Battle planning draws profits/ Firm's software right on target

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jun 7, 2003 | by CHRIS WALSH

Intelligent Software Solutions Inc. is not your average technology company.

The Colorado Springs firm develops software used in some high- profile operations, including the recent war in Iraq, the investigation into the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia and the battle against drug trafficking.

It has grown when most companies are cutting costs and struggling to survive, doubling its work force to 37 employees during the past 18 months and doubling its revenue every year since 1999.

It has been profitable since Day One.

"We've been extremely busy during the last few years," said Jay Jesse, president of ISS.

The firm's primary software product, called Web-enabled Timeline Analysis System, or WebTAS, allows the military and other organizations to take disparate data and read it in meaningful ways.

A government task force, for instance, is using the software to analyze such intelligence data as airplane activity in a certain region to track and predict drug movements in the air and on the seas.

WebTAS and related ISS software play key roles in national defense. The Air Force used the software to plan and execute air missions in Iraq - an improvement over the military's previous planning methods.

In Desert Storm, Air Force officials planned strikes using huge wall charts and maps, with yellow sticky notes to identify U.S. and enemy forces. They would move the sticky notes around the map to assign airplanes to targets.

Several years ago, the military decided to digitize the process so commanders could use computers to more efficiently plan wars.

"Our biggest obstacles when we first started this was 'How do we display this information visually on a computer screen? " said Lt. Col. Douglas Combs, chief of concepts execution division for the Command & Control Battlelab at Hurlburt Field, Fla.

The lab, which identifies and fosters ideas that can help the Air Force, turned to ISS, cementing a $500,000 contract with the company in 2001.

After seeing how the software worked, the chief of staff and secretary of the Air Force "loved it and wanted to get it out (to battle planners) as soon as possible," Combs said.

The software combines information about American and enemy forces - location, aircraft type, potential targets - and displays it digitally on a map. The information is displayed with icons that can be moved around the digital map.

Jesse and three other engineers who worked at local defense contractors founded ISS in Colorado Springs in 1997.

Jesse declined to release revenue numbers for competitive reasons but said the firm has several seven-figure contracts. The company continues to grow: It has added 10 employees since March and expects to hire more in a few months, Jesse said.