & CORBIN HENNEN LUMINEYE
CHANGING DIRECTION For Megan Lacy and Corbin Hennen, co-founders of the xTech- Search 2.0-winning company Lumineye, the major change has been travel. “We traveled a lot in 2019,” Lacy said, “between all the testing and the xTechSearch competition and working with users outside the DOD. Pretty much all of that has halted for now.” Te company is focused on hardware—its bread-and- butter product is a handheld sensor that can identify and locate people through walls. Developing and testing hardware requires in-person, hands-on work that doesn’t function well in a remote setting. “Since we’re a small team, we can distance a little bit better and there’s less risk of people gathering together,” Lacy said. “But developing hardware from home is hard because that’s a very physical thing.” Te team had to create schedules and routines for bringing hardware home, so that others could access the devices when needed. “I think we’ve adapted pretty well,” she said.
Hennen said the team has also adjusted its product demonstra- tions. “As an alternative to travel, we’ve gotten a lot better at doing remote demos,” he said. “Tat is not trivial when you’re trying to demo through-wall sensing, because it’s really difficult to capture that.” But Lacy and Hennen also see that as an opportunity to make their business more scalable. “You don’t necessarily need to spend the time, money, et cetera, to go fly out to places for an initial meeting,” if you can make those introductions remotely, Hennen said.
Overall, Lacy said she has been impressed with DOD’s response to COVID-19. “I know that for a lot of government jobs, you can’t just bring your laptop home. Tere are a lot of restrictions there,” she said. “I’ve been relatively impressed and pleasantly surprised with the Army’s transition to maximum telework.” Depending on the changing community health conditions and the progress toward a vaccine or effective treatment, Lumineye
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