Apogen Technologies — a company with a name that is partly based on the word "apogee," the highest point of an arc — is approaching its second birthday with significant success behind it and what its founders believe is a bright future ahead.

One of those founders won't stay for the ride, however. Todd Stottlemyer, chief executive officer, is leaving early next year to become president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business. Paul Leslie, Apogen's president and co-founder, will step into the CEO role.

Leslie said he plans to keep the company on its present course.

"Our plan is not to change our overall strategy at all," he said. "Our growth strategy has been based on continuing to grow our business organically, as well as looking for acquisitions that will allow us to gain entry into new customers or allow us to broaden our capabilities or bring new capabilities that we may not have strength in today."

The company was formed in January 2004 through the merger of ITS Services of Springfield, Va., and Science and Engineering Associates, based in New Orleans. At the time, Stottlemyer was CEO of ITS and Leslie was its president and chief operating officer. The other firm's CEO, Bobby Savoie, became vice chairman but later left the company.

The new company adopted the name Apogen in June 2004 and began developing new business. In August 2005, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of QinetiQ North America, the American arm of British defense contractor QinetiQ.

Apogen joined Westar Aerospace and Defense Group and Foster-Miller, an engineering and technology development company based in suburban Boston, as part of QinetiQ's stable.

Leslie said that Apogen has become a competitive player in the federal information technology services market. For example, ITS held a place on the Internal Revenue Service's Treasury Information Processing Support Services-2 contract as a small business. This year, Apogen competed successfully as a large business for a spot on the contract's successor, TIPSS-3.

"We brought two small companies together and suddenly we're competing against the big players," he said. "What was important to us was to put in place some processes to allow us to run the business in a standardized way. It's just part of the process for a growing company."

"Anytime a smaller company can compete and win under full and open [competition] is impressive," said Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council. "It demonstrates that their performance levels are high enough that they can play with anyone. For any company, that's a significant accomplishment. It's a critical milestone."

Apogen has won and held onto business from the Homeland Security Department and plans to bid on four of the five categories in the agency's upcoming Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge (EAGLE) solutions contract, Leslie said.