Michael Zaramba

Position: President, Altron, a contractor headquartered in Charleston, S.C., with a new office in Arlington.

Career Highlights: Rose from senior accountant to controller, vice president, chief financial officer, corporate treasurer, senior vice president and chief financial officer, and chief strategy officer over a 15-year tenure at Stanley. Before that, he was an independent contractor as ship manager for MSO.

Age: 43

Education: BS, management and industrial engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts; MBA, finance, Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.

Personal: Lives in Arlington with wife, Patty, and daughter, Rachel, 9.

How did you get to where you are?

Despite the old saying, sometimes the shortest distance between two points isn't always a straight line. After leaving college, I pursued my love of the ocean, becoming a licensed ferry boat captain, operating cruise vessels in and around the New England seacoast, making yacht deliveries and even participating in a national fundraising tour as a crewman on the former presidential yacht, the USS Sequoia.

This maritime experience was a perfect segue to my first government contracting job in 1989 with MSO, managing the worldwide operation of oceanographic ships for the Navy. Three years later, after finishing business school and one month after getting married, I decided to make my next career move after being introduced to Larry Gallagher at Stanley. Larry was part-owner and president of the company, then a small federal contractor in Alexandria with about 120 employees and less than $10 million in annual revenue. It was struggling to make payroll and needed accounting help. The job paid $35,000 per year, and since I was an indirect hire, I had to start at $17,500 because the position was not billable. I took the job anyway.

Larry took a chance on hiring me -- a recent MBA grad with limited finance experience. I, in turn, took a chance on Stanley and, over the next 15 years, served in diverse management roles. I was able to help expand the business by 4,000 percent, from $10 million in annual revenue to $400 million when I departed, and helped take the company public in late 2006.

Before the initial public offering, the company was entirely employee-owned. Because I took a chance on what I'll call Stanley's "culture of opportunity," and they on me, I was able to grow professionally with the company in a way that most employers in our segment simply aren't able to match. Beyond the successful IPO, one of the highlights of my experience there was being recognized in 2005 as a finalist for private companies in the Greater Washington Technology CFO Awards. More importantly, my years there were instrumental in building my network of key business relationships in the Washington business community, both in the public and private sector. After close to 15 years, however, I wanted to return to a firm with more entrepreneurial roots, and Altron met that profile.

I had known chief executive Lisa Heape for many years before she approached me in late 2007 to join her company as president, with a mandate to expand both its subcontracting and prime contracting work. Amid frequent trips to our home office in Charleston and visits to our regional offices in Portsmouth, N.H., and Laguna Niguel, Calif., I recently opened our Arlington office to be closer to our customers and expand our teaming relationships in the Washington community.

-- Judith Mbuya