Recession? What Recession?

Business is just fine for those clinging to the flabby skin of expanding government. The Washington Business Journal reports:

It’s been a little more than a year since Harris Corp. relocated two of its business unit headquarters to the Washington area to get closer to its federal customers, and the Melbourne, Fla., communications and information technology services contractor is amping up its local presence once again...

After consolidating its IT services business into a new 50,000-sqaure-foot facility in Dulles last fall and moving its civil agency and health care operations to Falls Church, Harris is now looking to fill up to 400 vacant positions to staff up its IT-based operations in the Washington area.

Most hires will be additional engineers and scientists, joining the 7,000 or so such technical professionals already employed nationwide by Harris. Other openings cover program management and finance positions. The jobs range from entry-level to senior positions.

Demand for software, systems network engineering services is up among government customers, especially within Harris’s health care and cyber security areas of business, said Richard White, vice president of Harris’s Washington operations. Finding 400 qualified workers will not be easy, company officials say, as competition is particularly fierce now among federal contractors.

And talk about the Military-Industrial Complex:

...the company recently bulked up — like many other big federal players — its cyber security business to take advantage of a new focus and financial commitment on national security programs.

Harris in January hired Major Gen. Dale Meyerrose, a retired Air Force general and the first chief information officer for the national intelligence community, as its vice president and general manager for cyberspace solutions. In April, the company acquired Chantilly-based Crucial Security Inc., with about 110 employees

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