Privatization

Mission Essential Personnel

Last edited by lenazun on March 5, 2013 - 12:24pm
Company Snapshot: 

Mission Essential Personnel (MEP) is the leading supplier of translators for the U.S. military for the war in Afghanistan. Founded in 2006 by Chad Monnin, a U.S. Army Special Forces reservist who was injured in a parachute accident, and two of his colleagues, the firm benefitted from the performance problems of Titan Corp., the company (now part of L-3 Communications) that had been the dominant translation contractor for the U.S. forces in Iraq in the early years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ownership status: 
Privately held
Number of employees worldwide: 
6,000
Chief executive officer: 
Chris Taylor
Website: 
http://www.missionep.com/
Tel: 
(614) 416-2345
Net Income: 
US$18 million
Total revenue: 
US$375 million
Corporate accountability
Accountability overview: 

MEP has been the target of criticism over its treatment of translators, especially those from outside the United States. There have been reports that MEP slashed the pay of translators whom it inherited from Titan. There have also been complaints from translators who were injured or wounded on the job that they received inadequate medical care.

History

In the wake of the U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, Pentagon contracts for translators to support U.S. troops hastily ballooned from one contract for 30 translators in Kuwait in 1999, to arrangements for thousands of contractors spanning several countries today. The recruitment and management of these translators was initially handled by San Diego-based Titan Corp., now a subsidiary of New York-based L-3 Communications, one of the top ten U.S. military contractors.

By 2006, Titan came under fire from the Pentagon for providing the military with fewer than half of the number of translators specified under its contract. Soldiers also commonly complained that the Titan translators, on whom they relied to communicate with Afghans and Iraqis, had very poor language skills.

When Titan’s original contract expired in 2004, the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) put it up for competitive bid. In September 2007 INSCOM awarded a five-year contract worth up to $414 million to provide 1,691 translators in Afghanistan to Aegis Mission Essential Personnel.

The company had two advantages over other businesses in competing for federal contracts: First, with revenue of less than $6 million and under 500 employees it qualified for preferential treatment as a “small business”; and second, under the Veterans Benefit Act of 2003, Monnin qualified to apply for certain federal contracts set aside to help disabled military veterans.

The company dropped Aegis from its name in 2008 to avoid confusion with a controversial British private security company. By 2009 its annual revenue, all from the U.S. Defense Department, had risen to $375 million.

On May 10, 2010, INSCOM gave MEP a $679 million extension on the original contract without bothering to put it up for competitive bid. In July 2010, CEO Chris Taylor reported that the company had 1,700 U.S. employees who spoke Pashsto as well as 4,300 local nationals working for the company in Afghanistan as independent contractors.

Financial information
Fiscal year: 
2009
Fiscal year: 
2009
Major lines of business/segments: 

Language Services: The MEP website states that it offers “an unrivaled array of advanced language resources and a trusted source of qualified and cleared linguists. The company’s language capability extends to engineering, medicine, and information technology. Employing more than 4,000 linguists, Mission Essential Personnel provides comprehensive language services worldwide.”

Intelligence: “Whether in a training environment, or through direct support of real-world, real-time missions, we can rapidly deliver professionals globally with extensive intelligence support expertise to fill your intelligence jobs.”

Training and Technical Services: “Our highly integrated Expeditionary Support training courses empower your personnel to communicate more clearly with inhabitants of your AOR. Troops who undergo training to approach situations on the ground more proactively, whether it’s helping locals stabilize their government and improve their economic conditions; using media to get your message out and motivating audiences to favorable action; or capturing intelligence to move your mission forward. Regardless of your mission objectives or how compressed your timeline, we can provide the critical language, role players, scenario developers, observer-controllers and civil affairs training services your team needs, in addition to global logistics and security.”

Sources
Watchdogs and related campaigns: 
Mission Essential Personnel Watch
Related reading: 
Mission Essential, Translators Expendable by Pratap Chatterjee (CorpWatch, August 11, 2009)
CorpWatch, Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq (2008)
Lost in Limbo: Injured Afghan Translators Struggle to Survive by Pratap Chatterjee (ProPublica)
Unlimited Talk, Only $679 million: Inside the No-Bid Deal for Afghan Interpreters by Noah Shactman (Wired)
The Language of War: Columbus-based Company Provides Translators for U.S. Forces in Danger Zone by Steve Wartenberg (Columbus Dispatch, November 8, 2009)
Specialized Information
Links to federal contract rankings in U.S.: 
Ranking: No. 62 on Washington Technology list of top government contractors