Innovating at New Mission Systems Integration Facility

Booz Allen has opened a new 20,000-square-foot, 400-employee Mission Systems Integration Facility (MSIF) in southern Maryland. Located minutes away from the Naval Air Station, the Pax River MSIF is a first-of-its-kind space in the region for rapidly designing, developing, prototyping, integrating, and testing innovations for warfighters.

But Booz Allen isn’t new to the neighborhood. This facility serves as an extension of the firm’s longstanding support in the region, primarily through its Lexington Park, Maryland, office, established in 1979. Senior Vice President Dottie Simeona, who leads Booz Allen’s Naval Air and Naval Sea Warfare Center businesses, has been there since the early days and was instrumental in bringing the MSIF project to fruition. Here, she shares her story—and why Pax River is such a special place.

Dottie’s journey with Booz Allen began about 37 years ago. “I came on part-time during college, and when I graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, I was promoted to a full-time research analyst,” she says. This was before the age of official intern programs, but Dottie nevertheless made her mark.

Early on, her manager asked what she wanted to do after graduation. “I said I wanted to travel, lead a team, and improve programs. In the last 37 years at Booz Allen, I’ve gotten to do each of these things, and more.” 

During her time at the firm, Dottie witnessed three transitions. “I started out on the business side, focusing on acquisition, program, and financial management,” she says. “When I saw the general trend move towards technology, I started leading teams in cybersecurity. Later, I grew a team dedicated to information technology requirements and lifecycle management.”

Throughout her career, Dottie knew she always wanted to be challenged and never be stagnant, and Booz Allen's leadership offered her a helping hand the whole way. She recalls chatting with a senior leader and mentor who “opened the door for me to tell my story and share my career goals,” she says. One of those goals was to serve at an executive leadership level, which she also achieved.

Today, as a global defense leader for Booz Allen’s support of the Navy-Marine Corps, she is leading a portfolio business that includes naval aviation as well as the Naval Sea Warfare Centers. In this role, Dottie applies her decades of experience across business and technology to deliver cutting-edge mission solutions to the Department of Defense.

To those who wish to work at the executive level, Dottie advises, “Advocate for yourself. It’s important to find champions and mentors to help you navigate your path, but you must take the lead.”

While Dottie and her colleagues have long been bringing solutions to military clients, the new MSIF gives them an advanced, full-service facility that will really change the dynamics.

“We’ve been providing technical engineering solutions to our clients for a very long time, but we only had limited office and lab space, and often we’d work in a client’s space,” she says. “MSIF allows us to support government agencies far more effectively. Our staff now has a creative environment so that like-minded colleagues can thrive and develop technical solutions.”

While MSIF will certainly inspire and empower Booz Allen employees, clients benefit as well. As Dottie explains, “At MSIF, Booz Allen will create innovative, open, secure solutions and integrate those for clients in a faster; more agile way.” 

This means that clients can “skip over” vendor locks on systems and readily test state-of-the-art solutions. As the firm has done for over 100 years, Booz Allen leverages its mission expertise to first understand a client’s problem, and then build solutions and tech that fit their unique needs.

The brand-new MSIF unlocks even more potential to engineer and build these solutions for clients in a better, faster, smarter way than ever before; and the facility joins the firm’s stable of more than 30 specialized science and engineering facilities across the U.S., including Panama City, Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; Huntsville, Alabama; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Seattle, Washington; and more.

“Consultancy is in our blood,” says Dottie, “but tech is in our heart.” And tech will drive the innovations our people build at MSIF.

Client benefits aside, the development of MSIF confirms Booz Allen’s commitment to southern Maryland.

“We’ve already been here for over 40 years,” Dottie says. “Our roots are pretty deep, and MSIF shows that we’re invested in supporting the mission of naval aviation.”

MSIF’s presence promises exciting benefits for the region. “Whether it’s improving a road, building beds for the needy, or contributing to holiday gift drives, we’re highly invested in this community.”

In working with the Southern Maryland Navy Alliance, Dottie led the development of a federal grant request, which resulted in funding for the SoMD 2030 Workforce Development internship program and the successful execution of the program by the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and The Patuxent Partnership.

“Booz Allen isn’t just passionate about our client mission,” Dottie says. “We are active participants in the communities where we live and work. The opening of the MSIF is an extension of our current office and commitment to accelerating innovation and technology in southern Maryland. The MSIF provides new opportunities for employment as we continue to build our engineering business.”