The strategy, plus Patterson’s wide range of contacts, helped Omniplex grow. Revenues rose from $12 million in 1995 to more than $50 million in 1998, the highest among the Fantastic 50 companies. It is also the largest by far, with 2,500 employees around the country and overseas. "Our goal is to become as many different types of things to a company as possible," Patterson says. Omniplex’s do-everything approach has another purpose: It keeps competitors out. "We’re trying to change the game from just selling bananas to [selling] apples and oranges, too," Patterson says. "That the other guy is selling bananas for a penny less doesn’t matter."

The McLean-based company today is divided into four areas — security, investigations, logistics and information technology. Clients include government agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of State and Department of Defense, and government contractors such as Boeing, Raytheon Systems and Lockheed Martin.

The company’s fast growth is spurred, too, by a willingness to bid on contracts in places it hasn’t done business before. A recent contract to provide security at five locations for a client on the West Coast, for example, required the firm to begin work in just 30 days. Patterson says the company made the deadline by sending twice the normal start-up team and hiring more than 130 people in just a few weeks. "We started it up on time and did exactly what the client wanted," Patterson says. "It came as additional cost to us and more time and effort, but it was the cost of starting with a new client. And that’s how we’ve been able to grow."

The company’s logo is a dove above an open Bible. That is a reflection of Patterson’s personal faith and of the emphasis he puts on ethical conduct — a valuable quality for a company with access to so many secrets. "The notion is not that we somehow bring a church into the workplace, but there is a sense of stewardship," Patterson says. "We put the logo out there to say there are some basic Biblical principles about right and wrong, good and evil [that apply to] running a business."

The company will get bigger but it does not necessarily want to be the biggest. Market positioning is more important than revenues, Patterson says. "I’m not the entrepreneur who wants to die with the most toys." He takes lessons from the growth strategies of bigger competitors, like the Reston-based Dyncorp, which had $1.4 billion in revenues last year. "I read something about every company I can," he says. "We can learn from what they can do."