Pat Host
Joe Imwalle has developed high-consequence technical capabilities in the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence community during his 30-year career. A retired U.S. Air Force colonel, he possesses deep technical expertise in command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or C5ISR, space systems and federal acquisition.
Now the vice president for national security at Modern Technology Solutions Inc., or MTSI, Imwalle is bringing executive leadership to mission-critical programs, building and empowering cross-functional teams to deliver high-impact results in complex and fast-paced mission environments.
Imwalle spoke to ExecutiveBiz for a Spotlight interview that explored how MTSI is adjusting to acquisition priorities in President Trump’s second term, the company’s progress on the Space Force’s Digital Bloodhound program and how shifting geopolitical dynamics are driving change in U.S. intelligence operations.
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ExecutiveBiz: What core values define MTSI? How do your employee ownership model, culture, and values drive your continued success and growth in the GovCon market?
Joe Imwalle: MTSI’s number one core value is employees come first. This principle is the foundation of our culture and why we’ve achieved 32 years of organic growth. We recruit and retain elite technical talent by investing in our people, empowering them with ownership and accountability, and embedding them in a mission-focused, values-driven culture. That environment fosters a highly engaged, resilient workforce delivering results.
Another core value—own and solve our customers’ problems—reinforces our commitment to mission outcomes. We take personal responsibility for success where it matters most and our engaged workforce builds trusted partnerships with customers. From system-of-systems integration to enterprise digital transformation, MTSI teams operate side-by-side with customers, often ahead of schedule and forward-leaning with purpose.
A third core value, entrepreneurial environment, reflects our ability to bring agility, innovation and a builder’s mindset to high-stakes national security missions. Where others see constraints, we see opportunity accelerating modernization, adapting to emerging threats and delivering scalable solutions.
Together, MTSI’s nine core values drive our consistent success in making lasting contributions to national security. By putting people first, owning outcomes, and leading with innovation and urgency, MTSI earns trust, builds partnerships that last and grow, and deliver mission advantage. MTSI is built to tackle our customers’ hardest problems.
As a 100-percent employee-owned company under an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, our model reinforces our culture of trust and performance. Every employee shares in MTSI’s growth and success. ESOP firms like MTSI grow faster and build significantly more retirement wealth contributing to our more than 93 percent employee retention. Our people think and act like owners, driving accountability, innovation and stability.
It’s a mindset as well as a structure. We’re not building for exit, we’re building for endurance. That shows in our people, our performance and our reputation as a trusted, values-driven partner to the national security enterprise. It’s true, ESOP companies have higher Contractor Performance Assessment Report scores, and MTSI leads the pack.
EBiz: How is MTSI adjusting under the current administration’s acquisition priorities, including the use of innovative contracting methods to accelerate delivery of critical technologies to the field?
Imwalle: These priorities are accelerating MTSI’s mission impact. Our work embodies the core principles of the FORGED Act, SPEED Act and presidential executive orders on acquisition reform. We’re long-time leaders in applying the rigorous rapid capabilities model and using innovative contracting approaches to deliver critical capability faster and better. MTSI has equipped the government to lead consortium-based development enabling collaborative creation of modular open and integrated system-of-systems architectures. Senior DOD leaders regularly tap MTSI to stand up offices for rapid research, development, testing and fielding.
Unlike traditional prime-dominated approaches that often underperform, we partner for speed, competition and government ownership of critical capabilities and data. We’ve brought this model to life on programs like the Common Mission Control Center, the Next-Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, family of systems and the F-47 sixth-generation fighter by partnering with the government to strengthen their role as peer-level lead systems integrators.
We specialize in developing and deploying government-owned digital ecosystems that are multi-level secure, hybrid/multi cloud-capable, and integrate data, tools and processes. These digital engineering and integrated development environments accelerate acquisitions, streamline software factory stand-up and increase interoperability. We ensure customers have a single authoritative source of truth and a foundation for modern and mission-aligned software delivery.
Our leadership on NGAD’s digital transformation exemplifies this impact. Well before the U.S. Air Force formalized its full-spectrum digital acquisition strategy, MTSI was co-developing the vision; building infrastructure and driving adoption with forward-leaning government partners.
MTSI leads in digital transformation by advancing digital engineering, model-based systems engineering; and modeling, simulation and analysis. We deliver a digital and data-driven decision cycle built for speed, adaptability and operational advantage: The next-generation digital observe, orient, decide and act, or D-OODA, loop.
By bringing together government, traditional defense firms and non-traditional innovators through agile acquisition and open architecture, MTSI ensures our customers act with speed and flexibility delivering advanced capabilities. We share Space Force Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein’s urgency at this inflection point. We’re ready to partner on the “now things” to drive priorities and transform procurement where it matters most—for national security.
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EBiz: How is MTSI progressing on the Digital Bloodhound program? What does Digital Bloodhound mean for bolstering detection of cyber threats to U.S. space ground systems?
Imwalle: MTSI is proud to lead the team advancing defensive cyber operations for space, or DCO-S, for the U.S. Space Force. Our Digital Bloodhound leadership protects national space infrastructure by delivering resilient and mission-ready cyber capabilities across the force.
DCO-S is a critical response to the growing threat of cyber-attacks on our space capabilities. Team MTSI partners with Space Systems Command’s DCO-S program office and key stakeholders including Delta 6, Space Operations Command and the Space Systems Integration Office. As DCO-S evolves from prototype to program of record; rapid operationalization and scalability are essential with [the top Space Force acquisition official] Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy’s focus on system hardening.
Our priorities are: Standardizing the DCO-S tool suite as an enterprise solution; implementing integration standards to enable cyber operators to detect, defend, and act at the tactical edge; and scaling capabilities across Space Force and other space agencies.
Digital Bloodhound also enhances cybersecurity coordination with partners like the National Reconnaissance Office across multi-level secure environments. It reflects MTSI’s commitment to security-first engineering, embedding cyber from requirements through sustainment so mission-focused assessment and authorization events are low-risk and secure systems move on operational timelines. Digital Bloodhound is the foundation for the future of space defense.
EBiz: How are shifting geopolitical dynamics driving changes in U.S. intelligence operations, and how is industry evolving to meet emerging mission needs?
Imwalle: Global instability, great power competition and rapid tech proliferation are redefining the threat landscape. In response, U.S. intelligence is shifting from a posture of awareness to real-time operational integration. This is directly enabling tactical and strategic decisions through seamless Title 10/50 collaboration.
As a mission-focused integrator and trusted engineering partner, MTSI accelerates delivery of highly classified, operationally relevant capabilities from concept to combat. Our security-first mindset from design through deployment ensures systems are trusted, resilient and survivable in contested domains. We’re helping transition the Advanced Battle Management System through agile development, collaborative innovation and warfighter-informed solutions.
We support joint exercises and test events across Air Force major commands and combatant commands to stress-test joint warfighting concepts and validate cross-domain intelligence integration. By fostering early collaboration among service components, the intelligence community and allied partners, these events serve as proving grounds for fusing real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance with edge-level decision-making—the kind of operational integration today’s mission demands.
MTSI brings enduring leadership to the rapid acquisition community, accelerating fielding with innovation at the speed of emerging threats. We’ve been a trusted partner to the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Space RCO, Space Systems Command’s Rapid Reaction Branch, Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office and the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office. We deliver deep mission understanding to customers like the Missile Defense Agency, the Space Development Agency and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, applying advanced modelling, simulation and analysis, digital engineering and mission engineering to inform operational decisions. Our service intelligence programs protect the U.S. and allies through left-of-launch missile defeat and multi-domain detection and tracking.
What sets MTSI apart is not just what we deliver, but how. Our core values of leadership, quality and responsiveness in service delivery ensures every capability meets mission needs, on time and at pace. Equally important, our commitment to organizational teamwork and collaboration bridges institutional divides and aligns intelligence and operations together to drive insight to impact.
EBiz: What efforts is MTSI making to support Title 10/50 integration, and what challenges exist in enabling cross-agency coordination?
Imwalle: Title 10 [military operations] and Title 50 [intelligence functions] integration is now essential to maintaining U.S. strategic advantage. As threats grow more complex and time-sensitive, mission success increasingly depends on seamless operational-intelligence coordination. At MTSI, we’re deeply engaged in making that integration real through secure infrastructure, trusted interagency partnerships and agile, mission-focused acquisition.
We design and deploy multi-level secure, hybrid/multi-cloud environments that enable secure collaboration, data-driven design and rapid capability development for fully informed, interagency decisions—the D-OODA loop. These platforms support model-based systems engineering, integrated analysis and live digital twin experimentation, making them powerful accelerators of mission-aligned innovation across traditional agency lines.
But technology alone isn’t enough. MTSI’s relationships across the DOD and the intelligence community foster meaningful government-to-government collaboration. Our ability to bring together and align stakeholders helps break down silos and align mission outcomes with trust and speed. We’ve been investing in that trust over decades of high-consequence, classified delivery, and we bring it to every engagement.
MTSI is a go-to partner for agencies accelerating capability development and fielding. We were recently selected to provide systems engineering and technical assistance services to OUSD(R&E) for Assault Breaker II, renamed Joint Lethality Engineering. This flagship DOD program integrates data, tools and techniques to rapidly deliver capabilities to the warfighter, advancing the National Defense Strategy. These concepts hinge on effective Title 10/50 integration. Our work spans advanced MS&A, mission engineering, experimentation, and process improvement to assess multi-domain red-blue force kill chains across future operational scenarios. We also fuse all-source intelligence with six degrees of freedom—a.k.a. 6DoF—and pseudo-6DoF models to assess system performance and vulnerabilities.
MTSI addresses challenges by living our core values and promoting collaboration to ensure we not only deliver engineering excellence but also bridge critical human and institutional divides. MTSI is building the technical, relational and operational frameworks necessary to transform Title 10/50 integration from a strategic priority into an operational reality, delivering faster, smarter, more unified responses to the nation’s most urgent security challenges.
We have the people, culture and drive to get it done. If this speaks to you, come join us.
