1. Before joining Marvin Test Solutions (MTS), you reached the rank of Major General in the USAF with a distinguished career in the military. What attracted you to move to industry and particularly MTS?
Everyone either separates or retires from the military. And like many of those I served with, I wanted to continue to serve the warfighters who remained in uniform to provide for our National Security. MTS was a perfect fit and I was very fortunate to be asked to serve as the CEO.
2. Can you describe some “metrics” (number of facilities, number of employees, square footage of facilities, locations, etc.) that would give our readers a better sense of MTS?
MTS is a single-location company based in Irvine, Calif. However, due to our employee growth, we have secured an additional location adjacent to our current facility. Currently, MTS employs over 125 dedicated professionals, with a portion of our workforce operating remotely from various locations across the country and overseas. Going into 2024, we experienced our highest backlog of orders ever, reflecting the strong demand for our innovative test solutions. Our growth is a testament to how much our global customers value our ability to deliver and support high-quality, reliable solutions to meet their requirements.
3. MTS has a rich history, spanning over 35 years. Could you provide us with some insights into the company’s heritage and how it has evolved over the years? Also, what core competencies and technologies differentiate you from your competitors?
MTS has a storied history of tackling the most demanding military and aerospace test requirements with high-performance solutions. As a vertically integrated aerospace test and measurement company with a solution-centric focus, our portfolio of PXI hardware, test software and turn-key automated test systems offer the performance, flexibility, innovation and value demanded by our customers. From our standalone test executive and software development studio to our custom, turn-key systems, our portfolio offers superior capabilities and delivers faster results while ultimately reducing maintenance and sustainment costs. By leveraging our design and development expertise, we are able to take challenging test requirements and deliver solutions that are easy to use, simple to maintain and enable our customers to achieve high levels of mission readiness.
In addition, we have grown our airborne products portion of MTS enabling our parent company, Marvin Engineering, to meet the very demanding armament requirements that their largest customer is entrusting them to deliver. Finally, our unrivaled long-term customer support has really set us apart and spans the spectrum of test, encompassing the entire life cycle of the solution.
4. In 1997, the company was acquired by what is now known as The Marvin Group. What can you tell us about The Marvin Group and how that affiliation benefits MTS?
The Marvin Group is made up of the parent company, Marvin Engineering and MTS, along with Marvin Land Systems. Marvin Engineering has a long history of strategic acquisitions that have enabled it to evolve into a premier provider of complex armament for all types of military platforms, along with customized power and thermal management solutions for military ground vehicles and naval platforms.
The Marvin Group procured MTS to incorporate high performance, reliable military and aerospace test and measurement equipment to The Marvin Group's portfolio, as well as airborne products, supporting applications from flight-line operations to depot and production testing. MTS's armament test equipment and missile launchers are used globally for precision-guided munitions such as the AGM-114 Hellfire missile and are prime examples of this capability. MTS has provided The Marvin Group with additional critical resources and enhanced the collaborative environment needed to innovate and excel in the highly demanding military environment.
5. Where is your development focus? What applications, products and markets have you excited for the future?
We are very focused on three markets: military, aerospace and manufacturing. The key solutions we provide in those areas are airborne electronic control units, the MTS-3060A SmartCanTM, the Hellfire Scalable Rail Launcher, GENASYS, the TS-960e-5G and ATEasy. Most importantly, we are developing our people to be able to meet the needs of our customers both today and in the future.
6. How will your product, market and customer mix change in the next five years? What excites you, and in what areas are you focusing your development efforts?
As always, we stay in close contact with our global customers and listen to them as they define their requirements for the future. That approach has enabled us to grow our domestic and international customer base and we will make sure that continues. Making our customers successful is what keeps all of MTS excited to do what we do every day.
7. Where is your development focus? What applications, products and markets have you excited for the future?
MTS will continue to design and deliver solutions that address the most challenging test needs of our customers, ranging from high performance, handheld armament flight-line test solutions to multi-bay production satellite test systems.
Our PXI product development is aligned to provide open architecture building blocks that support the next-level solution from the field to the laboratory. Our success in the semiconductor mmWave device test arena exemplifies the value of this approach; this modular solution delivers the fastest, most accurate RF measurement subsystem available.
We are also expanding our portfolio of airborne products and that is a rapidly growing part of MTS. As alluded to earlier, it is a major factor in our facility expansion.
Our support for the armed forces worldwide will also continue with rugged military test solutions designed to speed up and simplify test for the warfighter, ensuring their armament systems remain ready under all conditions. The unique capabilities of these solutions, combined with our unmatched long-term support, will continue to streamline and simplify test.
8. What else would you like our readers to know about MTS?
At MTS, we take immense pride in delivering innovative test solutions for the military, aerospace and manufacturing markets we serve.
We differentiate ourselves from the competition through our ability to design and integrate solutions tailored to meet the specific requirements of our customers.
We have built our reputation by being 100 percent committed to delivering high-quality, military- and aerospace-grade solutions that are trusted by customers globally. Additionally, our unrivaled long-term customer support has really set us apart and spans the spectrum of all the solutions we deliver, encompassing the entire life cycle of our solutions.
Looking ahead, we are committed to advancing technology and expanding our product offerings to meet the ever-evolving demands of the markets we serve. Our motto, “We Make Test Easy™,” encapsulates our mission as we continue to provide innovative customer sought-after solutions and continue to build on our reputation for excellence.