Conquest wins Trailblazer pact

The National Security Agency recently awarded a five-year, $50 million systems engineering and technical assistance contract for support on its Trailblazer project to Conquest Inc.

Trailblazer is an initiative designed to modernize NSA's foreign signals intelligence capabilities. Conquest will work with the agency to define and test the best architecture, cost and acquisition approach from concepts proposed by Trailblazer's three prime contractors.

The prime contracts were awarded March 29 to Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., and TRW Systems & Information Technology Group, according to an NSA press release dated April 2 and available on the agency's Web site.

Conquest announced its contract award Oct. 15, and the company is limited on how much it can say about the program. The firm is not even allowed to discuss which agency the contract is with, describing the customer only as a "U.S. intelligence agency."

Norman Snyder, president of Conquest, said the Trailblazer award "validates our unique approach of never forcing a 'canned' methodology on a problem" and hopes it will lead to increased revenues and staffing.