Category: Business

The Business Case Behind HX5’s Veteran Hiring Under Howard

Veteran hiring at HX5 is not purely about goodwill. CEO Margarita Howard, herself a service-disabled veteran, has structured the company’s participation in the Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program around a practical argument: military experience often maps directly onto the demands of defense and aerospace contracting.

HX5 supports Department of Defense and NASA missions across more than 70 government locations, work that frequently requires security clearances and comfort operating inside government facilities. Those requirements line up closely with what many transitioning service members already have before they ever apply for a civilian job.

Two Fellows a Year, Every Year

Since 2021, HX5 has hosted eight fellows through the twelve-week Corporate Fellowship Program, a Department of Defense SkillBridge initiative. Howard has kept the number to two fellows annually, calling it a manageable pace for a company of about 1,000 employees compared with large contractors that can absorb dozens through dedicated military recruiting operations.

Fellows split their time between four days of hands-on project work and one day of professional development weekly, all while still receiving military pay and benefits during their final 180 days of active duty.

Clearance and Culture as Assets

Howard points to the difference between government and commercial experience as a key hiring consideration. “Experience in their respective fields, while supporting these agencies’ respective programs and missions, is very different from experience gained from working in the commercial world,” she says.

That distinction shapes who HX5 recruits and how it onboards them. By treating military background as a business asset rather than simply a hiring preference, Margarita Howard has positioned HX5 to keep drawing steady, if modest, numbers of veteran fellows year after year.

The fellowship also functions as a trial period for both sides. Fellows get a firsthand look at contractor life before committing to it, while HX5 gets twelve weeks to evaluate whether a given fellow fits the company’s culture and mission. That mutual evaluation period, Howard suggests, helps explain why the fellowship model has worked well for a company HX5’s size, even as it continues to hold at just two fellows per year. Read this article for more information.

More about Howard on https://www.f6s.com/member/margarita-howard

Margarita Howard Reflects on Two Decades of Leading HX5

Twenty years after founding HX5, Margarita Howard leads a company that has become a recognized name in federal defense contracting. As sole owner and CEO/president, she oversees a workforce of more than 1,000 employees delivering professional mission support services to the Department of Defense and NASA across 90 government locations and 34 states. The Fort Walton Beach, Florida firm’s reach and stability reflect decisions made early and reinforced consistently over time.

Howard’s path to entrepreneurship ran through the Tricare program, the Department of Defense’s managed health care initiative. Starting as an area field manager and advancing to regional director with responsibility for seven southeastern states, she developed both the operational knowledge and the professional network that would later prove useful when building HX5. “I was part of the Tricare implementation team when it was first introduced,” she has recalled. “Before that, the military’s care had never been managed in such a fashion.”

A Management Team Built for the Long Haul

One element Howard points to consistently is the quality of the team she has built. Many of HX5’s senior managers have been with the company for approximately ten years, a tenure that speaks to both retention and culture. “We were very selective of people that we chose for our management team,” she has said. “Many of them have been with us for 10 years or so, and we just have a highly dedicated, experienced management team. We could not do what we do without them.”

That team includes many women in senior leadership roles, reflecting Margarita Howard‘s broader view that the government contracting industry should look different from what it was when she entered it. She acknowledges that progress has been real but incomplete, and that some obstacles remain for women in the sector.

Margarita Howard has also maintained a commitment to open competition throughout HX5’s history, viewing competitive bidding as essential to building a firm that can endure beyond any single program or contract vehicle. Refer to this article for related information.

Find more information about HX5 on https://www.margaritahoward.com/