Pros
At its best, the company has a noble mission, strong values.
Cons
Two former CEOs of this once great employee-owned company had a saying they both carried forward over the years: “Our people are our business.” A current member of the SSS executive team has his own saying: “I don’t care about the people, I only care about the business.” Who’s right? Under current “leadership,” new business revenues have spiraled downward and the company’s once-formidable technical staff has disintegrated. In the last few years, all of the business unit VPs, dozens of senior staff, and the cream of the research and analytic staff have left the company. Remaining staff are demoralized, working in a toxic, paranoid environment. The executive team is dysfunctional in the extreme, incompetent and intransigent, a farce of arrogance, inconsistency, half-baked tactics, and complete lack of strategy, with total disregard for the company’s mission and values. The CEO is simply incompetent. He’s risen through the ranks and he’s in way over his head. With no idea how to mitigate his limitations, he’s in effect given the corporate helm to a warmed-over retiree from the defense industry who is nothing more than an old-school bully, a pompous hack, completely void of creativity, with outdated ideas coupled with astounding arrogance and ugly, toxic disrespect for everyone around him. Is it possible that this individual is largely responsible for the downward spiral and the mass exodus the company has witnessed since he took the helm? If you work at SSS, you’re probably already looking for a position elsewhere. Best of luck to you—you’re good and you deserve better than this. If you’re thinking of applying for a position at SSS, think again. It’s a sad, ugly mess, and it’s not getting any better.