Still, revenue grew nearly 40 percent, hitting $77.9 million. (The company is spending more on its staff and facilities, said John E. Krobath, KEYW’s chief financial officer.)

Leonard E. Moodispaw, the company’s chairman, president and chief executive, said the uncertainty ahead is resulting in slowed spending by federal customers.

"Any company that's doing business with the federal government [that] asserts they won’t see any impact from the foolishness in Washington is kidding themselves," Moodispaw told analysts in a call last week.

His company’s stock price is spiking sharply, but Len Moodispaw is eyeing even larger returns for investors.

KEYW’s stock prices shot up nearly 70 percent last year, giving it the largest increase of Anne Arundel’s publicly traded companies. Year-over-year, KEYW’s stock price is nearly double what it was in April 2012.

The Hanover-based cyber firm plans for further growth in 2013 with Project G, a platform that identifies and fixes cyber threats within customer software networks. The product is in the developmental stage, but industry analysts see dynamic growth in the commercial sector if Project G takes off as KEYW predicts.

“When we deploy (Project G) outside of the company, I want it to work perfectly,” said Moodispaw, KEYW’s CEO. “Once we start announcing that it’s been deployed, the anticipation built in the stock will take over and there will be further growth in the stock because people see it finally being deployed.”

Defense technology and cybersecurity company KEYW Holding Corp. continues to scour the M&A field for acquisition targets though you'd never it if you show up for an auction.

Industry watchers expect more acquisitions from the company in the near term, and KEYW is certainly well positioned. Cybersecurity breaches at private companies have become alarmingly more frequent -- or at least more publicized -- of late, and firms are scrambling to protect themselves from hostile intrusions by foreign governments, namely China and Iran. Likewise, the U.S. military is ramping up more sophisticated intelligence technology to combat these threats.

KEYW chief strategy officer Edwin M. Jaehne emphasized this, explaining that competitive bidding puts too much pressure on financial numbers and other metrics, and not enough on the overall strategic partnership being consummated and joint far-reaching goals. In auctions, "it's a transferrer of responsibility, as opposed to a sharing of responsibility in growing something to the next level. We look for businesses whose leadership wants to stay," he said. "We've seen some silly prices paid for properties that take years to grow into what was paid."

"Len has extraordinary access and connectivity to the highest levels of intelligence community in the U.S.," said Jaehne, who added that he typically taps his network during the due diligence process for transactions.

As the nation faces the sequester, Hanover cyber-security firm KEYW Corp. plans to double its revenue to $500 million by 2015.

KEYW is targeting massive commercial sector growth to achieve its goal. In 2012, 96 percent of its revenue came from government contracts.

By the end of 2015, it plans to generate more than $75 million from its commercial business. It wants about 30 percent of the projected $250 million revenue increase to come from non-government business.

The driving force behind their commercial plans will be Project G. “Project G is known as an active cyber defense and response system,” KEYW Chief Strategy Officer Ed Jaehne said. “Instead of just issuing a log report about events that are occurring in the network it will respond to these automatically.”

Hanover-based cybersecurity firm KEYW also is drawing on its experience as it prepares to enter the commercial market. The company previously only sold to the government but made the move to expand into commercial cybersecurity last year with two acquisitions and the establishment of a commercially focused unit.

KEYW has been its own first customer for the commercial product, dubbed Project G, said Leonard E. Moodispaw, KEYW’s chief executive. AT&T is one of the company’s early adopters.

“If you’ve got the best around, you want it on your own networks, and what’s a better test bed?” he said. Moodispaw said the company has already learned through its own experience, has improved the product and is now working with the first group of commercial users.

“Anybody can get good pay and good benefits in our business,” said Kim DeChello, the cybersecurity firm’s chief administrative officer.

So the company began a program last year in which it offers a quarterly perk for all employees, one that changes each go-around to keep things fresh.

The first offering was called “fun money,” and the premise was simple: Employees would receive $250 to put toward a leisure pursuit of their choice. Staffers simply had to send an e-mail to the human resources team explaining how they would like to spend the money, and then they received a gift certificate for that activity. DeChello said people used the money for cooking classes, tickets to a ballgame, skydiving lessons, and even to buy a television.

Paul Rosengarth, a system engineer, used his money to attend photography classes to advance his skills with composition and lighting.

By supporting the pursuit of his hobby, “They’re trying to give us the opportunity to be well-rounded,” he said.

Gov. Martin O'Malley tapped a private-sector cyber security veteran to lead a push to promote that industry's job growth in the state, he announced in a visit to Hanover company KEYW Corp. Tuesday.

KEYW helps federal defense and intelligence agencies protect their data networks and has been growing faster than its work force can keep up with, CEO Leonard Moodispaw said. The company has 200 open positions and a work force of about 1,200, he added. The company went public in October 2010.

Moodispaw welcomed O'Malley's efforts to boost the cyber industry.

"We've been after the governor for some time to get a Jeani, if you will," Moodispaw said.

The KEYW Holding Corporation [KEYW], a company with a proven methodology for delivering agile cyber superiority, cyber security and geospatial intelligence solutions to address challenges associated with a new wave of sophisticated cyber threats, the explosive growth of mobile device usage and the popularity of cloud delivery for applications and infrastructure, will visit the NASDAQ Marketsite in Times Square.

In late 2012, the company launched a commercial unit to bring mission critical cybersecurity solutions to the commercial market that leverage KEYW's extensive experience in helping protect and support the defense and intelligence communities' networks and information. The company continues to grow and execute a strategy based on an agile business model of delivering value to all stakeholders through a combination of highly complementary services and technologies to both government and commercial customers.

Len Moodispaw has served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), President & Chairman of the board of directors of KEYW since it began operations on August 4, 2008 and is the founder of KEYW. Prior to the founding of KEYW, Mr. Moodispaw was President and Chief Executive Officer for Essex Corporation, from 2000 until January 2007, and Chairman of the board of directors of Essex from 2005 to January 2007. Essex provided advanced signal, image, information processing, information assurance and cybersecurity solutions, primarily for U.S. Government intelligence and defense customers, as well as for commercial customers. In 2007, Essex was acquired by Northrop Grumman, where Mr. Moodispaw served as a Vice President, responsible for managing Essex as a subsidiary within Northrop Grumman Mission Systems from January 2007 to July 2008.

TOM HUDSON: Leonard Moodispaw is the CEO of KEYW. That’s a cyber-security firm that does a lot of business with the government. He’s with us tonight from the NASDAQ. Len, welcome to NBR. It is nice to see you.

LEONARD MOODISPAW, PRESIDENT & CEO, KEYW: Thank you, Tom. It is nice to be here.

HUDSON: Most of your company’s revenue is derived from contracts or sub contracts with the government, so what kind of risk do the spending cuts present for you and your shareholders?

MOODISPAW: I don’t think that you can judge the rest of the business I would say by what we do or what our concerns are because the counter terrorism and cyber areas of the government and particularly the intelligence business, which is our focus, are somewhat immune from those kind of cuts. They are the highest priority in the government. Of the president’s budget, they’re the highest priority. So we haven’t seen any impact yet. And while we might see some in the future, we’re not going to see it nearly as much as the big guys with ships and tanks and those sorts of things.

The KEYW Holding Corporation [KEYW], a company with a proven methodology for delivering agile cyber superiority, cyber security and geospatial intelligence solutions to address challenges associated with a new wave of sophisticated cyber threats, the explosive growth of mobile device usage and the popularity of cloud delivery for applications and infrastructure, will visit the NASDAQ Marketsite in Times Square.

The KEYW Holding Corporation (Nasdaq:KEYW), through its subsidiary Sensage, Inc., today announced its expanding reach into the commercial European market through a strategic partnership with Proact, a specialist in storage, archiving and securing large volumes of mission-critical information. Under this agreement, Proact and Sensage are delivering an integrated, secure, scalable data collection and retention system to address the new Swedish Data Retention Directive.

Top Washington DC Companies of 2012 — No. 71: KEYW Corp.

The cybersecurity firm made several acquisitions this year, including Annapolis Junction-based Poole & Associates, a systems and software engineering company that works with government intelligence agencies. KEYW also bought Redwood City, Calif.-based Sensage, a 35-employee company critical to KEYW’s “Project G,” a technology that uses automated tools to find and address cyber threats. KEYW is planning to sell Project G to commercial businesses.

Trivia:

The company’s name and logo reflect its desire for a laid-back Key West culture where a strict “no tie” policy is enforced.

Best Large Businesses to work for — No. 4: KEYW Corp.

Headquartered in Hanover, KEYW provides cybersecurity, geospatial and intelligence solutions, primarily to the U.S. government's defense and intelligence communities. Employees say they like the "challenging and exciting work that is making a difference in the security of the U.S." Its name an adaptation of the Key West airport code (EYW), the company takes a laid-back approach to its high-stakes work -- there's casual patio furniture for office meetings and a strict "no tie" policy. The company's 454 employees can take part in activities and events organized by the Employee Morale, Welfare & Recreation Program, including monthly cookouts, season tickets to area sports team games, and the Winter Gala at M&T Bank Stadium.

The intelligence community is still grappling with ways to exploit open source and new media data “socially, legally and economically so that there is no misuse,” he added. Protecting users’ civil liberties can mean not exposing the government’s interest in the data, Cambone said: “There’s no yes-or-no answer -- it will take a long time to work through.”

Co-author Len Moodispaw, a National Security Agency veteran now head of KeyW Corp, noted that with social media, “people can put out falsehoods, and the intelligence officials have to be quiet, even though they may look like idiots.”

Third author Carmen Medina, a former director of the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence now with Deloitte, said, “the big data revolution’s digital exhaust” requires intelligence professionals to consider that in the future, what will be classified are the methodologies for analyzing data rather than the data themselves. “A lot of intelligence is like political punditry,” which is in danger of being overshadowed by data analytics, she said. The civil liberties challenges mean that “if there’s no way for us to adjust that is congenial, we may have to just live with it, but let’s have the conversation.”