Terry Jennings is a third-generation defense industry professional.

She grew up in Arab in the shadow of the space program and her father was a retired general who worked in defense his entire career. In her office, she has a picture of her grandfather standing next to space pioneer Dr. Wernher von Braun.

Jennings, the co-founder and CEO of PeopleTec in Huntsville, said defense and government contracting was all she ever knew and never really considered doing anything else.

In her early 30s she went to work for Quality Research, a small defense company in Huntsville. The company had about 50 employees but that was where she met her PeopleTec business partner, co-founder and President Doug Scalf.

Jennings sat on the Quality Research board of directors early in her career and became secretary of the board and chief administrative officer.

“I think the things we spend the most time with, what is familiar to us, is often foundational to who we are,” she said. “We grew up in the defense business there. Doug is an engineer with a strong technical background in modeling and simulation, and I was on the people side of the business.”

In 2003, SAIC bought Quality Research and its growing workforce of 630 employees. Jennings and Scalf became part of that acquisition.

“When SAIC bought Quality Research, I was an officer in the company, so I was given a great opportunity and had a seat at the table, so to speak, where I listened a lot and learned first-hand all the intricacies of running and growing a business,” Jennings said.

She and Scalf fulfilled a two-year employment agreement with SAIC, but they had similar ideas and goals about what they ultimately wanted to do.

“We didn’t want to be a part of something as big as SAIC,” said Jennings. “We had long discussed our aspirations for building a company where we had input into the culture, to create a place where people want to go to work every day.

“Quality Research was a very employee-centric company and I had been part of that before the acquisition. I had seen it. I knew when you spend as much time at work as most people do, the employees must enjoy it.

“We don’t make widgets. We sell people’s time, and you have to work really hard at that in the defense end of the industry, to make sure people want to keep coming back to work for you.”

In 2005, Jennings and Scalf left SAIC to open PeopleTec. It was a partnership they had been planning a long time.

“I didn’t make enough money to retire, but I made enough money that I had a choice,” she said.

Jennings’ husband Frank, who has a long defense industry resume in contract accounting, joined the company early on as well.

“You have to have people who will come in and roll up their sleeves for not a lot of money,” she said. “You are betting on the future, that you can make this thing happen.”

Jennings also had a mentor, Chris Horgen, who had founded and sold Nichols Research years ago and who sits on the PeopleTec board.

“He told me, the hardest part of building a company would be from zero to 10 employees, and then growing from 10 to 100,” she said “It’s like rowing a boat with two people and suddenly adding 98 more – you gain momentum.

“After the first couple of years, we could feel the turn. Suddenly, we had credibility, and we were developing a reputation, followed by establishing a culture and an identity.”

They moved into Cummings Research Park where they have steadily expanded at a rate of about 5% per year, into the campus-style buildings on Corporate Drive.

Today, PeopleTec has more than 500 employees spread out across 21 pockets in the U.S.; its biggest presence outside Huntsville is in Colorado Springs.

The company pivoted a few years ago to become a 100% employee-owned company. Jennings said it was because they were proud of the special environment they have created at PeopleTec where employees often say, “We love it here and we want this to be long term.”

It also provides them with a giving fund for charity, primarily the Semper Fi Task Force, but also to such charities such as the Melissa George Foundation and the Village of Promise.

Like most Huntsville contractors, PeopleTec has grown into a highly diverse company with some 120 employees working on cyber; a large presence at the Missile Defense Agency; and a versatile hypersonic group.

“I truly believe and maybe it is boring and cliché to say so, but the secret to our success is our focus on people,” she said. “What does that mean?

“It means putting lots of programs and training in place. It means spending a lot of one-on one time together whether it is planned lunches or one-on-one meetings with our vice presidents and team leaders. It means making sure we are solving any problems that arise.”

Then, Jennings began to reflect a bit.

“I said earlier I never considered doing anything else, but I did have an interest in psychology. It is ironic because even now, in many ways I am a striving psychologist.” she said. “I am always working people’s problems, right?”

Part of the culture she always wanted to create demands that she gets in front of problems and to be proactive in helping people reach their goals.

“Doug and I do not sit in the back of the building behind glass,” she said. “We are in the front of the building where you walk in the door, and you are welcome to walk into either of our offices to chat, while at the same time, we walk down the hallway to people’s offices and stick our head in to see how things are going, ask if they are having any problems.”

She said that is deliberate so they can keep a pulse on what is happening, what is working and what’s not.

While the family generational line ends with Jennings’ only child choosing to work on Wall Street rather than follow in her mom’s footsteps, it has not stopped Jennings from taking a great deal of interest in training up the next generation of defense workers.

“I founded a group called Next Generation Innovators to give young engineers a voice and to weave their fresh thoughts and ideas into the very fabric of the company,” she said. “My dream is for this legacy to live on, and I believe we are laying the groundwork for future generations.”

Yellowhammer News is proud to name Terry Jennings a 2022 Woman of Impact.