Are MZM’s Martinsville facility days numbered?

Reader J.A. pointed me to a story that Bill Wyatt ran on the Martinsville Daily a week ago now that I somehow missed. MZM may be closing up shop in Martinsville:

Shakeup at MZM/Athena causes some to wonder if it’s the beginning of the end

According to our sources, a major shakeup has occurred at Athena (formerly MZM) in Martinsville.

We are told Director Richard Berglund has been dismissed by the company apparently due to his ties with MZM’s founder Mitchell Wade.

Also we have learned Joe James, former Marine intelligence officer and number 2 man at the Foreign Supplier Assessment Center operated by Athena in Martinsville voluntarily resigned.

[…]

Our sources in Washington tell us the Foreign Supplier Assessment Center here is at major risk of losing its contract with the Pentagon primarly because of the continuing investigations and indictments by the FBI and U.S. Attorneys related to the corruption scandal involving disgraced Randy “Duke” Cunningham and now includes the CIA’s number 3 man, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo. We are told it is quite likely the Pentagon will try to distance itself from the scandal.

Meanwhile, it becomes more apparent everyday that MZM (now Athena) is not meeting its promise of employee development. Future hires are being told that efforts are “taking longer than expected” citing the unknown future of the FSAC contract.

This would particularly terrible for Martinsville because of the deal that Rep. Virgil Goode brokered with the state for MZM. In short, Martinsville got $500,000 in state grants for MZM, with the deal being that if MZM failed to perform (measured in capital investments and people employed) that Martinsville would have to pay it back. Rep. Goode and Mitchell Wade If MZM’s Martinsville location gets shut down — or if they simply fail to continue to expand at their initial rate — then Martinsville is on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That bit of economic genius is courtesy of Rep. Goode, as the Roanoke Times‘ Laurence Hammack explained in his excellent exposé on the highly-unusual deal.

If Bill Wyatt’s sources are right, it looks increasingly likely that Martinsville may end up being put in just that position. The economic damage could be bad, but the blow to morale could be much worse. Their congressman, working with the state, negotiated a deal to get a major federal contractor to open up a sizable office in their town. It’s one of Martinsville’s highest-profile successes in years. To have that crumble less than two years later would be exactly the opposite of what Martinsville needs.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

8 replies on “Are MZM’s Martinsville facility days numbered?”

  1. I saw that article late last week, while l was reading about Will Vehrs doing some blogging there. I’m glad you finally caught up with it. Saturday I posted on a thread at MyDD about the VA-05 race this fall and intimated that the MZM/Athena deal was not working out as well as everyone thought. With all the economic problems there already, they don’t need this on top of it.

  2. You’re missing most of the story. The facility in Martinsville isn’t going away – it will simply be run by another (read: reputable) company.

    Will we see a “Kudos to Virgil” post when the FSAC is humming along under the management of some other contractor, helping anchor Martinsville’s high-tech renaissance? I won’t hold my breath for that one. ;-)

  3. I. Publius, can you direct us to reporting that gives that missing part of the story? Is your comment based on anything other than your hopes?

  4. This suggestion that the Foreign Supplier Assessment Center is certainly news to me. I’ve seen no hint of any such proposal anywhere. Given that the Pentagon protested the creation of the FSAC in the first place, saying that it serves no real purpose, I can’t imagine why they’d give the contract to anybody else.

  5. The ugly truth about all the MZM contracts, whereever they are, is that MZM provides almost no real services and employs very few people. The MZM players skim off enough for deluxe perks for themselves, subcontract or supply the bare-bones of what’s called for in the contract, and funnel the rest of the money back into the right-wing Republican rotating slush fund.

    I’m afraid Martinsville got played.

  6. Nell, can you direct us to reporting about “all the MZM contracts, whereever [sic] they are” or are you just expressing your own hopes?

    Waldo, “the Pentagon” isn’t one solitary entity, and rarely functions as one. It comprises many competing groups and people, with competing interests. Rest assured that there were entities in the U.S. armed forces who would have liked to have known that some crucial materiel components were only supplied by Switzerland, who froze shipments because it violated their constitution to supply active belligerents. This is what FSAC was formed to keep up with.

    The part of the Pentagon that “protested” FSAC’s creation was the one that stood to lose a measure of control.

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