Management Team
Randy J. Slager
Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Founder
Over the last 30-plus years, Randy Slager has gone from an Army career cut short by a spinal injury to a leading technology position at the FBI, to being an expert on IT systems to a successful entrepreneur. Since 1996, he has been building Catapult Technology.
He attended college on a U.S. Army ROTC scholarship and completed BS degrees in Computer Science and Psychology. He then entered the Army and ended up in a Major’s position managing the 7th Medical Command, US Army Europe’s Data Processing Center supporting 14 major hospitals and 260 medical clinics. After a training accident, he spent nine months in various hospitals recovering from a spinal injury that essentially ended his Army career.
After his recovery, Randy went to work with Sperry-Univac on the leading edge of networking technology in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During this time, he completed his Master’s in Computer Information Systems, the first CIO focused degree program.
In 1982, Randy joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its R&D office on a $500 million program to automate the Bureau’s 59 field offices, build two national data centers, and implement a national network needed to support over 9,000 special agents.
After the FBI, Randy played key roles in building several small technology firms in the federal market with a focus on high-end systems engineering and management consulting support on several very large nationwide technology implementations.
In 1985, Randy moved to Sutron, a Virginia based company that engineers and designs microprocessor-based satellites and weather monitoring systems. Sutron management wanted to evolve beyond the company’s specialized niche, and tasked him with creating a new information technology consulting division.
He left Sutron in 1988 to act as an independent computer scientist/consultant for the FAA, which was converting non-air traffic control systems to a common IBM platform. He performed feasibility studies, requirements analyses, and software conversion studies and drafted the majority of the solicitation for the consolidation program.
After two years as an independent consultant, in 1990 Slager co-founded E&A, a management consulting and systems engineering firm. E&A’s main project built upon his continuing experience with and support of the FAA. E&A provided program support staff to the Office of the CIO (OCIO), performed studies and solicitations for computer resources, tested code, provided technical oversight on the contractor performing the actual system conversion, and ensured that all deliverables were being met. The effort—known as the Computer Resources Nucleus Program—was the largest information technology outsourcing effort undertaken by the federal government at that time.
When the E&A partnership dissolved in 1996, Slager capitalized on his experience in the federal marketplace and founded Catapult Technology in August of that year on the revenue of a $22,300 firm fixed-price contract (funds available) with the Department of Transportation (DOT).
As Randy built Catapult, he also advocated on Capitol Hill for more inclusive legislation on behalf of disabled veterans. He reasoned that if veterans get in harm’s way on behalf of the government, they should have an opportunity to contract with the government. His advocacy helped push for legislation that designated disabled veterans as a minority class, which helped Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned businesses take a more active role in the competitive federal market. He has helped bring change to how the federal marketplace—and society overall—views veteran businesspeople, especially disabled veteran entrepreneurs.
He holds a Masters in Computer Information Systems from Boston University, the first graduate program focused on the corporate CIO function, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science and Psychology from the University of Utah.
He continues to actively promote small businesses and service disabled veteran programs.
