Menu
by Richard Burnette
Orlando Sentinel, May 12, 2013
Alice F. Hayden, 36, is president and co-founder of H2 IT Solutions Inc., a small defense firm in Orlando and a top award winner in the 2013 GameTech/Federal Virtual Challenge. She spoke recently with Orlando Sentinel staff writer Richard Burnett.
CFB: What has winning a national “serious gaming” contest meant for you and your company?Well, first of all, we’ve gotten a whole lot of resumes from graphic artists, software engineers, developers and gamers — a lot of people who want to work for us now. It’s been pretty exciting. We do want to hire a couple of people for some logistics contracts we’ll be working on this summer. And we believe the gaming side of the business is going to grow even more as the government uses more virtual training to save money during the budget crisis. So we expect we’ll also be doing some more hiring later this year as new work comes in.
CFB: How much will it help you within the training-simulation industry?
I say it was a tremendous milestone, because we really don’t advertise much at all, and this put us out there in front of everybody. That’s something a little company like ours really needs — to get out before the masses so they can see what a small business can really accomplish.
CFB: Do you expect it to help you attract potential investors?
I would certainly like to be able to capitalize on what we’ve done. This particular system was basically financed by the Air Force, [but] what we’ve learned in developing this technology will enable us to brand our capabilities and customize gaming scenarios for a lot of different industries, such as utilities and the oil industry.
CFB: What do you say to old-school military leaders who don’t trust “video games” to train soldiers effectively?
They are partially right. A lot of commercial video games can actually be shallow and kind of boring if the designers just focus on graphics. It might look fantastic, but it lacks authentic detail, intellectual challenge and emotional realism. When a lot of people think of gaming, they think of a 16-year-old sitting in front of an Xbox. But to do serious gaming right, you have to go far beyond that for military training. You can’t make this stuff up. You have to talk to the people who have experienced the battlefield and bring their experience into the game. These soldiers can know immediately when something is wrong or out of place, and that just won’t cut it.
CFB: What challenges face a small military contractor during tough times for the defense industry?
My husband and I have always liked having a small, boutique operation that depended on just the two of us. But the more work we did in the defense industry, the more we realized that you can’t do everything by yourself. You have to let go and trust others, and I’ve learned how to do that, and it has worked out, especially these days in the defense industry, when you have to rely not only on the quality of your work, but on so many things that are out of your control — like politics and bureaucracy. Sometimes, you just feel kind of helpless.
CFB: What have been your biggest challenges as an engineering entrepreneur in a male-dominated field?
When people ask me a question like that, I tell them about an experience I had when I was a junior in college and the only female working in a lab. We had been trying to figure out a piece of programming code for a couple of days, when an engineer looked right at me and told me he could run circles around me. His attitude was like I wasn’t a true engineer, since I was majoring in management information systems. But I took some printouts home with me and figured out how to solve that code. The next day, I could make that report run in five minutes. That showed him. So there have been situations like that, and other instances where men will just leave you out and talk among themselves. But you can’t start whining and walk away. You have to stand your ground, jump in, prove to them that, yes, you are just as knowledgeable, just as capable.
CFB: What have been your biggest challenges as an engineering entrepreneur in a male-dominated field? My husband and I have always liked having a small, boutique operation that depended on just the two of us. But the more work we did in the defense industry, the more we realized that you can’t do everything by yourself. You have to let go and trust others, and I’ve learned how to do that, and it has worked out, especially these days in the defense industry, when you have to rely not only on the quality of your work, but on so many things that are out of your control — like politics and bureaucracy. Sometimes, you just feel kind of helpless.
CFB: What challenges face a small military contractor during tough times for the defense industry?They are partially right. A lot of commercial video games can actually be shallow and kind of boring if the designers just focus on graphics. It might look fantastic, but it lacks authentic detail, intellectual challenge and emotional realism. When a lot of people think of gaming, they think of a 16-year-old sitting in front of an Xbox. But to do serious gaming right, you have to go far beyond that for military training. You can’t make this stuff up. You have to talk to the people who have experienced the battlefield and bring their experience into the game. These soldiers can know immediately when something is wrong or out of place, and that just won’t cut it.
CFB: What do you say to old-school military leaders who don’t trust “video games” to train soldiers effectively? I would certainly like to be able to capitalize on what we’ve done. This particular system was basically financed by the Air Force, [but] what we’ve learned in developing this technology will enable us to brand our capabilities and customize gaming scenarios for a lot of different industries, such as utilities and the oil industry.
CFB: Do you expect it to help you attract potential investors? I say it was a tremendous milestone, because we really don’t advertise much at all, and this put us out there in front of everybody. That’s something a little company like ours really needs — to get out before the masses so they can see what a small business can really accomplish.
