A Service Disabled Veteran owned small business, Strategos Technology Transference (STT) was founded in 2013 as a stand alone integration division of Strategos Consulting. Established to address the need to develop and produce engineered solutions to our clients, bridging the gap between the technological innovation of industry and the actual needs of the military operators, stated requirements and acquisition directives. Our focus is right in the name… to ensure that technologies transfer from the drafting table to the warfighter.
Many emerging technologies are designed by extremely intelligent engineers in laboratory settings. Configuration, ruggedization, power demands and types, user interface and deployment challenges often needed to be overcome and addressed well prior to any consideration for military use. STT was founded to be an integration arm for these technologies, but quickly transitioned into a design and engineering firm based on demand from various government agencies to have products developed on time, on budget and to address specific challenges. With a background both in military operations and high performance CAD product design and manufacturing, STT can produce a work product at a refinement and engineering level of the larger military providers, but that is well past the capability of most job shops to develop. This cuts millions out of development budgets, years off of development time and proved to be a low cost way for DOD and industry to have high quality systems developed with austere budget availability. Instead of providing developmental problems, we provided part numbers.
From this genesis, STT became sought as a solution provider for the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command, N957 at the Pentagon. Developing the first CRNE system in 2015 to specifically address the need of the US Navy EOD community to have a rugged, reliable and most importantly intuitive lift solution for Raise Tow Beach operations and to address critical requirement shortfalls with the existing program of record system. We developed to the letter of the requirement specifically, which yielded a large, heavy and over-built product… after which we learned that the requirement itself wasn’t particularly well written or specified, and that building systems that addressed the actual needs and missions would be well received. This led to the ExLB and subsequent systems in our Mine Counter Measure suite of systems.
Our President, Wes Inskeep was previously the Executive Vice President and co-founder of Strategos Consulting, and remains a senior advisor to Strategos Consulting performing a CTO role when needed. Jeff Williams, our CEO remains the President and CEO of Strategos Consulting. Though the two companies are closely tied, they are separate entities with almost completely disparate mission focuses. This relationship however is the true beating heart of STT, in that it marries the technological and operational expertise of Inskeep with the military acquisition/programmatic depth of understanding, supporting administrative and key relationship prowess of Williams.
Wes Inskeep
President, Lead Designer/Engineer, Janitor
Wes is a retired US Navy SEAL with a background in athletics, live music, desert racing, fabrication and breaking that which cannot be broken.
The son of a US Naval Academy alumni, Vietnam naval aviator, nautical engineer, and his namesake, Wes was held to a high personal standard at an early age. With a childhood spent in the pursuit of artistic design and fabrication, he mistakenly believed his career would be spent in music, photography, engineering or fine arts. Already a local firefighter in his hometown of Sonoma, CA during a frustrating period of California hiring history known as “Equal Opportunity”, he joined the Navy at 21 to become a SEAL. This sent his life into a decidedly structured, intense and rewarding direction… one with consequence for poor planning and execution. It steeled his mindset toward challenge, and reset his threshold for achievement. It also gave him an incredible background in the highest performance military technology and capabilities, highlighting the importance of the man at the end of the technology.
In a recent interview for an off road publication he mentioned “But it didn’t really change me… it just focused me. I remain equal parts artist and warrior… hippy and hardcore. Rocks and wrenches. I never made myself a box to think inside, which means I don’t have one to think outside of.”
He retired medically from the Navy in 2001 after a training skydiving accident and went on to found Trident Custom Boats, a high performance luxury boat company with a product, the “Revolution” deck boat built from scratch to meet a specific emerging market capability gap. Sound familiar? Building the company and craft gave him a business education that Inskeep describes as “An MBA the hard way”. It taught him CAD, allowed him to work with some of the best nautical engineers in the world, and set a high bar for the industry with regard to pioneering composite construction methods, hull design and pure integration of machined hardware into the boat, instead of onto it. Among other benefits, it yielded a hull with a “Zero” time to plane and a hull approximately half the weight of competitors.
The harsh downturn in the boating and luxury market in 2008-2009 ended the fledgling company without fanfare, as they simply lacked the resources to wait out the next several years of dismal luxury sales. Worth a google though. With the more recent resurgence of the boat market, you can see 15 years later that the industry took note of many of Trident’s advancements and are finally catching up with regard to vacuum infusion, transparent gelcoats, SAN foam cores and integrated, bespoke hardware. It was in this downturn that his sights turned to making a military version of the craft, and introduced him to Jeff Williams, then retiring from the Navy and starting his consulting firm. Trident was his first client in fact. They have been working together ever since.
This background is all extremely apparent in his mechanical engineering and design work, which has always started with a clean sheet of paper with “What is the actual problem” at the top. He leads our team with creative zeal, gray hair, hard work and a commitment to excellence.
Jeff Williams
CEO, Planning Mastermind, Self-proclaimed Oracle
Jeff Williams is the CEO and co-founder of STT and is also a retired US Navy SEAL. Enlisting in the Navy at 17, Jeff was escaping a life of hi-jinx and stealing cars outside of Baltimore to fund a revolution for an unknown purpose to an unknown end.
Alas, he found himself instead as a 90’s SEAL and essentially paid to professionalize his hi-jinx and break into ‘things’. Once he figured out he could get paid for starting revolutions (not having to fund them) he was hooked.
A combat veteran of the early SOF platoons in Iraq and Operation Iraqi Freedom specializing in assaults and kinetic mine countermeasures, Jeff distinguished himself among a field of overachievers and before he knew it was shipped to Officer Candidate School. A rapid ascension within the officers ranks as a multi-platoon former-enlisted mustang officer (the best kind) and platoon commander, Jeff was fortunate enough to become a mentoring protégé of Admiral Eric Olson, then Naval Special Warfare Commodore (and future SOCOM Commander). In this role, he was able to capitalize upon his incredible power of recollection, remembering literally every person he’s ever met, their job, their kids and dogs, their dogs kids… In doing so, he has curated a seriously enviable rolodex. He rounded out his military career after operations officer and Lieutenant Commander advancement as the Executive Officer of Special Boat Team 12 in Coronado, CA. Following retirement, he founded Strategos Consulting and met Wes and Trident Custom Boats.
As the CEO of STT, Jeff brings his nearly 15 years of government contracting and acquisition experience as the President of Strategos Consulting to the mix and provides his wisdom regarding the careful balancing act between requirements, acquisition vehicles and relationships with the key stakeholders. His clear view of the “out-years” and how projects will develop in the future has been critical to the forward-looking mindset that has pervaded the organization.
Jason Teuton
Senior Executive Vice Department head, Booth babe
Jason Teuton is a US Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician and former Special Warfare Combat Crewman. This means he’s exceptionally smart… and super stupid.
Jason spent his childhood chasing squirrels, go-kart tailpipes and women. Recognized at an early age as “really, really, ridiculously good looking” Jason grew out his hair and started making love to the camera for a series of photoshoots and began an alarming habit of wearing short shorts and little else.
Enlistment in the Navy was the surest way off the means streets of New Braunfels, Texas he could think of, so he packed his gel and headshots and found himself on a path to greatness within the Navy… Swing and a miss, as he ended up at SWCC school instead of BUD/s. During his time as a “dirty boat guy” Jason’s focus was Mine CounterMeasures (MCM) in Very Shallow Water (VSW) participating in the marine mammals program and eventually spearheading future Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV) and remotely operated vehicles (ROV).
His time and experience in MCM led Jason to pursue a career in Explosive Ordnance Disposal. After completing NAVSCOLEOD Jason returned back to sunny San Diego where he finished the remainder of his career as an EOD Tech.
He then decided to pursue careers outside of naval service. Around this timeframe, he met a couple of knuckleheads who inspired him to be great once again. These two turned out to be Jeff and Wes who were sick of working so hard, and were “in the market “ for someone better looking than them to join the team and do all of their consulting work for them. With a quick slight of hand, Jason was left to do the day to day meetings for both of them with the clients while Jeff and Wes “got liquored up”.
Jason brings 22 years of Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mine Counter Measures experience to the team. His vast knowledge in EOD procedures, particularly in the MCM realm helps ensure that our products are designed with the operator in mind, with the mission first and foremost.
Jason’s experience is coupled with his keen artistic sense of design and provides us a great wall to throw the spaghetti at. His thoughtful input contributes greatly to the overall design, function and appeal of our products, particularly at the operator level.
When he isn’t missing flights out of Atlanta, Jason enjoys conference calls, Teams meetings and opening jars, often all by himself.
